Government shutdown curbs academic research at many levels
Locked out of the Library of Congress by the government shutdown, Torsten Kathke, a postdoctoral researcher from Germany, works at Starbucks in Washington, D.C.
Michael Stratford
Locked Out of the Library
October 3, 2013
WASHINGTON -- A wide range of academic research across the country, from sophisticated biomedical experiments at the National Institutes of Health to undergraduate political science essays, was being interrupted Wednesday as the federal government shutdown continued for a second day -- with no clear path to a resolution.
In addition to forcing the closure of government buildings where research is conducted -- such as the Library of Congress and presidential libraries -- the shutdown was also cutting off access to myriad electronic resources on which many researchers depend. Websites that were not operational included those of the Library of Congress, the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Education Department’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.
PubMed, a free repository of biomedical and life science research maintained by the National Institutes of Health, was operational but a notice on the site warned users that it would not be updated during the shutdown.
Researchers who had traveled to Washington for the purpose of using federal resources to advance their work said they were frustrated by the shutdown.
In addition to forcing the closure of government buildings where research is conducted -- such as the Library of Congress and presidential libraries -- the shutdown was also cutting off access to myriad electronic resources on which many researchers depend. Websites that were not operational included those of the Library of Congress, the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Education Department’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.
PubMed, a free repository of biomedical and life science research maintained by the National Institutes of Health, was operational but a notice on the site warned users that it would not be updated during the shutdown.
Researchers who had traveled to Washington for the purpose of using federal resources to advance their work said they were frustrated by the shutdown.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/03/government-shutdown-curbs-academic-research-many-levels#ixzz2gsKgrvMs
Inside Higher Ed
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