According to the report, the NCLIS has the:

"charge to advise both the President and the Congress on national and international library and information policies...It has paid special attention to laws and policies affecting public access to government information."

The report concludes with a section on "Other Areas of Research Recommended to the Commission."  And, the section describing scholarly publishing caught my attention.  It reads:

"Respondents likened the consortia model for purchasing scholarly serials to the development of 'scholarly Sam's Clubs' which has lowered the unit price for a serial, but because of the publishers' techniques of bundling a package of serials, academic libraries are too often collecting material they do not really want or need for the institution's collections.  The net result is that the libraries have had to prune serials from their collections.  They suggest looking to the recording industry for a prediction of the future.  One used to be able to buy 45s (print journal subscriptions), the industry then moved to albums (prepackaged collections of journals), and now the preferred method is to buy individual tunes via the Internet.  Some predict that limited funds will push libraries in this direction, and usage will be the factor that determines what survives the shift.  Even if the long tail theory is applied, niche markets create demand, can that hold true for esoteric journals for which there is a very limited audience at best?  If one follows that argument through the life cycle of library materials, the role of preservation and the role of building deep and rich research collections are abandoned to the marketplace.  Respondents asked if leaving the U.S. scholarly output in the hands of the private sector is in the long term national interest.

They recommended an analysis of the library's and public sector's roles in supporting scholarly, academic, and nonprofit publishers and their infrastructures.  The current predominant model of "free market" is clearly failing for content that is scholarly/academic, especially in fields that have limited markets -- often traditionally produced by university presses and specialty scholarly publishing houses.  Because "the market" cannot support these kinds of publications does not mean that the value of the material, especially in a library context, is low -- just that the value may be more long-term (humanities, social sciences).

And some recommended a new role for academic libraries in scholarly communications -- acting less as "concentrations of content" and more as arbiters of scholarly, academic, and societal significance and value.  Perhaps libraries, universities, and scholarly societies could performin a "good housekeeping seal of approval" model, identifying valued or valuable content, both traditionally published and openly published in digital venues."

And, I wonder: Might it also be fitting for libraries to also take on an active role as information liberators?

"As you will see, mounting evidence affirms that school libraries staffed by certified library
media specialists do make a measurable difference on school achievement. Whether that achievement is measured by standardized reading achievement scores or by global assessments of learning, school libraries and library media specialists are a powerful force in the lives of America’s children."

För den som vill fördjupa sig i de undersökningar som ligger till grund för rapporten avlutas den med en utmärkt lista till resurser.