Library of Congress Uses Forced Labor

David Sangurima (sangu@igc.apc.org)
Thu, 25 Jul 1996 11:06:19 -0700 (PDT)

/* Written 8:35 AM Jul 25, 1996 by lawyer3443@aol.com in igc:misc.activism. */
/* ---------- "Library of Congress Uses Forced Lab" ---------- */
The Library of Congress, the nation's information resource supported by
your tax dollars, is using Third World and prison labor to digitize
materials as part of their Digital Library project.

The Digital Library is a project of the Library of Congress that is
seeking to put 5 million of its records in electronic form by the year
2000. Through their contractors, the Library is using labor in China,
Jamaica and other countries, as well as American prisoner labor, to do
much of the work (typing scanned images of Library documents).

The American Memory Project, a subset of the Digital Library, is
responsible for digitizing a large number of the records--ironically, they
are digitizing items such as Ida B. Well's anti-lynching pamphlets and
other radical materials.

If you believe that it is unethical for an agency of the United States
Government to exploit the labor of prisoners and third world men, women
and children, please contanct Ms. LeeEllen Friedland, coordinator of the
American Memory Project at 202-707-3980, or at <lfri@loc.gov>.

Thank you.