History repeats by George O. Smith. There are, and very probably will always be, some terrestrials who can't. And for that matter, don't want to call their souls their own. Xanabar lays across the spiral arm a sprawling sphere of influence vast, mighty, solid at the core. Only the far-flung boundary shows the slight ebb and flow of contingent cultures that may win a system or two today and lose them back tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Xanabar is the trading post of the galaxy, for only Xanabar is strong enough to stand over the trading table when belligerents meet and offer to take them both at once, if they do not shead their swords. For this service Xanabar assesses her percentage, therefore Xanabar is rich. Her riches buy her mercenaries to enforce her doctrines. Therefore Xanabar is rotten at the under-core, for mercenaries have no god but gold. The clatter of a hundred tongues mingled with the clink of glasses and floated through strata of smoke from the burning weeds of a hundred planets. From one of the tables, voices rise in mild disagreement, there is a jeering laugh from one side and a roar of anger from the other. Two men rise and face one another, ready to follow their insults with violence. Before the eruption can start, a mercenary steps forward on lithe feet and lightly catches the backswung arm. A quick hand removes the poised glass before it can be thrown into the adversary's face. Set, says the mercenary, in a cold voice, and they sit, still glaring at one another. Now, says the mercenary, settle your differences by talk, or depart in opposite directions. This is Xanabar. He lies, he brags. I do not lie, they are barbarians. I do not brag, I can bring you one. You, a wager, said the mercenary, a wager, Xanabar can take no tax in blood. He faces one. You claim you can do that which he says you cannot. Then not waiting for a reply, he faces the other. And if he does, how much are you willing to pay? How much is his life worth? How much are you willing to pay? Demands the mercenary coldly. Five hundred weight in crystal-cut, an honourable sum. Do you agree? Not enough. For a task as easy as you claim it to be, said the mercenary, five hundred weight of crystal-cut seems honourable. But it means we in Xanabar are not interested in the details, only in the tax, an honest wager contract outlanders. Otherwise, I rule that your eruption here disturb the peace. The two outlanders look at one another, schoolboys caught fighting in the alley by a monitor who demands a bite of their apple in lieu of a visit to the principal. As if loathe to touch one another they reach forward hesitantly and handshake in a quick light grip. Good! closed the mercenary. He waves a hand and his fellows converge with contract-platin and etching stylus. Now, gentlemen, please state the terms for Xanabar. Peter Holly strolled down a side street with a dog at his heel. It was a dog of many breeds, but not a mixture of careless parentage. Peter paused at a cross-street and looked uncertainly to left and right. What do you make, burregard? The noble dog says right, replied burregard, right, said Peter, turning up the street, and stopped this noble dog routine. One is dog's best friend, said burregard. If you'd called me something sensible, I wouldn't have looked it up. There's a statue to me in the Okefenoke's back on earth. I am the noble dog. Pogo says so. I— Easy, Peter, said the dog, and in your whisperer, all right, do we play down the chatter? Burregard sat, lifted his nose and sniffed. His natural voice gave a faint whine of discontent. I'm supposed to have a nose, he complained. This is like trying to smell out a lone mouse in a zoological garden in mid-summer. Why the warning? asked Peter. All races smell the same when they are poised for violence, said the dog. Trouble is that man's smell isn't pointed the way it's going, only where it's coming from. Peter grunted, catch any woman's smell? Just the usual whiff, stale scent. She was here. She passed this way. But which way? We can guess they made it away from the spaceport. Unless, said the dog, taking another sniff of the air, they're taking her back to some other spacecraft. Burregard looked up at Peter. Do you catch anything? Just the usual mingled fright and danger, frantic despair, directional? Peter shook his head. No, he said. The source is too close. Let's stroll up the street to the end and come back on the other side, said the dog, quietly. In a saunter they went, alert and poised. A man and his dog, from all appearances. But in Zanibar, the principal city of Zanibar the Empire, they were huntsmen and companion. Like all cities of more than ten million souls, Zanibar had its glistening and lofty area and its slums. And what would have been a waterfront region in a seafaring city? The conditions were the same as they'd been everywhere for a few decades, of thousands of years. Only the technology changes. His cave is stainless steel and synthetic plastic. The cave's man is swinging a better axe, and his hide is protected from the weather by stuff far more durable than his own skin. But he's the same man with the same hackles. They just rise for a few more thousand reasons than the hackles of his ancestors. Got it, said Beauregard, coming to a brief point at a closed door. Let's go in. Beauregard's reply was half snarl and half, look out! Peter Whirl'd catch a glimpse of a man upon him with pencil-ray coming to point. He faded down and toward the other, almost in a fall out of the path of the pencil-ray that flicked on and began to sweep upward and in. Peter caught his balance, at the same time he clutched the wrist in his right hand. Then he went on down, around, and over, rising on his knees, to flip the other man heels high in an arc that ended with a full-length, spine-thutting body smash on the pavement. Beauregard leapt in and slashed at the hand, clutching the pencil-ray, snapped his head back and forth thrice, and sent the weapon flying. Then with a savage growl he set a soft mouth against the other's throat and let the man feel the pressure of his fangs. Easy, said Peter. Beauregard backed away a few inches. Easy, nothing! He snapped. This man is the noble dog's worst enemy. He wanted your blood. Take it easy. I want his information. The man looked up. Barbarian terrestrial! He snarled. Peter sneered. And this is the capital city of the glorious civilization called Zanibar, marble palaces with nobles of the blood and slinking alleys with human rats. Where is she? The stranger spat. Beauregard wants some red meat. He'd make me upchuck. Only rodents eat their own kind. Just a bite? Do I have to swallow? No, just slash. Wait, Barbarian. Barbarian terrestrial, am I? You were maybe going to invite me for tea and cakes with that pencil-ray? I talk! I snap, Peter. Where is she? Who? Beauregard? Yes, boss. The throat or the other hand? All right. For the good it'll do you. She's in there. Go on in, and we'll have two of you. Beauregard growled, three of us, and we might be hard to handle. Peter stood up and hauled the stranger to his feet. His right hand dripped blood from the dog's teeth. Peter looked for and found the pencil-ray smashed against the stone front of the building. He cuffed the stranger across the face, turned him around, and pointed him toward the far corner. I count three, he said. If you're not out of sight by three, it'll be a pleasure, Peter, said Beauregard. The stranger loped away on a crazy run. As he turned the corner, he ran face on to one of the uniformed mercenaries of Zanibar. The mercenary collared the stranger and took a quick inventory of the slashed right hand, the ripped clothing, and adding those to the frightened gallop, he came back with the stranger's left arm held in a backlock. Hottily he demanded. What goes on in Zanibar? Peter eyed the mercenary sourly, kidnapping and attempted murder. Who says such lawlessness runs rife in Zanibar? I say so. Peter Hawley, of the extraterrestrial service, I say so. You are mistaken, barbarian. I say so, said Beauregard.  I am. And so are you. I'll not be insulted by an animal. I am. Take it easy, Beauregard. Take it easy, nothing. This mercenary foot soldier forgets one thing, or maybe he doesn't know about it. Don't call his excellencies peacekeepers mercenaries, snap the mercenary. Peacekeeper, chuckled the dog. Well, listen and become wise. Dog and man, man and dog, have been together for about a half million years. Once dog helped man and war and peace, and man gave dog food and shelter, dog helped man rise above the level of the savage, and man has helped dog rise to the level of intelligence. But dog has one advantage. None of us has been intelligent long enough to really believe that dog has a soul. And those of us who do believe that also know that dog's soul is devoted to man. Do you know about dog, Xenavian, peacekeeper? No. Then don't force me to show you what kind of adversary intelligent dog can be. Beauregard loped in a mad circle around the mercenary. His excellencies peacekeeper turned to stay, facing the dog, but found himself turning his back on Peter. He stepped back and to one side and reached for his heavy-duty pencil. The dog gave a low growl of warning and crouched for a leap. He means it, peacekeeper, said Peter Holly quietly, draw that pencil and he'll have your hand and ribbons before you can level it. The mercenary drew in his breath. Whistle for help and he'll have your throat. I shall not permit this high-handed.  I charged the Empire of Zanibar with the crime of being indifferent to the welfare of the stranger within her gate. I charged kidnapping and attempted murder, and I charged the latter against the specimen you hold in your hand. An outlander. Does he bring his own law to Zanibar? If he does, then so do I. I arrest you all for breaking the peace of Zanibar. Me too, asked Burregard. The mercenary ignored the dog's eager sally. You are armed, terrestrial. So was he. So am I, snarled Burregard, showing a fine set of white fangs in the most effective gesture. This must cease, thundered the mercenary. You cannot threaten his excellencies, peacekeepers! Burregard growled. Slip the mercenary a crystal-cut, boss. We've got a girl of fine. A girl? A terrestrial girl? asked the mercenary, with his eyes opening. The daughter of our envoy to Lonefight, Miss Vanessa Lewis, last reported in her stateroom aboard the terrestrial spacecraft Polaris, during landing pattern at Zanibar's citadel spaceport. The mercenary said. The work of outlander's riff-raff, such as this. Well, snapped Peter Holly, do his excellencies, peacemakers, condone such goings on? We keep the peace of Zanibar.  Terrestrial barbarian, isn't it? I arrest you. I'll stop it. For five weight a crystal-cut, can you be bribed to haul that specimen off to jail, and let me go about making my own peace with Zanibar? You accuse me of accepting bribes?  One weight of crystal-cut. Ten. Seven, said Peter. Ten, said the mercenary, and you have one more caper coming. Ten, agreed Peter Holly, and you look the other way when I take the lid off. Still got it, said Borogard, sniffing at the closed door, but keeping one eye on the disappearing mercenary and his prisoner. I've got it, too. Still fright and concern. Fear of harm? Concern over what happens next. Strong? Definitely, said Peter, closing his eyes and holding his breath. Nothing measurable? Asked the dog after a full minute. No. Too bad I was never introduced to her. I have no idea of her strength of mind. Wait. After a minute went by in personal silence, Peter Holly's concentration far too deep to be disturbed by the sounds of the city's spaceport slum by night. The dog backed away from the door and took an alert position to guard Peter while the man was immersed in his own mind. Finally Peter alerted and shook his head sadly. I thought for a moment that she caught me, a fleeting thought of rescue or escape, except the freedom, flight, safety, but wish-thinking, not communication. Let's go in. Barge or slink? Asked the dog. Slink. Habit your way, said Beauregard. Outside the place looked closed. The door was solid, a plastic in imitation of bronze, through which neither light nor sound passed. The windows were dark, but once the door was cracked the wave of sound came pouring out along the slit of light and filled the street with echo and re-echo. Slink, no, said the dog. So everybody makes mistakes. Inside a woman leaned over a low counter. Check your whip! Say! You can't bring that animal in here! Beauregard said. He isn't bringing me. I'm here because I like it. The woman's eyes bugged. What? Kind? I am man's best friend, the noble dog of Barbarian Terra. Yes, but— Oh, said Peter airily, we're looking for a friend. Friend? Who is he? It's a she, and her name is Vanessa Lewis. She ain't here. The dames are lyreous, Peter. I sent her strong. We'll just take a look around, said Peter, to the check-girl. You'll have to check your weapons. I'd rather go in naked—sorry, not today. Weapons happen to be my business today. Come on, Beauregard. Man and dog started along the hallway, warily. Beauregard said. Any touch? Got a faint impression of alarm. Danger! Call out the guards. I sent. Violence! Said the dog. And the door at the end of the hallway opened, and a big man stepped out. What's going on here? He demanded flatly. The check-girl said. He wouldn't check! The big man reached for his hip pocket. Peter said. Take him high! And they plunged. Peter dove for the man's knees. Beauregard went in a three-stride lope, like an accordion, folding and unfolding, and then arched in a long leap, with his snarling fangs aimed at the man's throat. Man and dog hit him low and high before he could open his mouth, before he could free the snub pencil ray. There was a short scrabble that ended when Beauregard lifted the man's head and whammed it down hard against the floor. Weekly, the check-girl finished her statement. His weapons!  Beauregard shook himself violently and worked his jaws, licking blood from his chops. Beauregard looked in through the open wall door opposite the check-counter. The racket had not been noticed by the room full of spacemen and riff-raff. The babble of a hundred tongues still went on amid the clink of glasses and the disturbing strands of Xenabian music. Smoke from a hundred semi-noxious weeds lay in strata across the room, and at a table in the far corner two men faced one another, their expressions a mixed pair. One held heavily begrudged admiration as he paid off five hundred weight of crystal cut in the legal tender of Xenabar to the other, whose expression was greedy self-confidence. One of his excellencies peacekeepers presided over the exchange. Finally he extracted a fifty weight from the pile and folded it into the signed and completed wager contract. For his own coffer he extracted a five weight and slipped it into his boot-top. Peter Holly and Beauregard passed on, went through the far door dragging their late adversary ignominiously by the heels. amid the lessened publicity of the distant hall, Peter checked the man and shrugged. He may live, he said coldly, if he doesn't bleed to death. You really ought to take him on the high side, said Beauregard, planatively. All I've got is my teeth to grab with. They don't bleed so bad from the ankle. They don't say stop that way either, said Peter harshly. You'd not be getting any praise from the chief for that sort of brutality. If Xenabar weren't rotten to the core, we wouldn't be plowing through it in the first place. Now, let's get going. Shouldn't you call for the rest of the crew? Not until I'm certain the girl's here. I'd hate to cut the citywide search for cold evidence. She's here. I sent her. Maybe it's past tense, Beauregard, or maybe it's another woman. Could be, but one thing. It is definitely terrestrial woman. The dog sniffed again. You get anything? No more than before. It's close, and they're the same sort of impressions. Yet any woman would be frantic with fear and concern. I, Beauregard's sharp ears lifted instinctively at a distant sound not heard by the man. With a toss of his head, the dog folded one ear back, uncovering the inner shell. Like a sonic direction finder, Beauregard turned his head and listened.  He stumbled over our recent conquest. Let's get cuttin'. Peter started trying doors and peering in. The dog raced on ahead of the man, sniffing deep at the bottom of each. It was the dog that found the room. He called, here, and Peter raced forward just as the fellow on the stairs yelled something in his native tongue. Peter hit the door with the heel of his foot, and slammed it open by spluttering the door frame. The dog crouched low and poised. Peter slipped in and around, feeling for a light switch. From inside there was a voiceless whimper of fright, and from outside and below there came the pounding of several sets of heavy feet. Peter found the switch and flooded the room with light. The girl, whether she was Miss Vanessa Lewis or someone else, and kidnap-wise, it was still a terrestrial girl, lay trust on the bed, a patch of surgical tape over her mouth. Sorry, said Peter in a voice that he hoped was soothing. He reached, free to corner the tape, and ripped it off in a single swipe. The girl howled. Peter slapped her lightly. Stop it, he commanded sharply. Vanessa Lewis? Yes, but— Call out the Marines, Peter. Snarled the dog. No! Bow! Back! Reluctantly, the dog backed into the room. He crouched low, poised to spring, with his nose just beyond the door frame. Four of them, he whimpered pleadingly. I can get two! Well, I can't get the other two unless I'm lucky, snapped Peter.  All this calculation grumbled the dog sourly. I don't call it a loss if I get two for one. I call it a loss if I don't get four for nothing, or the whole damn empire of Zanabar for nothing, for that matter. Leave a job to do, and it ain't dying, until Miss Lewis is out of this glorious citadel. The girl looked from one to the other. They did not need any identification. They were their own bona fides. Only man, terrestrial man, had intelligent dogs to work beside him. Period! Question closed. Barregard snarled at the door, warningly, while Peter stripped surgical tape from wrists and ankles. Outside, someone called, Come out, are we blast! Barregard snarled, Come in, and we'll cut you to bits! The quick flash of a pencil ray flicked in a lance above the dog's nose. Barregard snapped back as the lancet of light cut downward, then snapped forward for a quick look outside, as the little pencil of danger flickered dark. Careful, Beau! You call the boys, snapped the dog, I'll— Something came twisting forward to hit the door frame. It dropped just inside the door-jam. Barregard leapt, snapped at the thing, and caught it in mid-air. Snapped his head in a vicious shake, and sent it whirling back outside again before it could be identified. The dog sun-fished and landed on all four. Then the thing went off with a dull poof outside. There was a gentle flash of quick light that was smothered by a billow of smoke. Barregard leapt into the cloud and disappeared. There was a horse shriek and a mad scrabble of dog claws on the hard floor, the sound of a heavy thud, and the angry snarl of a dog with its teeth fastened into something soft. Then there was the fast patter of dog feet, and Barregard came around the door on a dead run, sliding sideways to quram off the open door into safety just as a pencil ray flicked to follow him. Got him! said the dog in a satisfied tone. That's one! He took his post by the door frame again, the tip of his nose just outside. There was a consultation out there in the hallway, at which Barregard called. Make a wild rush for us! Miss Lewis said, What are we going to do? Fight it out! said Peter. They can't win so long as we're alive now. I've got my crew on its way, and a dead run, and if we make enough noise some of his excellencies' peacemakers will step in and demand their cut of the finances. He grinned. How much are you worth, Miss Lewis? She shuddered. I don't know how much my father would pay. At a mellow Peter came Barregard's snarl. Three of them came in, a slant, bounced shoulders against the open door, caught their bearings, and hell was out for known. Barregard caught the first with a slash at the throat.  The second flicked his pencil-ray at Peter. Its capsule charge faded to a mere sting before it cut into him. The third aimed a kick at the struggling dog. Vanessa Lewis snatched a box from the bureau and hurled it at the second. Here thumbed his pencil-ray and winged the third man in the biceps. Barregard leapt for the second man's gun-hand and closed on it as the hurled box opened and scatter-shot at his face with brick-a-brack.   Miss Lewis picked up the table-lamp and, with a single motion, turned off the light and finished felling the one with the ray-burn shoulder. Barregard dropped from the second man's wrist and crouched to spring.  He mouthed fright-noises and some tongue native to some star a thousand light-years across the galaxy. Coldly Peter stepped forward and belted him in the plexus. "'Now,' he said calmly, we shall vacate the premises. They went side by side, facing slightly outward, Barregard between them and slightly ahead. "'We're coming out,' called the dog, three barbarians from Tara. Down on the dark street they met their mercenary again. We eyed them, sourly. I see you were, in a sense, successful. Peter Holley faced the mercenary.  "'There's murder been committed to-night,' said his Excellencies peacemaker. The peace of Zanibar has been disturbed.' "'Why, you chiseling crook, there's been kidnapping tonight, and I'm afraid that I shall have to ask that the young lady produce her passport,' said the mercenary. "'Otherwise, she's in Zanibar's citadel illegally,' Barregard said. "'Hit them low, Peter. Here come the boys.' "'No, just for once, for fun?' "'No. I want our money-grubbing peacekeeper to carry a message to his Excellency. I want his Excellency to read some terrestrial history. Once upon a time there was a place called the Byzantine Empire that laid across the trade routes. The upper crust of people used to serve the presence of God in a golden throne whilst their underlings dealt in human slaves and procured cumbly concubines for the emperor. Their policemen took bribes, and human life was cheap. And when Byzantium fell, all the world was forced to seek a new trade route. So tell his Excellency that he better clean up his own foul mess, or some barbarians will clean it up for him.' "'And that,' said Barregard, goes for your dad-ratted cat.' End of History repeats by George R. Smith. "'Keep out,' by Frederick Brown. With no more room left on earth, and with Mars hanging up there empty of life, somebody hit on the plan of starting a colony on the red planet. It meant changing the habits and physical structure of the immigrants, but that worked out fine. In fact, every possible factor was covered, except one of the flaws of human nature. Daptein is the secret of it. That teen they called it first, then it got shortened to Daptein. It let us adapt.  I guess they thought we were too young to understand before then, although we knew a lot of it already. They told us just after we landed on Mars. "'Your home, children,' the head teacher told us after we had gone into the glass-eyed dome they'd built for us there. And he told us there'd be a special lecture for us that evening, an important one that we must all attend. And that evening he told us the whole story, then the whys and wherefores. He stood up before us. He had to wear a heated spacesuit and helmet, of course, because the temperature in the dome was comfortable for us, but already freezing cold for him and the air was already too thin for him to breathe. His voice came to us by radio from inside his helmet. "'Children,' he said, "'you are home.  You are Martians, the first Martians. You have lived five years on earth and another five in space. Now you will spend ten years, until you are adults, in this dome. Although toward the end of that time you will be allowed to spend increasingly long periods outdoors. Then you will go forth and make your own homes, live your own lives as Martians. You will intermarry and your children will breed true. Only two will be Martians. It is time you were told the history of this great experiment of which each of you is a part." Then he told us. Man, he said, had first reached Mars in 1985. It had been uninhabited by intelligent life. There's plenty of plant life and a few varieties of non-flying insects, and he had found it by terrestrial standards uninhabitable. Man could survive on Mars only by living inside glassite domes and wearing spacesuits when he went outside of them. Except by day in the warmer seasons it was too cold for him. The air was too thin for him to breathe and long exposure to sunlight, less filtered of rays harmful to him than on earth because of the lesser atmosphere, could kill him. The plants were chemically alien to him, and he could not eat them. He had to bring all his food from earth or grow it in hydroponic tanks. For fifty years he had tried to colonize Mars, and all his efforts had failed. Of this dome which had been built for us there was only one other outpost, another glassite dome, much smaller and less than a mile away. It had looked as though mankind could never spread to the other planets of the solar system besides earth, for of all of the Mars was the least inhospitable. If he couldn't live here there was no use even trying to colonize the others. And then, in 2034, thirty years ago, a brilliant biochemist named Weymouth had discovered Daptein, a miracle drug that worked not on the animal or person to whom it was given, but on the progeny he conceived during a limited period of time after inoculation. It gave his progeny almost limitless adaptability to changing conditions, provided the conditions were made gradually. Dr. Weymouth had inoculated and then made it a pair of guinea pigs. They had borne a litter of five, and by placing each member of the litter under different and gradually changing conditions he had obtained amazing results. When they attained maturity one of those guinea pigs was living comfortably at a temperature of forty below zero Fahrenheit. Another was quite happy at one hundred and fifty above. A third was thriving on a diet that would have been deadly poison for an ordinary animal, and a fourth was contented under a constant x-ray bombardment that would have killed one of its parents within minutes. Subsequent experiments with many litters showed that animals who had been adapted to similar conditions bred true, and their progeny was conditioned from birth to live under those conditions.  Born of parents carefully selected from those who volunteered for the experiment, and from birth you have been brought up under carefully controlled and gradually changing conditions. From the time you were born the air you have breathed has been very gradually thinned, and its oxygen content reduced. Your lungs have compensated by becoming much greater in capacity, which is why your chests are so much larger than those of your teachers and attendants. When you are fully mature and are breathing air like that of Mars, the difference will be even greater. Your bodies are growing fur to enable you to stand the increasing cold. You are comfortable now under conditions which would kill ordinary people quickly. Since you were four years old your nurses and teachers have had to wear special protection to survive conditions that seem normal to you. In another ten years, at maturity, you will be completely acclimated to Mars. Its air will be your air. Its food plants your food. Its extremes of temperature will be easy for you to endure, and its median temperatures pleasant to you. Already because of the five years we spent in space under gradually decreased gravitational pull, the gravity of Mars seems normal to you.   Of course we had known a lot of those things already. The last year was the best. By then the air inside the dome, except for the pressurized parts where our teachers and attendants live, was almost like that outside, and we were allowed out for increasingly long periods. It is good to be in the open. The last few months they relaxed segregation of the sexes so we could begin choosing mates, although they told us there is to be no marriage until after the final day, after our full clearance. Choosing was not difficult in my case. I had made my choice long since, and I'd felt sure that she felt the same way. I was right. Tomorrow is the day of our freedom. Tomorrow we will be Martians, THE Martians. Tomorrow we shall take over the planet. Some among us are impatient, have been impatient for weeks now, but wiser counsel prevailed and we are waiting. We have waited twenty years and we can wait until the final day, and tomorrow is the final day.  They do not suspect, so it will be easy. We have disseminated for years now and they don't know how we hate them. They do not know how disgusting and hideous we find them with their ugly misshapen bodies, so narrow-shouldered and tiny-chested, their weak, sibilant voices that need amplification to carry in our Martian air, and above all their white, pasty, hairless skins.  If more earthmen ever come to punish us, we can live and hide in the hills where they'll never find us, and if they try to build more domes here we'll smash them. We want no more to do with earth. This is our planet, and we want no aliens. Keep off. End of Keep Out by Frederick Brown. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Patricia Oakley. My Father, the Cat, by Henry Slazar. My mother was a lovely, delicate woman from the coast of Brittany, who was miserable sleeping on less than three mattresses, and who, it is said, was once injured by a falling leaf in her garden. My grandfather, a descendant of the French nobility, whose family had ridden the tum-drills of the Revolution, tended her fragile body and spirit with the same loving care given rare, brief-blooming flowers. You may imagine from this his attitude concerning marriage. He lived in terror of the vulgar, heavy-handed man who would one day win my mother's heart. And, at last, this persistent dread killed him. His concern was unnecessary, however. For my mother chose a suitor who was as free of mundane brutality as a husband could be. Her choice was Dauphin, a remarkable white cat which strayed onto the estate shortly after his death.  It did not take long for her to realize that Dauphin deserved a higher status, and he became her friend, protector, and confidante. He never spoke of his origin, nor where he had acquired the classical education which made him such an entertaining companion. Over two years it was easy for my mother, an unworldly woman at best, to forget the dissimilarity in their species. In fact, she was convinced that Dauphin was an enchanted prince, and Dauphin, in consideration of her illusions, never dissuaded her. At last they were married by an understanding clergyman of the locale, who solemnly filled in the marriage application with the name of M. Edward Dauphin. I, Etienne Dauphin, am their son. To be candid, I am a handsome youth, not unlike my mother in the delicacy of my features. My father's heritage is evident in my large feline eyes, and in my slight body and quick movements. My mother's death, when I was four, left me in the charge of my father and his coterie of loyal servants, and I could not have wished for a finer upbringing. It is to my father's patient tutoring that I owe whatever graces I now possess. It was my father, the cat, whose gentle paws guided me to the treasure-houses of literature, art, and music, whose whiskers bristled with pleasure at a goose well-cooked, at a meal well-served, at a wine well-chosen. How many happy hours we shared! He knew more of life and the humanities, my father, the cat, than any human I have met in all my twenty-three years. Until the age of eighteen, my education was his personal challenge. Then it was his desire to send me into the world outside the gates. He chose for me a university in America, for he was deeply fond of what he called that great, raw country, where he believed my feline qualities might be tempered by the aggressiveness of the rough-coating, barking dogs I would be sure to meet. I must confess to a certain amount of unhappiness in my early American years, torn as I was from the comforts of the estate and the wisdom of my father, the cat. But I became adapted, and even upon my graduation from the university, sought and held employment in a metropolitan art museum. It was there I met Joanna, the young woman I intended to make my bride. Joanna was a product of the great American Southwest, the daughter of a cattle-raiser. There was a blooming vitality in her face and her body, a lustiness born of open skies and desert. Her hair was not the gold of antiquity. It was new gold, freshly mined from the black rock. Her eyes were not like old world diamonds. Their sparkle was that of sunlight on a cascading river. Her figure was bold, an open declaration of her sex. She was, perhaps, an unusual choice for the son of fairy-like mother and an Angora cat. But from the first meeting of our eyes, I knew that I would someday bring Joanna to my father's estate to present her as my fiancé. I approached that occasion with understandable trepidation. My father had been explicit in his advice before I departed for America. But on no point had he been more emphatic than secrecy concerning himself. He assured me that revelation of my paternity would bring ridicule and unhappiness upon me. The advice was sound, of course, and not even Joanna knew that our journey's end would bring us to the estate of a large, cultured and conversing cat. I had deliberately fostered the impression that I was orphaned, believing that the proper place for revealing the truth was the atmosphere of my father's home in France. I was certain that Joanna would accept her father-in-law without distress. Indeed, hadn't nearly a score of human servants remained devoted to their feline master for almost a generation, we had agreed to be wed on the 1st of June and on May the 4th and planned in New York for Paris. We were met at Orly Field by Francois, my father's solemn man-servant, who had been delegated not so much as escort as he was chaperone, my father having retained much of the old world proprieties. It was a long trip by automobile to our estate in Brittany and I must admit to a brooding silence throughout the drive, which frankly puzzled Joanna. However, when the great stone fortress that was our home came within view, my fears and doubts were quickly dispelled. Joanna, like so many Americans, was thrilled at the aura of venerability and royal custom surrounding the estate. Francois placed her in charge of Madame Jolynette, who clapped her plump old hands with delight at the sight of her fresh blonde beauty, and chattered and clucked like a mother hen as she led Joanna to her room on the second floor. As for myself, I had one immediate wish, to see my father, the cat. He greeted me in the library, where he had been anxiously awaiting our arrival, curled up in his favorite chair by the fireside, a wide-mouthed goblet of cognac by his side. As I entered the room, he lifted a paw formally. But then his reserve was dissolved by the emotion of our reunion, and he licked my face in unashamed joy. Francois refreshed his glass and poured another for me, and we toasted each other's well-being. To you, Montpere, I said, using the affectionate name of my childhood memory, to Joanna, my father said. He smacked his lips over the cognac, and wiped his whiskers gravely. And where is this paragon? It's Madame Jolonette. She will be down shortly. And you have told her everything? I blushed. No, Montpere, I have not. I thought it best to wait until we were home. She is a wonderful woman, I added impulsively. She will not be horrified, my father said. What makes you so certain, my son? Because she is a woman of great heart, I said stoutly. She was educated at a fine college for women in eastern America. Her ancestors were rugged people, given to legend and folklore. She is a warm, human person, human, my father sighed. And his tail swished.  Even a woman of the finest character may be dismayed in this situation. But my mother? Your mother was an exception. A changeling of the fairies. You must not look for your mother's soul in Joanna's eyes. He jumped from his chair and came towards me, resting his paw upon my knee. I am glad you have not spoken of me, Etienne. Now you must keep your silence for ever. I was shocked. I reached down and touched my father's silky fur, saddened by the look of his age in his gray, gold-flecked eyes, and by the tinge of yellow in his white coat. No, Montpere, I said, Joanna must know the truth, Joanna must know how proud I am to be the son of Edouard Dauphin. Then you will lose her. Never! That cannot happen. My father walked stiffly to the fireplace, staring into the gray ashes. Ring for Francois, he said. Let him build the fire. I am cold, Etienne. I walked to the court and pulled it. My father turned to me and said, You must wait, my son. At dinner this evening, perhaps. Do not speak of me until then. Very well, father. When I left the library, I encountered Joanna at the head of the stairway, and she spoke to me excitedly. Oh, Etienne! What a beautiful old house! I know I will love it. May we see the rest? Of course, I said. You look troubled. Is something wrong? No, no. I was thinking how lovely you are. We embraced. And her warm, full body against mine confirmed my conviction that we should never be parted. She put her arm in mine, and we strolled through the great rooms of the house. She was ecstatic at their size and elegance exclaiming over the carpeting, the gnarled furniture, the ancient silver and pewter, the gallery of family paintings. When she came upon an early portrait of my mother, her eyes misted. She was lovely, Joanna said. Like a princess. And what of your father? Is there no portrait of him? No, I said hurriedly. No portrait. I had spoken my first lie to Joanna. For there was a painting, half-completed, which my mother had begun in the last year of her life. It was a whispering little water-color, and Joanna discovered it to my consternation. What a magnificent cat! She said, was it a pet? It is Dauphin, I said nervously. She laughed. He has your eyes, Etienne. Joanna, I must tell you something. And this ferocious gentleman with the mustaches, who is he? My grandfather, Joanna, you must listen. Francois, who had been following our inspection tour at Shadow's Length, interrupted. I suspected that his timing was no mere coincidence. We will be serving dinner at 7.30, he said. If the lady would care to dress. Of course, Joanna said. Will you excuse me, Etienne? I bowed to her, and she was gone. At fifteen minutes to the appointed dining-time I was ready, and hastened below to talk once more with my father. He was in the dining-room, instructing the servants as to the placement of the silver and accessories. My father was proud of the excellence of his table, and took all his meals in the splendid manner. His appreciation of food and wine was unsurpassed in my experience. And it had always been the greatest of pleasures for me to watch him at table, stalking across the damosque, and dipping delicately into the silver dishes prepared for him. He pretended to be too busy with his dinner preparations to engage me in conversation. But I insisted. I must talk to you, I said. We must decide together how to do this. It will not be easy, he answered with a twinkle. Consider Joanna's view.  A cat that speaks is alarming. A cat that dines at table with the household is shocking. And a cat whom you must introduce as your... Stop it, I cried. Joanna must know the truth. You must help me reveal it to her. Then you will not heed my advice. In all things but this. Our marriage can never be happy unless she accepts you for what you are. And if there is no marriage, I would not admit to this possibility. Joanna was mine, nothing could alter that. The look of pain and bewilderment in my eyes must have been evident to my father. For he touched my arm gently with his paw and said, I will help you, Etienne. You must give me your trust. Always. Then come to dinner with Joanna and explain nothing. Wait for me to appear. I grasped his paw and raised it to my lips. Thank you, father. He turned to Francois and snapped. You have my instructions? Yes, sir. The servant replied. Then all is ready. I shall return to my room now, Etienne. You may bring your fiancee to dine. I hastened up the stairway and found Joanna ready, strikingly beautiful and shimmering white satin. Together we descended the grand staircase and entered the room. Her eyes shone at the magnificence of the service set upon the table. At the soldiery array of fine wines. Some of them already poured into their proper glasses for my father's enjoyment. I poured Medoc from Saint Estef, Authentic Chablis, Epernaix Champagne, and an American import from the Napa Valley of which he was fond. I waited expectantly for his appearance as we sipped our operetif, while Joanna chatted about innocuous matters, with no idea of the tormented state I was in. At eight o'clock my father had not yet made his appearance, and I grew ever more distraught as Francois signaled for the serving of the bouillon au Madere. Had he changed his mind? Would I be left to explain my status without his help? I hadn't realized until this moment how difficult a task I had allotted for myself, and the fear of losing Joanna was terrible within me. The soup was flat and tasteless on my tongue, and the misery in my manner was too apparent for Joanna to miss. What is it, Etienne?  Can't you tell me what's wrong? No, it's nothing, it's just— I let the impulse take possession of my speech. Joanna, there's something I should tell you about my mother and my father. Ahem, Francois said. He turned to the doorway, and our glances followed his. Oh, Etienne! Joanna cried in a voice ringing with delight. It was my father, the cat.  He approached the dining-table, regarding Joanna with timidity and caution. It's the cat in the painting, Joanna said. You didn't tell me he was here at Yen. He's beautiful. Joanna, this is D'affa! I would have known him anywhere. Here, D'affa! Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!  Aren't you the pretty little pussy? Aren't you the sweetest little thing? Joanna!  This sight pained and confused me, and I sought to find an opening word that would allow me to explain, yet hoping all the time that my father would himself provide the answer. Then my father spoke. Meow! He said. Are you hungry? Joanna asked, solicitously.  Meow! My father said. And I believed my heart broke, then and there. He leaped from her lap, and patted across the room. I watched him through blurred eyes as he followed Francois to the corner, where the servant had placed a shallow bowl of milk. He lapped it eagerly until the last white drop was gone. Then he yawned and stretched and trotted back to the doorway, with one fleeting glance in my direction that spoke articulately of what I must do next. What a wonderful animal, Joanna said. Yes, I answered. He was my mother's favourite, and of my father the cat, by Henry Slazar. In one fell swoop, declared Professor C. Sidwick Holmes, releasing a thin blue ribbon of pipe smoke and rocking back on his heels. I intend to solve the greatest problem facing mankind today. Colonising the polar waste was a messy and fruitless business, and the enforced birth control program couldn't be enforced. Overpopulation still remains the thought on our side. Gentlemen, he paused to look at each of the assembled reporters in the eye. There is but one answer. Masniolation, quavered a recovered reporter. The posh boy, certainly not. The Professor bristled. The answer is... Time. Time? Exactly, loathed Holmes, with a dramatic flow she swept aside, a red velvet drape, to reveal a tall structure of gleaming metal. As witness, Golly, what is that thing, queried the cub? This thing, replied the Professor acidly, is the C. Sidwick Holmes time door. Well, look, it's a time machine! Not so, not so, please, boy. A time machine, in a popular sense, is impossible. Wild fancy. However, the Professor tapped on the dovetail from his pipe. By a mathematically precise series of infinite calculations, I've developed a remarkable C. Sidwick Holmes time door. Open it, take but a single step, and presto the past. But where in the past, Professor? Holmes smiled easily down on the tensoring of faces. Gentlemen, beyond this door lies the sprawling giant of the Southwest. Enough land to absorb the air so flowed by that, he snapped his fingers. I speak, gentlemen, of Texas, 1957. What if the Texans object? I have no choice. The time door is strictly one-way passage, I sort of am. It'll be utterly impossible for anyone in 1957 to re-enter our world of 2057. And now, Pastor White. He tossed aside his Professor robes. Under them, Sidwick Holmes wore an ancient and bizarre costume. Black riding boots, highly polished and trimmed in silver. Wallchats, a wide dual-studded belt with an immense buckle. A brightly checked shirt topped with a blazing red bandana. Briskly, he snapped a tall ten-gallon hat on his head and stepped to the time door. Ripping an ebony handle, he tugged upwards. The huge metal door oiled slowly back. Time, said Sidwick Holmes simply, gesturing towards the grain nothingness beyond the door. The reporters and photographers surged forwards, notebooks and cameras at the ready. What if the door swings shut after you've gone one mast? A groundless fairboy as your domes. I've swinted it that the time door can never be closed. And now, goodbye, gentlemen. Or, she used the proper colloquialism. So long on, Brace. Holmes bowed from the waist, gave his ten-gallon hat a final tug, and took a single step forwards. And did not disappear. He stood blinking. Then he swore, beat upon the unyielding wall of grainness with clenched fists, and fell back panting to his desk. I've failed, he moaned in a loss voice. The sea Sidwick Holmes' time door is a botch.  The reporters and photographers began to file out. Suddenly, a professor raised his head. Listen, he warned. A slow rumbling, muted with distance, emanated from the dense grainness of the time door. Faint yips and whoopings were distinct above the rumble. The sound grew steadily, through a thousand beating drums, the rolling sea of thunder. Shrieking, the reporters and photographers scattered to the stairs. Ah, another naughty problem to be solved. Museed, Professor Sidwick Holmes, swinging, with some difficulty, onto one of 3,000 Texas stairs, stumpy eating into the laboratory. End of Time in Texas by William F. Nolan, recording by Joe Pillsbury. Operation Lorelie by William P. Sultan. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Bologna Times. Operation Lorelie by William P. Sultan. It was a new time, and a vast new war of complete and awful annihilation. Yet some things never change, and, as in ancient times, Ulysses walked again, brave and unconquerable.  They came like monsters, rather than men, into the vast ruin of what had once been a great city. They walked carefully, side by side, speaking to each other by radio, as though they were in deep space, rather than upon solid ground. The winding way they followed through the ruins was marked by blurred footsteps in the dust, and the two men, clumsy in their bulky suits, found the going difficult. They stopped, and one of them held out an instrument. He studied the dial. All clear. And both men removed their helmets. They wiped sweat from their faces, and glanced at each other. The blond man said, The air is OK, Jarvis. Everything seems all right. I don't get it. Jarvis, his dark eyes wary, scowled as he looked about. It seems all right, but we know it isn't. It can't be. I'm shook in this suit.  But the dial read clear, man. And we know nobody is going to shoot us. All life had to be wiped out. How about minor power installations? Jarvis took a chocolate bar from his pocket, sat down on a piece of broken rubble, and began to eat. You're too careless. Far too careless, Mark. Mark laughed. You've always been cautious enough for both of us. Got me out of plenty of scrapes back in school, too. Don't think I've forgotten. Affection warmed his blue eyes, as they rested on the face of his friend. OK, OK, but what happened to them? Where did they go? Jarvis took nervous bites from his second chocolate bar. Then he, too, peeled off his suit. He sniffed the air distrustfully, as he wiggled his shoulders to freed them from the clinging, damp shirt. Then he took a few experimental steps forward. Seems all right, Mark. But how do you explain about Hank and Garland? Never were two more careful guys. Probably a simple miscalculation, or an accident. We know it couldn't have been enemy action, test-proof conclusively, that we wiped them out, to a man. He took deep gulps of air into his lungs, and stretched, like a cat. We'll find out soon enough. Boy, I feel great. They deflated and folded their safety suits, and added the bundles to the other equipment on their backs. And then, with their instruments held before them, they probed their way into the twisted wreckage, still following the faint, dust-filled footprints. Bent and rusted girders rose on all sides, like the bones of prehistoric monsters. Nothing stirred. The dust lay ages thick on everything. Gives you the spooks, doesn't it? Jarvis was still tense, poised to respond to the first signal of danger. Feels like we're the last men alive. Funny about Hank and Garland. There's nothing here to harm anyone. Jarvis looked at his watch. Better contact HQ for instructions. The two stepped off the path, into the shade of a grotesque chunk of broken masonry. Mark set up the radio, and twirled the dials. Team four, calling HQ. Team four, reporting. HQ here. The voice from the radio blared loud in the stillness. Give your report. Team four. Looks like nothing's moved here in a thousand years. Safe is a baby's dream. Rock solid, air, morning pure. But he hesitated, trying not to sound like a scared school boy. No sign of team three, or of teams one and two, either. Over. Look here, team four. It's your job to find out. The earth didn't just swallow them. Final report from each team placed them well within the city. It's been 10 days since the last contact. Probe every inch of the place. Right. But be careful. We can't afford to lose any more men. Roger. Roger. There was only one way now ahead. It lay clearly marked. The dem footsteps never strayed or faltered. Three hours of search revealed no pitfalls, no dangers, and no trace of the missing men. The night was upon them, and they bedded down, gratefully. Strange isn't it? The war over. The invaders, blasted from the earth, all peril gone. And yet, men disappear. Jarvis stared at the ruins around them. I can't take much more, Mark. 12 years of war is enough. Are we never to have a life? Have our home and women back? And peace? Sure, it's been tough. But think of the women and children isolated on that sub satellite. It's tougher for them. Just waiting. Stretched on his back, Mark stared at the cloudless evening sky. But pretty soon we'll get this planet cleaned up and bring the men. Christ, four years without even seeing a woman. I remember the last time. OK, Jarvis interrupted impatiently. Let's get to sleep. Sure, pal. Good night. They fell asleep to dream of green hills, corn, ripening, apples roasting over an open fire. Peace and home and girls. They're firm legs flashing in the sun. Soldier-like, Mark was suddenly awake. He lay without motion, sensitive to some subtle change in the surroundings. From the corner of his eye he could see Jarvis wrapped in sleep. The silence seemed eternal. Then, whisper soft, came a murmur, a sound, a voice, a girl's voice, sighing and singing from deep in that devastated spot. A woman. Instantly Mark was on his feet. No need to wake Jarvis. Plenty of time for Jarvis to find out afterwards. But not yet. A miracle that a girl had survived in all that wreckage. But a miracle he wanted to save her alone. Ahead the path turned and Mark followed it as he went forward again, downhill between the mast-wall's rubble. Now the voice swelled, a melancholy song. Well, she won't be melancholy for long, Mark thought. Her solitary ordeal was over. Mark, Jarvis stood up on an upturned, lintel, ten feet above Mark's head, as Mark jerked to a stop at the cry. Jarvis jumped into his path. You fool! Don't you know it's a trap? So that's how you want to play it. The noble friend protecting me for myself. He slammed a fist into the side of Jarvis's head. Well, I won't bite. She's mine. I found her. In silence, in the narrow passage between the rocks, the two fought. Suddenly, above the sound of fist on flesh, came the voice of the girl again. Clear, young. She is there, thought Jarvis. He could almost taste her lips on his. The sensation came as a shock. How did he know? He'd never had a woman. That's what came from listening to the tales of Mark's exploits with women. Now he had to have that girl. The mounting tension of the fighting snapped something in Jarvis's seething mind. Danger, friendship, duty all meant nothing. Only one thing mattered. The girl. Mark had had more than his share of girls. He, Jarvis, was the one who should have her. He'd been deprived of his manhood long enough. His frenzied brain hunted a trick to gain his ends. Mark's superior strength began to force Jarvis to give ground. Then a final blow sent him reeling. He reached out to break his fall. His hand closed on a rock. He threw it. Mark crashed to the ground. His knees smashed. His leg useless. Then the tomb stillness of the dead city took over. The dust settled slowly. Mark came to his feet. Jarvis was gone. Dragging his useless leg, Mark forced himself to crawl forward. Jarvis had to be stopped. Ahead a shadow moved, and for a moment the moon threw the silhouette of a man against a cavernous opening in the debris. Jarvis! An electric flash shattered the darkness. The jagged teeth of the bolt spit tongues of fire. Cordite mangled with the raw, nauseant, revolting smell of scorched flesh and hair. The figure tottered and fell into the black mouth of the cave. Then as the flame faded, it lit up small bundles of charred bones near the fallen body. There was a whir and a click of mechanism. Fifteen feet away, Mark watched as the arm of a phonograph rose move slowly back to the starting point. Then the record began once more to grind out its death trap melody. End of Operation Lorelei by William P. Salt.


So welcome to the ARL, ACRL virtual listening session on the recent US Office of Science and Technology's policy guidance on ensuring free, immediate and equitable access to federally funded research. My name is Mary Lee Kennedy and I am the Association of Research Libraries Executive Director. Today, please join me in thanking Karen Malenfond, the Senior Strategist for Special Initiatives from the Association of College and Research Libraries for co-hosting with us. It's wonderful to co-sponsor the session, clearly of interest with over 300 registrations. Before beginning with the agenda, please note that this session, like all ARL events, is governed by our Code of Conduct. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact me or Cynthia Hudson Fatali. And I'll just give you a few minutes to take a look at this. Okay.  I will not be answering questions during the session, but you are welcome to place your questions or comments in the Q&A, and we will pass them along after the session is complete. We will also share a recording of this event, and the results of the survey, many of you completed with agency representatives shortly after today. Today, the official agency representatives with us are a broad community and I'm very grateful to them for joining us. Layton Christensen from the Department of Transportation. Hi folks. Martin Halber from the National Science Foundation. Christopher Markham from the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Carly Robinson from the Department of Energy. Kathy Sharpless from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Jerry Sheehan from the National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Andrea Medina Smith from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Anthony Smith from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Nancy Weiss from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. And Maryam Zaring Halem from the National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Thank you again to all of you for being here today. And as a note, other agency representatives may be on the call as well. Now let's turn to the program. Today you will hear from four library leaders. Vicky Coleman, Dean of Library Services at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Sandra Anamel, Program Director from Scholarly Communication and Information Policy from Yale Library. Harriet Green, Associate University Librarian for Digital Scholarship and Technology Services, Washington University of St. Louis Libraries. And Dita Manny, Dean of Libraries at the University of Massachusetts and Hearst. They will be followed by Judy Rutenberg, Senior Director of Scholarship and Policy at ARL, who will wrap the session up for us. Martin Halbert, the Science Advisor for Public Access for the National Science Foundation, will start us off with an overview. Bios for all panelists are available in the session materials, so I invite you to consult them there. And with that, please join me in welcoming Martin Halbert. Thank you, Mary Lee, where I can say on behalf of all of my colleagues from other federal agencies, we are delighted to have a chance to engage in this listening session with you, we are all engaged in reaching out to the different stakeholder groups that we represent. The National Science and Technology Council that is convened by the White House Office Science and Technology Policy Office is very engaged always in ongoing questions of science broadly. In particular, the Committee on Science and its subcommittee on open science is deeply engaged in the matters that are highlighted in this 2022 memorandum from OSTP. We're delighted to have quite a cast of people here. I think we've got virtually all of the working group chairs from the SOS and Chris Markham from the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Rather than engage in a lot of discussion about what OSTP and the various groups within the subcommittee on open science do. I'll just invite you to take a look at the memorandum, the 22 memorandum, which the entire section five talks about the interactions and alignment efforts that will be undertaking in the NSTC subcommittee on open science in coming days on this memorandum. With that, let me turn it back over to our ARL colleagues. We are very eager to hear from you all about your thoughts, interests, concerns, opportunities, all the things that you have to say today. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. I believe I'm next on the agenda. My name is Vicki Coleman and I am the Dean of Library Services at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. This institution is a historically black university, a land-grade university, and it has an enrollment of over 13,000 students. I am also co-chair of the US Repository Network Steering Group, of which I will talk more about later. In August I was excited to see Dr. Alondra Nelson's memorandum with regards to ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research. I believe that the OSTP statement is a significant step toward the notion that since taxpayers pay for federal research, then taxpayers own it. Therefore, taxpayers should have free and immediate access to that research. With regards to the OSTP specification, that federal agencies update or develop new public access plans such that scholarly publications are publicly accessible in agency designated repositories, I will share a few thoughts. Given that the general public, librarians, researchers, etc., will have to trace new publications to the repository of the agency that funded the work. And given that library personnel work closely with faculty and other researchers to develop plans for sharing and preserving research data, I believe that policy coordination across federal agencies will be crucial for ease of use of the repositories and to lessen the load for compliance with repository guidelines. With that said, I would like to state that two organizations, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and the Confederation for Open Access Repositories, have formed a partnership to launch the US Repository Network. For brevity, moving forward, I will refer to the network as the USRN. The USRN is envisioned as an inclusive community committed to advancing repositories in the US. In this context, US repositories refers to all open research repositories based in the US, regardless of content, post, or platform. The USRN steering group consists of library leaders, repository managers, and consortium leaders. As a member of the USRN steering group, I know that the USRN welcomes the opportunity to engage with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and with federal agencies on the implementation of public access guidelines. Excuse me. Shifting the conversation to my role as a campus administrator. As the dean of a library at a public university, part of my library's mission is to provide students, faculty, and researchers with access to trusted information resources that enrich their scholarship and creative activity. While the OSTP policy will help me carry out my mission, there are unknowns regarding the policy that raise some concerns. As you are aware, colleges and universities vary in size, research infrastructure, and funding, and so do their respective libraries. For example, at my library, we have a committee that works as a team to provide services in the areas of research data management, planning, institutional repository research infrastructure, and in the area of open educational resources. By comparison, many larger research libraries have entire departments dedicated to these services, and many smaller academic libraries do not have the human resources to offer these services at all. Also, there's the issue regarding article processing charges referred to as APCs. These are fees sometimes charged by publishers to authors in order to recoup cost associated with the researcher or faculty member publishing in an open access journal. At my library, we don't have it within our budget to cover such APC fees. With that said, we also do not have experience negotiating APC fees with publishers. We are concerned that journal publishers may shift their business models in such a way that researchers from less well funded disciplines, as well as researchers from less well funded institutions will not have sufficient funding to support publishing and many of the publisher journals due to the associated APC fees. Personally, personnel in my library are wondering if they will need external guidance and or training in order to assist university faculty and researchers in bringing their research data and compliance with the forthcoming federal agency policies. I and the librarians at my institution are hoping that federal agencies will take these concerns into consideration as they are developing their policies and guidelines for their respective federal repositories. In closing, it has been my experience that library personnel, faculty and researchers are all excited about new opportunities to more quickly and cost effectively access and share research. The August 25 memo from the Office of Science and Technology Policy provides the framework for bold initiative to ensuring free immediate and equitable access to federally funded research. However, there still seems to be many details to work out pertaining to how the policy requirements will be implemented. My desire is that federal agencies will work in collaboration with institutional stakeholders scholarly publishing coalitions and library associations to ensure a smooth implementation of policy requirements to build a more equitable research dissemination structure and to address unforeseen challenges. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share my thoughts. So I think I'm up next. Thank you, Dean Coleman. My name is Sandra, I am in a mill and I am the program director for scholar communication and information policy at Yale library. I'm here in my capacity as the chair of the research and the scholarly environment, which is a committee of the AC of ACRL, the Association of college and research libraries. I'm also in bringing some thoughts and issues that have been raised as part of my participation with the IB plus libraries confederation, which is a confederation of libraries, which are ID plus, and they have a scholar communication group that discusses these issues as well. So, Dean Coleman and saying that overall the response to the OSTP memo among academic libraries of which I am involved in a conversation with has been very positive. There are a lot of questions that we have that we're hoping that there'll be an opportunity for us here, and later also to weigh in on. I'm really excited about the idea that the public will have guaranteed fast unenvargoed access to scholarship and data, and that now covers all of the federal agencies. We are thinking that it's very important for there to be harmonization across the federal agencies as there are many more impacted now than were in 2013. I know that there are some steps that could be replicated from the 2013 OSTP memo, like the creation of PubMed Central, so a central repository to host the content of scholarship, and also for support, or possibly another hosted repository for data. I know that many of my colleagues are concerned about that, excited about the idea that the data accompanying a lot of this scholarly research will also be required to be openly available, publicly available. But wondering about the infrastructure and the support that'll be necessary for that and where those funds will come from. We're also interested to know that their references also, so if there is a designated repository, what would be considered a designated repository, so in the memo there's a mention of agency designated and wondering for some of us who have hosted institutional repositories, could our repositories count, could they be considered as agency designated as well, or if there is one that's supported fully by the agencies, you know, wanted to make sure that we're able to comply with and participate in and be able to direct our faculty in using those systems. So starting the cost and financial impact for this, for being able to help our scholars here at our institutions, our personnel infrastructure for support training to comply as Dean Coleman mentioned, will all help with our ability to help researchers comply with these mandates. We are very excited to help them as we have in the past, as we as we do every day, but we are definitely interested in hearing about the support for infrastructure and training for our librarians to make sure that researchers are able to comply with the new rules that will soon be in place. Dean Coleman also mentioned this the institutional costs of APCs institutions like mine and many others are entering into read and publish or also called transformational or transitional agreements, where we are moving from buying or purchasing access to or purchasing full up content, we are now funding the ability for content to be published. So we may be taking on the ability to pay for the APCs on behalf of our affiliated authors and researchers. So this is really just transferring the amount of money that might be paid, which could range in costs from $500 to $11,000 depending on where a researcher may be maybe publishing. And those costs are often born by the researcher or from the grants that they are affiliated with, or they may be able to get funds from their institution. Some libraries do have APC funds, like Dean Coleman mentioned Yale library doesn't have one that's widely available for researchers to use and many institutions do not. So, we are entering into a lot of these what are what have been being called transformational or transitional agreements, where now the cost of that APC is shifting to the library to pay for. And this is actually turning into just a shift in what things are being called and we're not expecting that there will be a reduction in costs for that so even though more content will be openly available through this. I would say that there will probably still be a system where APCs are required, and so that is not going to change how much our costs maybe and in fact there may be increasing costs for libraries, and definitely for the costs of our training for the cost of our staff and other resources, there'll be additional costs to us as well. As Dean mentioned, in terms of the APCs and publishing and where some of our researchers and scholars may publish. This system is all run by the tenure promotion process which of course you all don't have anything to do with and can't really influence but you know I think it would be remiss of me at an academic institution to not mention that is the process that really kind of drives this system and if there's there isn't much of a change that's happening where the acceptance of open access content and material and publishing widely and open access journals is not promoted. A lot of a lot of these things are, you know just kind of feeding into the system that's not changing the way that maybe many of us are hoping that it will. I think to also bring into the conversation are really the concerns mentioned by Dean Coleman around equity, not just between institutions but also between disciplines and departments. You know with this new new memo, there are other fields that maybe have not been as engaged with open access and open access publishing. That will now have to be in the conversation around this and they have not been used to this system of APCs, open access or having to manage or deal with those those things and so there's going to be a lot of education that will be necessary and there's going to be support for certain fields and specialties and disciplines such as the humanities, which are not as actively engaged in open access publishing as the sciences and the medical fields are. There definitely be something to to think about and how we will support our folks who are in the humanities who may be interested or maybe hesitant or maybe concerned about what publishing open access particularly maybe around data may mean for them. Finally, I'll say that I think you know again this is a very exciting opportunity and we are very engaged and we want to hear what is happening and how we in the library can help a number of our institutions across the country have people in place. People like me, scholar communication librarian, copyright librarians, digital publishing librarians who are repository librarians who are all active and engaged in the community of knowledge around these issues, and looking to support our researchers and scholars in making sure that they're able to comply that they understand what is happening with this new system, and that they're able to fully take advantage of the grants and opportunities that will be made available to them. So I thank you for having me here today and I thank you for the opportunity to to engage with you and to provide some information and thoughts from some of the constituencies that I represent. Thank you. Hello. My name is Harriet green, and I believe I'm next in speaking today. I am a member of the steering committees for the US repository network for spark and for Sam Vera, and I participated in professional organizations throughout my career around issues of open access and communications. Therefore, I bring that experience to bear as I am honored to speak with you today, and share my own thoughts separate from my institution and not affiliated on the impact of the White House US team at P memo on libraries and information organizations. And I joined the previous speakers and my fellow information professionals, as we anticipate a significant impact on our research procedures policies and infrastructures as your agencies develop guidelines in the coming year. And I like to open with two prongs of context to build upon what we've heard so far. I would contend the course that libraries are increasingly are critical, if not foundational piece of institutions resourcing infrastructure for enabling research outputs and data sharing. As we know, it's not only the linchpin of traditional research, but also as central, really the most broadly accessible resource for researchers, faculty and students across the full scope of schools and disciplinary studies for digital tools and concurrent services around open sharing of research outputs. In the years we've built out existing services and infrastructure that undergird this open sharing of research. We advise on data management plans with things such as the library develop DMP tool. We manage do I minting services providing persistent identifiers and support memberships through orchid for researcher identifiers educational outreach is also critical. And we lead West workshops on data ethics, data management and data curation with campus partners with accumulated technical expertise we provide data curation of data sets. We also provide increasingly institutional repositories and data repositories for the open sharing of publications and deposit and open distribution of data and libraries invest in this infrastructure and expertise, because we see this as part of our mission providing information. But this also happens on a national level and collaborations to advance capacity and expertise for data sharing. The data sharing network data curation network or DCN based at the University of Minnesota is one notable and organic effort of this of this kind. Washington University libraries is a member of this consortium of 18 institutions, in which we share and collaborate through data curation with data curators with broad ranges of expertise. And through this collaborative exchange of expertise efforts like the DCN are ways that libraries are working to maximize our investments and collectively work together to advance open sharing of data and advance the fair principles, findability, accessibility, interoperability and and reusability as a core quality global standard for effective sharing of research data. And I would urge you to consider the awareness of these partnerships such as this as this collaborations for research data go forward. And underlying all this is the scholarship and as was Sandra acknowledge the OSTP memo now brings into conversation a diversity of scholarly disciplines and research work whose funds were funding was previously not under the scope of the 2013 memo. And while the influence of the 2013 memo reached beyond its official scope to encourage diffuse open access principles throughout research. This will be a new chapter nonetheless. One of the areas I'm particular familiar with is the humanities, especially digital humanities. And the digital humanities in particular brings analysis to bear on cultural artifacts and humanities data can range from text data sets to dance and movement to websites, electronic literature and art that may have a femoral nature in its longevity. And it's also highly disciplinary and in conversation with the sciences and social sciences. And so, how do we curate humanities data and preserve context of cultural interpretation from a range of time periods is a question with noble work done and more to come. And I believe this is a carry area for you to consider as well. And from these, there are questions I'd like to raise as well for consideration as has been discussed by Dean Coleman and Sandra. How can we all forecast and account for institutional and research investments as this as a memo and the mandates unfold of the coming years. The cost of managing data and labor required for data search sharing is a concern and interest, and there are initiatives taking steps to investigate this question. The NSF funded realities of academic sharing project is a partnership of six research libraries, including Washington University libraries, and which we investigate the costs, born by researchers to meet data sharing requirements and the institutional costs as well. Cynthia Hudson Vitale from ARL is a PI who's leading this work, so I'm not the authority to speak fully on behalf of this project, but I can say that while the work is still ongoing, we have already catalyzed conversations with stakeholders on thinking through the costs of research data sharing. Therefore, I urge agencies to take this into consideration. How can comply as guidelines factor in these needed investments and costs for managing data, the efforts to curate in the infrastructure we maintain and aim to maintain support robust data sharing that meets the vision of the OSTP memo. And what is the role of not only individual libraries, but these consortia and group efforts to organizationally build our capacity and meet this vision. And I also reiterate, as the previous speakers, the importance of policy harmonization across the agencies to streamline processes for compliance. We seek to build services and infrastructure that enable the broadest spectrum of users to meet requirements. And we again strive to meet the global standards for data per the fair principles. And when we're looking at the range of research outputs now covered in the humanities and social sciences as well as the sciences that is being generated. I hope you will consider balancing compliance policies across agencies to account for the varied types of research. And as others have noted are the equity issues around data sharing. What institutions have to support researchers to openly share research outputs is a critical issue, and it's not just servers and storage. Again, some institutions have staff to advise and assist researchers with data management and some have none. Some have host data repositories, while other researchers must knit together their own network of expertise and storage and leverage repositories from agencies and professional organizations. And I'd also reiterate that disciplines are part of the equity. Digital humanities in the humanities will generate richly diverse types of publications and data. And how might we acknowledge these diverse research outputs and data format is all federally funded research outcome become enmeshed in this framework of open research. And this is just the tip of the iceberg on the equity issues and for institutions and researchers and the questions they must grapple with and negotiate in order to meet the vision of the memo. In conclusion, I'm fully committed to this vision of making us taxpayers investment and research democratically accessible and open in the fullest way. And I urge agencies and funding administrators to consider the full scope of institutional investments required to meet open access and data sharing compliance. And again, consider the greatly diversified nature of the work that would be impacted in the scope of open access significantly wider than the lens. I very much look forward to the conversations ahead and hope that the guidelines will recognize an account for the multiple stakeholders that partner together to enable the fullest access to research output. Thank you. Nandita you're muted. Thank you. So thank you to my colleagues and to ARL and ACRL and those from the federal agencies for this opportunity to share perspective and ideas and how academic research libraries can partner to advance policy formulation and change. I come to you with around 20 years of experience in the health sciences and more recently perspective as a dean who engages across campus to see in what ways libraries can partner and advance efforts in the research enterprise. The University of Massachusetts is a large public land grant R1 institution, which has significant federal funding from over 14 agencies, which really cross all disciplines across the university. When we think about consultation and coordination in these efforts, opportunities for disseminating completed research varies widely across disciplines as various funders have had different criteria and institutions and vastly different funding and staffing available to meet expanding mandates for sharing publicly funded research. So we need to be working collaboratively and strategically on shared policies and standards that take into account the variety of disciplines being served by our institutions. While many universities have institutional repositories, as my colleagues mentioned earlier, agencies have varying levels of support for data deposit, which leaves researchers in flux about where to deposit data, compared to oftentimes in the health sciences, which have repositories that are connected to account the variety of disciplines being served by our institutions. While many universities have institutional repositories are included. There is no current coordinated effort to link institutional repositories on a national scale, nor are institutional repositories the same. For example, not all repositories can handle the different formats researchers produce. They are focused on articles, book chapters and traditional publications, while software data and other complex products appear reviewed and federally funded research remain unsupported, such as those in the digital humanities. So policies should expand beyond addressing traditional publications and need to include existing formats and remain flexible to be able to incorporate new formats as they emerge. Institutions fall along a spectrum of highly funded to less funded for resources available to help researchers meet these mandates to ensure that all institutions that receive federal funding will be able to coordinate with OSTP to ensure equitable delivery of federally funded research results and data series consideration needs to be given to developing strategies to support less funded institutions. There are existing initiatives that are working towards coordination that could be effective partners in these efforts, including Helios, Spark, the US repository network and open research funders group. It would be ideal to integrate these entities as you work towards policy generation to see how mutually beneficial efforts can be addressed. So how can agencies help make the mandate more equitable and effective. Make it easier for institutions to support faculty across disciplines through coordination of policy development, both federal among federal agencies and between agencies, higher education and research institutions, and third party infrastructure providers. You can also encourage agencies to require public access to peer reviewed book chapters, editorials and peer reviewed conference proceedings. This will begin to level the access to research in fields that traditionally publish in other formats beyond journal articles. There were recommendations in the OSTP memo asking federal agencies to coordinate the plan for public access together. It would be more effective for academic institutions, research libraries and publishers and providers to be part of those coordinating efforts so that agencies can see how policies are affecting the institutions that will be doing the work of making research publicly accessible. Building capacity for robust infrastructure expertise can reduce burden on researchers, libraries, information technology professionals and offices of research and compliance. So a couple of things to consider are guarding against highly distributed agency repository and proprietary platforms. For example, according to the directory of open access repositories. The US has around 922 repositories that are discipline based governmental and institutional that are using over 16 different software platforms, as well as repository solutions created by in house programmers. Federal repositories include well used resources such as the USGS Publications Warehouse, USDA National Agricultural Library, NASA, technical reports server, and the NIS team materials data repository. Multitude interfaces creates barriers for researchers and users who have to determine which repository to use and or how to use many different platforms to determine, sorry, to to determine how to use those platform interfaces, which then brings in a full element around user interface design that needs to be addressed. This is especially so for those who work across disciplines, or on interdisciplinary projects, an example that I would highly like to share that could be replicated and expanded on for federal and federally endorsed repositories on a national scale includes the data storage finder resource produced at Cornell University. It would be to encourage incentivize and fund open source standard based platforms and researcher driven governance. So consider developing an aggregated database or federated search engine of federally funded research across all agencies, such as your piano or lens. Integrate established non proprietary unique digital persistent identifier such as orchid DOI and the research organization registry. The repository capacity and make repositories extensible to seamlessly handle all scientific data, such as software and visualizations, which enable research replication and reproduction and building repositories that are interoperable and use standard metadata. According to open door only 19 of the repositories in the US hold software, and then I end the NIS team materials data repository is the only governmental repository to do so. Of course, investing in human capital needed to implement these policies is going to be absolutely critical. These include funding for libraries to support research and data needs information technology professionals and funding to support the information technology infrastructure. These will impact researchers who have not previously had to comply with data sharing or public access policies, and will require expansion of the core services and staff who support those faculty, and who will be responsible for understanding and ensuring policy compliance. This will increase demand for accessible infrastructure for the storage and dissemination of a wide variety of research outputs. Institutions have varying budgets and current infrastructure. How we get how we navigate the have and they have not is going to be important as we think about a sustainable solution that includes key areas such as research security, including cybersecurity and associated training. There is a steel of research that has confidentiality concerns, and there are very few available commercial options for institutions to purchase that can meet the security needs for confidential data. Building on the success of health sciences repository such as PubMed Central, who have agreements with many journal publishers to assist with data deposit, and considering the following as you ideate around policy generation would be great. Let's talk about data privacy, data storage and compliance capacity, having those consistent and my colleagues spoke about the harmonization needed between policies and standards, and thinking about assessment and compliance and impact. In conclusion, I just would like to say that I think there's a lot of opportunities to work together, and also to partner with institutions such as those that my colleagues and I are representing to kind of work through the different types of workflow. As you start generating the policy and what it may look like in the real world. So stepping through that workflow having the partners at the table and having those conversations with a variety of institutions that are thinking about this work to find out what works and what may need additional support would be great. So thank you again for that opportunity to share with you. Well, thank you so much to everyone who spoke on this session everyone who listened or commented, and to everyone who had a hand in this expansive public access policy that we've been discussing. And ACRL convene this listening session to provide a channel of communication between academic and research libraries and federal agencies on the NSTC subcommittee on open science as they update or develop their public access plans. It was not the first such communication. And I hope it won't be the last. The US research enterprise is a vast complicated and evolving, some of which we have what we heard today really touches on areas outside the immediate responsibility of Sandra said of either libraries or agencies but are in spaces where we have some interaction and some influence such as researcher behavior. The comments that you submitted, many of you, and from our speakers today. We heard a general resounding enthusiasm for expanded public access and an appreciation for how this guidance and your forthcoming agency plans will increase public participation and federally funded science. We also heard genuine spirit of partnership to see successful policy implementation within our academic and research institutions. We also heard genuine concerns real concerns about costs and economic models for most of which seems to be the cost from the survey comments the cost of data management and storage. Something reflected here today the cost of article processing charges or APCs and resourcing for institutional repositories we also heard a lot about the costs around training. So that's very interesting librarians expressed that the more the agency plans are harmonized or have key elements in common the better and we might look at the great work done by the NSTC in the common disclosure form on the research security side for a model. So I think that our libraries clearly will be able to or want to pay for open access publishing on an article basis and our seem to be asking for flexibility and agency plans. Also consideration of non article formats. Thank you Nandita, as well as increased federal investment in agency based repositories. And I want to break in here that one of our agency colleagues Brian hits and from DOE shared that maybe in some of our comments and assumption that gold away and APC fees, you know, are what the new guidance sort of means and while he clarifies that while publishers may start limiting or narrowing author options to gold away it's important to note that the OSTP memo itself doesn't endorse one business model over another that green away deposits into agency repositories remain a path to achieving compliance. So repositories individually and in networks, many of which were mentioned here today, some and and some of which are represented on this amazing panel, have repository and curation infrastructure that they can bring to bear on the institutional implementation and so they would all like to be considered as agency policies evolve. I've heard that open source non proprietary and standards based infrastructure will help overcome the challenge of distributed repositories. And so we hope that those issues will be prioritized in plans. There's a lot about existing library services and human expertise to facilitate public access services already in place from reporting and coordination with research offices supporting persistent identifiers active research data storage dark preservation broad consultation on author rights and deposit issues, as well as data management planning. We heard lots of concerns about equity and a number of levels including across disciplines, and also that libraries and their networks can help address some of this through their collaboration and sort of service to all disciplines. We heard build on build on these and other past successes, a particular nod to the health sciences community for its work on policy and infrastructure notably PubMed Central and NIH as many data repositories. We also heard how much digital humanities has to offer this conversation. There's a, you know, along with the enthusiasm for the guidance itself there's real hope that agencies will partner with higher education institutions and networks like the US repository network to test policies workflows and technology. That everyone on this call sort of shares what I see as a broad set of opportunities for all of us to work together on outreach and education for our investigators to work together to minimize administrative burden. And for the libraries and their networks to work together on the training necessary to scale up to meet this moment and to, as was mentioned share intelligence and forecasting on the very real costs of this work. So with that, the recording of this session will be available on the ARL website shortly. On behalf of ARL and ACRL. I want to thank you once again to our speakers to our listeners to all of you for your engagement on this vitally important expansion of public access to federally funded science and scholarship. Thank you.


Lisa, we're here with a little bit of snow on the ground, more to come this week, and Winter Fest is coming up. You have a lot of plans going on, a lot of things happening. Tell us a little bit about the event. Well, we have two days of events planned, so we start Friday night, January 29th, and we'll be having a celebration down in the Nightville part of South Portland, which is right down the street from Mill Creek, where we are now. Several businesses are going to be participating within store specials.  So that's something we have going on Friday night. Back here at the pond, we're going to have a skating party. We're going to have s'mores and fire pits and hot cocoa. That's all free, provided by our sponsors. Soco and Bitterford Savings is sponsoring that, and the by-local of Cape Elizabeth South Portland. We'll have a radio broadcast here, so there'll be some music playing. There'll be some on-ice games for the kids to play, and that's from 6-8 p.m. Friday night. Saturday, we start over at the Community Center with our annual pancake breakfast, sponsored by the Lions Club of Cape Elizabeth, and then we go over to Wainwright Recreation Complex at about 11.30, and there'll be activities all day, from our Chili Chowder Fest to Open Skate for Families, a hockey clinic put on by the South Portland High School Boys hockey team. We'll be having wagon rides, and the end of the day, we're going to be having a fireworks display, which will be kicking off about 6.15 p.m. And you can skate on the ice while you watch the fireworks, and we're hoping for a beautiful night, so it'll all come together that way. Well, it's certainly a lot for everybody, and a lot for everybody in the family. What's the genesis of this? Why does the city do this? Well, we got together with the Rotary of South Portland, Cape Elizabeth, about four years ago, and they wanted to do something for the community in the winter that promoted outdoor winter activity for families to take advantage of the parks and the facilities that we have here in the winter. So by collaborating with them, they do all the fundraising for this. They raise all of the funds for this, and it helps them as well for their scholarship funding and the things that they do to put back out into the community. And it's just a great community partnership. And we've always said that our parks are really underutilized in the winter time, so we really want to get families out there to enjoy what there is to do. And I'm sure you're not doing this all by yourself, organizing this. Who helps you out with this? Well, it is a huge group effort. So the Rotary Club, all of our sponsors, we have a Bath Savings Institution is one of our primary sponsors this year. But as far as all the legwork goes, the Rotarians and all of their volunteers do a tremendous amount of work for us. Our parks department does a tremendous amount of work prepping all the parks and the areas for us and getting things ready. And we have just so many community sponsors. There's just way too many to mention, but we are going to be, you know, we put it out in the community to them. Everybody from by local to the chamber. It's really coming together as to be a total community effort. And it sounds like it's a family-friendly event. It's not just for adults or just for kids. Everything is family-friendly. Bring the kids. If you can, you know, bundle them up. We really hope for good snow and good ice. Last year it was really cold out. We're hoping for a little milder temperatures this year so that people can be outside for a while and enjoy it, so. If you want more information about this, if they want to register for some of the events or pick up the big old card, where can they get more information? They can go to, we have a Facebook page, South Portland Winter Fest. And you can go to that. We'll be putting our schedule up probably next week on the city website, which is www.southportland.org. And that will be there as well as on our Facebook page. And they can contact me if they want at the community center. My email is lthompson at southportland.org. Or they can call 767-765-0 for information on any of the events.