Shipping List
Newsletter of the Public Documents Forum
of the Virginia Library Association
|
Shipping List
Newsletter of the Public Documents Forum of the Virginia Library Association |
| vol. 25, no.2 | May 2000 |
Just a reminder that two programs are being sponsored by GODORT at the annual conference in Chicago this July. "City on a Hill:Building Urban Information Systems" will be presented on Saturday, July 8th from 2:00-4:00pm. "International Statistical Data:Trends, Sources & Issues" will follow on Monday, July 10th from 9:30-noon.
Special thanks to Susan Tulis for her comprehensive report on the Spring Depository Library Council meeting in Rhode Island.
Please send any comments, questions, suggestions, etc. to the editor.-- Janet Justis
Reports Table of Contents:
Mike DiMario, Public Printer
Francis J. Buckley, Jr., Superintendent of Documents
Gil Baldwin, Dir. Library Programs Service
TC Evans, EIDS
Recent Changes to GPO Access
Upcoming Changes to GPO Access
Federal Records Act
Tad Downing, Chief, Cataloging Branch
Laurie Hall, Supervisory Program Analyst
New Council Appointees
Yes, it’s true, we did experience snow in April in Newport, RI. We also had winds, rain, sun and overcast skies. But the weather didn’t deter from the beauty of the location, nor the fine work of the Depository Library Council. This report attempts to summarize the various update reports given by GPO staff and the work of Council itself. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to any of the other informational sessions! Hopefully someone else will report on those programs.
Barbara Weaver, State Librarian of RI (and a former Council member), began the Spring 2000 Depository Library Council meeting with a warm welcome and compliments to all who are involved in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP).
Mike DiMario, Public Printer, talked about funding issues related to GPO and the FDLP. There has been a gradual reduction in funds for the FDLP due to flat funding. GPO’s FY 2001 budget request for the S&E(which includes the FDLP) was $34.5 million - a 15% increase over last year and includes 5 additional positions. DiMario anticipates budget cuts due to the current climate in Washington - at least in the House. Neither house has acted on their budget request as of yet.
Last year GPO experienced a shortfall of $5 million against a $765 million overall budget. While this shortfall is a small percentage of the budget, the Sales Program has experienced a greater loss - due to more publications being put on GPO Access. Prices have been raised in the Sales Program, but it isn’t enough to cover the loss.
If the decision is made to close NTIS, GPO would be happy to continue that program in GPO provided they were given sufficient resources to make that transition. DiMario firmly believes those publications belong in the FDLP.
Francis J. Buckley, Jr., Superintendent of Documents, began with the recognition of the importance of the partnership between libraries and the government in the provision of access to government information to the public. This was followed by a success story, Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids, released in December 1999. This resource for students, parents, and teachers provides a fun and educational introduction to how the U.S. Government works based on information resources available through GPO Access.
In its first month, the site received just over 100,000 retrievals. By February 2000, this number jumped to approximately 350,000.
Since its release, Ben’s Guide has received excellent feedback and many forms of recognition, including the ALA’s 2000 Notable Children's Web Sites Award, USA Today’s Hot Site of the Week, and Pacific Bell’s Blue Web ‘n.
Virtual Ben receives e-mail from individuals (especially children) all over the world asking such questions as “Can Ben come to my birthday party?” to “Does a person running for president have to have lived in the U.S. for 14 consecutive years?”
Next, Buckley gave an update on the activity of the Permanent Public Access Working Group which recently held its third meeting. In the coming months, members of the PPA Working Group will be formulating goals. Some draft goals include:
This update was followed by a report on the research project GPO has been participating in (along with several other agencies), on government websites. The project is headed by Dr. Charles McClure and is designed to explore appropriate performance measures for Federal agency websites. Among the topics GPO sees as important for Federal websites are depository library access, Permanent Public Access, how agency pages are located and retrieved on commonly used search engines, no fees or copyright like restrictions, customer satisfaction ratings, user support, and training. Dr. McClure plans to develop a recommended set of criteria for agencies to use in evaluating website performance. These will be tested on participating agency sites and the results included in the project’s final report, scheduled for release in September of this year.
Buckley also talked about the impact of the digital revolution on the FDLP. Increasingly more government information is in electronic format only. Resource constraints and legislative direction dictate that GPO move to electronic versions and discontinue the simultaneous distribution of titles in two or even three formats.
This digital revolution presents the challenges of the constantly evolving technology to access and use government information. GPO feels that it is time to raise the bar for both service provided and equipment used in depositories. As a result, Council was presented with a number of proposals for consideration. Depository Services Staff Proposal 3 would revise the “Depository Library Service Guidelines for Government Information in Electronic Formats” to establish a service requirement for tangible electronic products. Another proposal has to do with the Recommended Specifications for Public Access to Workstations in Federal Depository Libraries for 2000. These recommended specifications are intended to assist depository librarians in making informed purchases which will best achieve the goal of providing public access to Federal government information in a variety of electronic formats.
Lastly, Buckley discussed the Sales Program which has seen both a decline in sales volume and in the number of salable titles available. GPO working on short- and long-term strategies to deal with this situation, including price increases, cost-cutting measures, new methods of increasing public awareness of the products for sale, and an analysis of where a predominantly print sales operation will fit into the increasingly electronic future of Government publishing. GPO is also re-examining the role of its bookstores, as well as its reimbursable services activities in the Washington area and at the Distribution Center in Pueblo, Colorado. GPO has just completed a study of the Pueblo operation's future workload potential at the request of the House Appropriations Committee, since the overall declining workload in print publications distribution is a factor there too.
Buckley ended by saying he looked forward to working with members of the Council over the next 3 days as they plot our future course in this ICE Age - Internet Changes Everything.
Gil Baldwin, Director, Library Programs Service, gave a topical overview of LPS activities with a preview of related programs and discussions for the rest of the meeting. In terms of the transition to a more electronic FDLP, Baldwin stated that absent a legislative change when the transition is over the FDLP will look pretty much as it does in 2000, only more so. More information will be provided solely electronically; more users will download more content; there will be more emphasis on cataloging and locator services; there will be more electronic acquisition and archiving; there will be more partnerships for a greater variety of purposes; and there will also be expectations for more services, not just from GPO, but also more services from libraries to users.
Naturally, GPO’s ability to move forward on these issues is dependent upon the availability of resources. The continued pattern of level funding is a real concern and constrained funding may prevent GPO from undertaking everything that they would like to do, and might possibly require the curtailment of some traditional products or services.
Buckley already mentioned the 2000 Recommended Specifications for Public Access Workstations. Also presented to Council was Proposal #2 - “Increase the Minimum Technical Requirements for Public Access Workstations in Federal Depository Libraries at Regular Intervals.” The “Recommended Technical Specifications” for new public access workstations coexisted in a confusing way with the technical requirements used for inspections. LPS is working to clear up the confusion, and result in better service to the public. They propose to establish a rolling schedule of announcing new specifications, giving depositories about 15 months of lead time, and then begin to use them as the requirements for inspections.
These technical upgrades are linked to a service proposal as well. Proposal #3 is to “Revise the “Depository Library Public Service Guidelines for Government Information in Electronic Formats” to establish a service requirement for tangible electronic products. What this would mean is that all depository libraries must make tangible electronic products and services (CD-ROMs, DVDs, floppy diskettes) which they select available to the general public in a timely manner. While circulation of CDs and DVDs is encouraged this alone does not relieve the depository of its duty to assist patrons in accessing the information. The depository must demonstrate a "good faith" effort in providing in-house assistance to patrons wishing to use CDs and DVDs.
These proposals are essential steps to move the program forward. But it is also essential for depository libraries to improve and expand their own capabilities to deliver electronic content to end users.
Online electronic U.S. Government information is the most prevalent dissemination medium in the FDLP, amounting to about 52% of new titles added this year. At the same time, the distribution of tangible products continues to decline compared to FY 1999. Paper is holding steady at about 20% of the program titles, while microfiche has declined to 27%. Tangible electronics, now almost all CD-ROM, have almost dropped off the charts, down to about 1/10 of 1%.
LPS is phasing out the physical distribution of certain FDLP microfiche titles and migrating to the online version, when an official, reliable electronic version is available. As part of this migration process, LPS is identifying groups of titles that agencies issue in both print and online versions. When LPS determines that the content of the online version is substantially equivalent or superior to the print version, LPS selects the online version for the FDLP.
LPS will discontinue distributing GAO publications in microfiche as of September 30, 2000. LPS will also discontinue distribution of the Congressional Bills on microfiche effective with the last of the 106th Congress Bills. Bills are permanently accessible on GPO Access beginning with the 103rd Congress.
The archive component of the FDLP/EC is now in operation. Issues of two publications in the FDLP/EC recently became unavailable from their agency source and users are being redirected, via the PURL, to archived copies on GPO servers. Electronic publications acquired for the FDLP/EC in online form only (with no tangible equivalent in the FDLP) are being captured, documented, and stored. GPO staff are still learning to effectively manage a multiplicity of file types, formats, and web design issues, but are actively transferring earlier experimental captures to the archive server, and are adding newly acquired publications regularly.
GPO is still pursuing the vision of a distributed electronic archive, as described in the 1998 plan for Managing the FDLP Electronic Collection. Electronic content may be stored on GPO servers, at the originating agency, at partner sites, or at other external sites, or at combinations of these. To this end, GPO continues to meet and work with OCLC to develop the requirements, technical infrastructure, and the business model for digital archiving from OCLC.
In light of problems with batching, misdirected shipments, delayed receipts and resulting processing problems for depository libraries, LPS elected not to exercise its contract option year with Potomac Business Center (PBC). Previous mail contracts have covered all GPO mailers and were not specific to the needs of the Federal Depository Library Program. Unfortunately, this resulted in more generic contractual language with insufficient safeguards for quality service to libraries. However, because of the many inconsistencies in the performance of this past contract, LPS is now able to segregate its pick up and delivery requirements and has completed a much-strengthened Statement of Work to begin the procurement process for an upcoming mailing contract. GPO’s Procurement Office announced the requirement for pick up and delivery services in the Commerce Business Daily on March 2, 2000. In addition, LPS began date stamping all outgoing boxes in early March, and is also upgrading its TanData system to increase the ability to track depository materials from the time shipments leave GPO to the time shipments arrive at depository libraries. All changes should be in place by mid-June, 2000.
The FDLP Administration Web pages on GPO Access are extensive and sometimes it’s not so easy to find the article, product, or service that you want. As a result, GPO has come up with a prototype design for a new set of pages, called the FDLP Desktop. Please check it out [www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/test/FDLPDESK.HTML] and forward your comments to Laurie Beyer Hall <lhall@gpo.gov> by Friday, May 5.
TC Evans, EIDS, gave an update on
the ever-changing state of GPO Access. The most recent online survey of
GPO Access users (19% of which identified themselves as representing depositories)
garnered the following:
In terms of system performance, GPO continues to try to provide
the fastest possible response times. Data indicates that the BigIP
server controller array has definitely provided a superior balancing of
the user load and effectively distributed the workload throughout GPO’s
resources. Some delays have been encountered in upgrading the bandwidth
and this continues to pose problems during the busiest hours of the day.
GPO is working closely with their ISP to maximize performance through the
existing circuitry. The bandwidth upgrade is expected to be completed in
the next few weeks.
February was the busiest month ever on GPO Access, with almost 23.3 million downloads recorded. Based on GPO’s monitoring of the bandwidth utilization reports, it is reasonable to assume that GPO Access retrievals would have been even higher if more bandwidth had been available. Keep in mind that there is some unknown amount of additional usage that is unmeasurable.
GPO Access now contains more than 106,000 electronic titles, points to over 68,000 others, and there are almost 1,500 databases available.
The GPO Access User Support Team handled almost 7,000 inquiries in February, the most since last April. Of these approximately 4,500 were telephone calls and over 2,400 were e-mails.
The redesigned Online Bookstore <http://bookstore.gpo.gov> is receiving more traffic which translates into increasing electronic sales. New data indicates that more users are starting to submit their orders electronically, rather than printing them out and sending them in.
GPO has an ongoing project to evaluate how its resources are presented through major search engines and to work towards improving this performance. In the latest evaluation, the most effective search engines at returning GPO Access resources in their results were:
The Open Directory Project at 58%The other engines evaluated, presented alphabetically were About, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, AOL.com, DirectHit, Excite, Governmentguide (AOL), LookSmart, Lycos, Magellan, MSN Search, Northern Light (free), Yahoo, and Yep.
Google-Uncle Sam at 54%
IWon at 51%
Snap at 51%
HotBot at 49%
Northern Lights (fee-based) USGovsearch at 43%
Google at 40%
Go.com at 37%
GoTo at 37%
Webcrawler at 33%
Some recent changes to GPO Access
include:
Council’s Electronic Transition Committee, chaired by Maggie Farrell,
reviewed GPO’s progress on the transition to a more electronic FDLP and
presented its report at the Spring 2000 meeting. The ET Committee
analyzed GPO reports: Completing the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP,
Council Discussion Draft, 4/12/99 and Progress Report on the Transition
to a More Electronic FDLP, 1996-1999. The Committee looked at the
following issues:
Are the assumptions stated valid? Are there additional assumptions which should be considered? What actions should GPO take to strengthen the FDLP in light of these assumptions? Are the current activities of GPO appropriate? Has GPO effectively met the milestones in the Progress Report? Are the reasons for activities deferred valid? What are the next steps of the transition and how should GPO be positioning itself for a more electronic FDLP?
Two strong themes emerged from the ET report: 1) finding aids - more emphasis is needed to locate and use finding aids on GPO website and GPO Access, as well as explaining the relationship between finding aids. These finding aids need to be tools that anyone can use, not just people with a knowledge of FDLP. Farrell suggested that maybe the new FDLP Desktop will address some of these concerns.
The second theme dealt with training. While we have seen training increase, it should be expanded beyond the FDLP or train the trainer so depository librarians can go out and train others in their area who might not be depository librarians.
Overall the report stresses that there is encouragement that FDLP can reach beyond depository libraries.
Greg Lawrence, Chair of the Preservation Committee, presented to Council “Risk Management of Digital Information: A Risk Assessment Workbook for Federal Depository Libraries - Discussion Draft”. Lawrence recommended at the last Council meeting that depository librarians should take steps to refresh digital information. He sees this workbook as a useful way to prepare for internal organizational discussion of this issue. He also feels the workbook will work for online information as well.
George Barnum, Electronic Collection Manager, and Robin Haun-Mohamed, Depository Administration Branch, were asked to give status of nonprint tangible electronic materials with regard to GPO’s deposit requirements with NARA. They in fact, described what procedures GPO has in place for all tangible items in FDLP and how the transfer works.
The Federal Records Act requires that all government agencies take a variety of steps to ensure that the essential evidence of the functions of government are appropriately preserved. Remember records are more than just publications. A revised Record Schedule for GPO Records was issued in 1996. Under that schedule, all publications cataloged in MoCat are to be retained permanently and transferred to NARA for retention. (In this sense, the “residue” of the cataloging process, including the various marginalia and notes added as part of the cataloging process, are the evidence of GPO carrying out its statutory cataloging and indexing function as specified in 44 USC 1701.) Although these are federal agency publications - the evidence they provide is not of the operation of the agency that created them, but rather of the cataloging and Indexing function of GPO.
What constitutes a Federal Record can vary from agency to agency and NARA and the agencies decide which Federal Records will be accessioned and archived. Not all records are kept forever. LPS works with GPO’s Support Services offices to ensure that its records are sent to the Federal Records Center in Suitland, MD as scheduled. A records center is a storage area for records no longer needed for everyday use. These records may be either temporary records (those waiting for their destruction date) or permanent (those waiting to be transferred to NARA). Depository materials are maintained as a collection (kept in SuDocs number order) and kept for 8 years before being sent to the Federal Records Center every 4 years. For publications converted from paper to microfiche, 3 categories of microfiche are produced. The first generation silver halide master copies are sent to NARA every 4 years. The second generation silver reproducible microfiche are used for reprints and blowbacks and sent to LC every 2 years. The diazo copies, sent to depository libraries, are the copies catalogers use for producing the catalog record and are therefore sent to the Federal Records Center on the same schedule as the rest of the cataloged material.
The records schedule GPO is operating under doesn’t address much in terms of electronic records. In 1997, the GPO records management officials initiated a request to NARA for additional scheduling of tangible electronic products from the FDLP. In order for any electronic records to be transferred to NARA they have to be independent of any software - most commonly ascii format. More CD-ROMS do not meet this requirement. During the review process, GPO officials withdrew the request for additional scheduling, since most likely the products would be deemed ineligible for transfer. Until the time that NARA can handle these materials, GPO has retained these items.
The good news is that NARA is working with San Diego Supercomputing Center to address this format independence issue. Plans are underway for an electronic archival system that would receive electronic records without regard to medium, store the information independent of software used to create or retrieve it, and deliver the information based on a sophisticated electronic interpretation of what the particular records needs to be presented to a user. This system will be developed over the next five years. What NARA is describing could have enormous impact on the FDLP collection. Keep in mind though that there will be a portion of material that NARA may not retain that GPO and the depository community feels needs permanent retention.
Tad Downing, Chief, Cataloging Branch, reported that is now a member of BIBliography Cooperative (BIBCO) of the nation Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). So they are now members of all four PCC components. In addition, OCLC recently granted GPO National Level Enhanced Status which authorizes GPO catalogers to modify all OCLC records, including those produced by the national libraries. In January 2000, GPO joined OCLC’s CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog) project. This project is to develop metadata gathering software and make use of it in cataloging operations. OCLC has asked GPO to provide them with guidance on how this software will be developed.
Downing also reported on the status of a number of publications- when we will see them: Periodicals Supplement Yr 2000 - late April, Congressional Serial Set Catalog - end of April, and Dec 1999 & Jan 2000 CD-ROM issue of MoCat - late April. All of these delays have made GPO wonder if there isn’t a better way to access this information.
Note: MoCat CD-ROM 2000 issues will be a new cumulation so you should retain Jan 1998-Dec 1999 issues of CD-ROM.
Laurie Hall, Supervisory Program Analyst, LPS, briefed Council on its report “GPO’s Cataloging and Locator Services:Actions in Progress and Proposals for Change.” In Oct 1999 Council recommended “that GPO conduct a comprehensive review of online locator and finding aid tools to evaluate the need, redundancy, and organization of current tools. The report should also address possible development of new tools. The review process will require Council and Depository library input as well as an analysis of available statistics.”
GPO looked at 6 specific tools: CGP (MoCat online), Browse Electronic Titles, Browse Topics, GILS Application, Federal Agency Internet Sites, and Pathway Indexer service. GPO felt there is utility in everything created, but acknowledged there is some redundancy. Therefore, their objectives were to eliminate redundancy, make services easier to use, have more comprehensive coverage of electronic resources, and make sure those electronic resources in the collection were authentic.
GPO proposes to:
1. Find a partner for the Browse Topics application. GPO will continue its oversight and policy direction role.
2. Simplify the browsable GILS applications by consolidating the Browse GILS Records by Agency and Browse GILS Pointer Records into a single browsable tool. The Browse Pathway GILS Records will be eliminated. Pathway GILS Records are created by LPS staff based primarily on information from the U.S. Government Manual, and are not recognized as official and authoritative by the agencies. GPO will continue to partner with publishing agencies to facilitate those agencies’ fulfilling their mandated GILS responsibilities.
3. Find a Pathway indexer partner.
4. Refocus Browse Electronic Titles (BET) by posting weekly lists of online resources added to the FDLP/EC. The service will be renamed New Electronic Titles (NET). NET entries will appear in a true title arrangement, instead of the BET’s current arrangement by agency. After four weeks, the oldest NET list will be moved to an NET archive. LPS will prioritize cataloging all products listed on NET so they will appear in the searchable CGP as soon as possible. These steps should improve the focus of the BET while encouraging users to search the CGP as the prime resource for identifying, locating, and accessing both tangible and online products.
5. Phase out the MoCat CD-ROM edition following completion of the 2000 issues. The CD-ROM edition’s design is not optimal, it is slow and expensive to publish, and it replicates content presented in the CGP on GPO Access. A possible alternative is to reduce the frequency of the Monthly Catalog CD-ROM edition to an annual cumulation.
6. Reconfigure the print Monthly Catalog to a browsable current awareness list of products arranged in classification number sequence. This will speed up the announcement of new FDLP products by allowing LPS to produce the print edition via desktop publishing. This will shorten production cycles, reduce costs, and will still meet the monthly “pamphlet” format requirements of 44 U.S.C. 1711.
Charlene C. Cain, LSU Law Library, Baton Rouge, LA;
Cathy Nelson Hartman, University of North Texas, Denton, TX;
Dena Hutto, Reed College, Portland, OR;
Greta E. Marlatt, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA; and
John A. Stevenson, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Fall Depository Library Conference & Council Meeting
October 22-25, 2000 at the Holiday Inn Rosslyn Westpark Hotel, 1900 N. Fort Meyer Drive, Arlington, VA. Rooms are available at $126.00 (includes tax) per night. Call 1-800-368-3408 or 703-807-2000 and mention Code:DLC.
Submitted by Susan E. Tulis
Editor's Note:
Susan also submitted Draft Recommendations from Council, however,
in this electronic age, Duncan Aldrich, Chair DLC has announced that the
"Final Version of Council Recommendations" has been posted and can be viewed
on the Council's
web page. The final recommendations will also appear in Administrative
Notes in May.
I attended an open forum presented by T.C. Evans on the project to ensure that GPO Access web pages are better indexed by major search engines. Since most GPO Access pages are generated by the user request, this project is only dealing with the main front pages of the system. The pages T.C. presented at the forum were:
GPO Access home pageThe project staff have done three tests of how well these pages show up on search engines. They did a baseline test in October 1999, one in December 1999, and one in March 2000. In none of the tests did any of the above pages rise above a 58% hit rate. The Open Directory Project hit the 58% level in the March evaluation.
Ben's Guide
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
The Congressional Record
CBDNet
The Federal Register
Online Bookstore
At the DLC session T.C. presented the findings of their work thus far.
He explained that search engines work differently, but there are some general
"rules" to follow when assigning metadata tagging. The three tags
the staff are enhancing are: Title, Description, and Keyword.
After talking a bit about the project he opened the floor to suggestions
by librarians of
appropriate indexing terms for the above pages. A staff member
took notes so that they could go back into the meta datatags and input
our suggestions. The hope is that with the added index terms the
hit rate will improve on the search engines.
A full report of the project findings can be found at:
http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/libs/srcheng.htm
Barbie Selby
UVA Law Library
"NARA Regional Records Services"
Stephanie Fawcett, Director of the Records Management Program, National Archives and Records Administration, Northeast Division, presented a very informative program on the services which the NARA Regional Centers offer. Because the attendees were so familiar with NARA the session really took the form of a question and answer session, with us anticipating what she had planned to say.
Essentially, the regional centers can act as a sort of mini-National
Archives for US citizens who don't live near Washington, D.C. Each
region has three separate responsibilities, only one of which is to act
as an archives repository, accessible to the public. The other
two responsibilities are records management and records center. Records
Management staff help agencies manage their active agency records.
They might suggest ways to better access, file, or store the agency records.
Record Center operations actually store records for an agency.
These are not archival records, but actually active agency records which
would not be accessible to the general public.
Of course, the Archives sections in each region act much as the National Archives does in D.C. They have duplicates of many of the fiche/film historical and genealogical materials which are available in D.C. The regional archives centers also contain the federal records orginated by agencies in that region. This would include court cases from the federal courts in that region.
Barbie Selby
UVA Law Library
U.S. Overview/ Carol Hunter, University of Virginia
Patents and Trademarks / Barbie Selby, University of Virginia Law School
Statistics/Barbie Selby, University of Virginia Law School
Virginia Overview and the Virginia Code / Mary Clark, Library of Virginia
GIS and Maps/Bruce Obenhaus, Virginia Tech University
In addition, I want to mention that not only did Bruce
Obenhaus of Virginia Tech provide gracious hospitality on our behalf,
he also posted a webpage linking the presentations for the group’s continued
use:
http://www.lib.vt.edu/subjects/govd/VLAPDFWorkshop_presentation.htm
I have provided a sampling of the enthusiastic responses to our
sessions that day. We should direct our future efforts in continuing workshops
such as these. The need and interest of our community is apparent.
“I was familiar with some of the sites, but there were a lot that I didn’t know AT ALL!”
“…I think that the general / popular areas of govt. docs is a good place for starters to tackle first. I especially liked all of the handouts which give web addresses that I can look into in further depth …”Carol Hunter, PDF Chair“I thought the session was very well organized and helpful as a whole…I’m very glad it was hands-on.”
State
Documents Depository Librarians MeetThe daylong meeting included programs by Rodney Willett of the Virginia Information Provider's Network (VIPNET) and Preston Huff, State Records Administrator. Mr. Willett demonstrated VIPNET, the Commonwealth of Virginia's Official Website. He gave particular attention to the interactive portion of the website, part of Governor Gilmore's effort to make Virginia's government web enabled. Mr. Huff presented a program on electronic records, covering such topics as e-mail retention, web site snapshots, electronic media storage solutions such as HD-ROSETTA, and imaging services.
The group was joined at lunch by Dr. Sandra Treadway, Deputy Librarian of Virginia and by Senator Benjamin Lambert III, who presented Senate Joint Resolution No. 256, honoring the 1000th Shipment of Virginia State Documents.
A business meeting followed lunch, and the group discussed several issues. Mary Clark presented a brief overview of legislation enacted during the 2000 General Assembly. Tom Ray and Janis Young of the Library of Virginia's Technical Services Branch discussed the Library of Virginia's cataloging priorities, and their plans for improved cataloging services for the depositories. The depository librarians indicated they would like to see an effort in place to provide cataloging records on OCLC for electronic publications, especially those that appear to have migrated from print to electronic format only. Currently, the Library of Virginia neither catalogs Internet materials, nor to downloads or publishes in other formats, these materials. Depository librarians also expressed an interest in a supplement to the current state documents shipping list, that would provide information on documents that are no longer published or that are only in electronic format, similar to the federal depository Technical Supplement.
Alan Zoellner of the College of William and Mary asked that the Library of Virginia petition the Virginia Code Commission to have the Code of Virginia distributed to Virginia depository libraries. The Code has been exempt from the program since its inception, even though the Library of Virginia's administration has petitioned the Code Commission on several occasions to have the Code of Virginia included in the program.
The librarians also discussed the pros and cons of ending distribution of General Assembly bills during the session. The timeliness of Internet access via the legislative web site and the fact that recent sessions are still available on the web makes the daily shipment of bills seem redundant, if not wasteful. Most of the depositories do not bind the bills from previous sessions. However, the librarians were not ready to let go of the paper bills completely, as they wanted to be sure the Library of Virginia would remain committed to collecting and binding all versions of the bills for the foreseeable future.
Carol Hunter of the University of Virginia asked if there were any plans in place to digitize any published Virginia materials – such as Swem's Bibliography of Virginia, early Virginia General Assembly House and Senate Journals, and early Virginia Codes. Many colleges and universities, particularly UVA, are digitizing large quantities of materials, and Carol would like to see government documents included in these programs. At this time, the Library of Virginia's digital projects are based on manuscript resources, although other projects might be considered.
Preston Huff offered a tour of the new State Records Center following the business meeting. The Librarians saw demonstration of the Raymond lift system for reaching the 26 foot high shelves in the building, the deep freeze system for sanitizing records, the industrial paper shredder and micro format shredder. A tour of the climate controlled vault and archival facility was also given. Dick Harrington of LVA's Imaging Services demonstrated the Kodak Archive Writer, which turns electronic publications into 16mm microfilm books electronically. The machine can process 2500 pages of electronic text into microfilm in about 10 minutes.
It is hoped everyone who attended left energized and ready to make access to Virginia public documents a more visible part of their collections.
Submitted by Mary Clark, Manager,
State and Federal Documents Programs, The Library of Virginia.
| "Copyright in the Digital Age:
Will Fair Use Survive?" |
 |
Copyright law and the information technology revolution were the focus of a debate held in the University Center at the College of William and Mary on March 15th. Law professors and noted copyright experts Laura Gasaway and Trotter Hardy offered frequently clashing views on this controversial topic.
Hardy, author of Project Looking Forward, an analysis of the changing electronic nature of intellectual property and copyright protection issued by the Copyright Office in 1998, expressed support for legislative efforts such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to extend and strengthen protection for copyright holders. Copyright protection, once confined to a term of just 14 years, has now been stretched to the life of the author plus 70 years. Hardy deemed such extensions “perfectly appropriate” as intellectual property becomes more valuable in contemporary society.
Gasaway, director of the University of North Carolina’s Law Library, voiced opposition to protective legislation such as the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), recently enacted into law by the Virginia General Assembly, which restricts fair use considerations by imposing take-it-or-leave-it licensing requirements on users of certain copyrighted material. Gasaway felt that the length of copyright has become excessive and that librarians need to be on guard against copyright measures that interfere with the needs of scholarship.
The two experts also differed over aspects of copyright that affect electronic reserves and distance learning. Gasaway found no crucial difference between paper and electronic reserves, but Hardy viewed electronic reserves as a potential threat to the publisher’s market in an age of online information transactions. As for distance education, Gasaway thought that digital transmission of copyrighted works to class members without permission of the copyright owner was legal and no different than use of such works in a face to face classroom setting. Hardy felt such use was bound by copyright restrictions because of the potential for student copying and redistribution.
The major theme which emerged was the complexity of most copyright issues in the electronic age. At the end of the debate, both Hardy and Gasaway agreed that students don’t understand copyright, that faculty don’t understand copyright, and, given recent legislation, intellectual property experts don’t understand copyright.
Jim Heller, director of the William and Mary Law Library, moderated the debate which was attended by 125 people. For additional information on copyright issues visit the Copyright Office.
Alan Zoellner, College of William
and Mary
"City of Norfolk Works Hard
to Get Census Count"Many approaches and projects were considered to encourage “targeted” (i.e. previously undercounted) populations to respond positively to the census. Since children were believed to have been a special problem on the last census, representatives from the school system were on the committee, and special packets, including attractive book marks, were sent home with students. The president of the Federation of Civic Leagues was on the committee, and arrangements were made for census speakers to go to civic league meetings. To encourage residents of public housing communities to participate, the plan was to have assistance available on the scene, and to give out small “souvenirs”, such as pencils and plastic cups to the first to complete their forms.
Norfolk Public Library was a major provider of assistance, hosting centers at the main library, Kirn Memorial, and five branches in “targeted” areas. Peggy placed beautiful posters around Kirn, and Beth and Peggy sent at least two posters to each of our eleven branches. Peggy also got a special poster in Spanish for a Cuban-American staff member, who put it up at the Hispanic Catholic Apostolate Center.
There were two especially interesting ventures. Census takers were being trained to go “under bridges” or wherever necessary to count the homeless. Also, two buses were to be wrapped in special census decoration for their regular routes through targeted areas.
As the excitement winds down, I hope everybody filled out and turned in a census form!
Peggy Burgess, Norfolk Public Library
Editor's Note:
The Census Bureau is posting Initial Response Rates for states,
counties, and cities. To see how Virginia and Norfolk faired get
the rates at http://rates.census.gov.
Information at the track level
is also available.
VIVA held two training fairs in March. On March 6th, Alan Zoellner served as facilitator for one the workshops held at the University of Richmond. Gwen Boles and Dexter Evans of Congressional Information Service (CIS) presented demonstrations of the "Universe" products focusing on Congressional Universe. They indicated that changes would occur in the "look" of Statistical Universe later in the spring or by summer. They also emphasized that the service has added a method of linking to journal/newspaper articles related to legislation from the "releated news search " link of the bill tracking reports. On March 7th, Bruce Obenhaus served as facilitator at a similar workshop at Virginia Tech.
McKinley Sielaff is the new Government Information Librarian at the University of Richmond. She previously served as the Federal Documents Coordinator at the University of Wyoming. McKinley can be reached at (804) 289-8851 or by email at bsielaff@richmond.edu.
Janet Justis was named 1999 Librarian of the Year during a reception at Perry Library hosted by the Friends of the Library on May 3, 2000. Since joining the staff in 1995, she has been part of many changes at the library including the merger of government documents with reference and technical services, a multi-year building renovation and expansion project, and increased efforts to deliver information in an electronic environment.
Pete Bruce was named 1999 Support Staff Person of the Year at Perry Library on May 3, 2000. Pete currently works in Systems, and formerly worked in Bibliographic Services. He played a key role in planning and implementing the move of various library collections during the renovation process.
Declaration on Crime and Justice: Meeting the Challenges of the Twentyfirst CenturyA major United Nations conference on crime prevention concluded its one-week session in Vienna on April 17 by adopting what is being called a landmark declaration on crime and justice. After a review and expected approval by the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Declaration will be forwarded to the UN Millennium Assembly in September 2000.
http://www.uncjin.org/Documents/10thcongress/10thcongress.html
Overcoming Human Poverty: UNDP Poverty Report 2000More than 75 per cent of poor nations have measured the extent of poverty on their territory, but less than a third have set targets for reducing it. This United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report recommends that countries strengthen their capacity for governance as a necessary prerequisite for fighting poverty.
http://www.undp.org/povertyreport/
This Millennium Report of the Secretary General of the United Nations, the most comprehensive presentation of the UN’s mission in its history, “sets out a practical vision for the United Nations in a globalized world that has changed dramatically in the 55 years since the Organization was founded. Among its key messages is the need to make globalization more inclusive, to create more opportunities for all, and not leave billions of people in a state of poverty and exclusion.”
We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century
http://www.un.org/millennium/sg/report/full.htm
Carol Hunter, Univ. of Virginia
Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Department of. Public Fishing Lakes Owned by theThose readers, especially those whom have recently moved to the Commonwealth, who also fish will enjoy this guide to the thirty-two public fishing lakes owned and managed by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. In addition to maps of each lake, the guide also contains descriptions of each lake, the angling opportunities at that lake, the facilities (camping, boat ramp, restrooms, picnic areas, etc), directions to the lake, and the name and telephone number of the regional DGIF office.
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. (Richmond, VA: Virginia
Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries, [2000]).
Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission of the Virginia General Assembly.Virginia currently provides for the maintenance of Confederate gravesites in Virginia but there is no similar program for the gravesites of Revolutionary War veterans in Virginia. Furthermore, our state government has never compiled a comprehensive list of Revolutionary War veterans and their gravesites in Virginia. Consequently, the Virginia General assembly, during its 1999 session, finally directed JLARC to study the number and locations of graves of Revolutionary War veterans in Virginia and to then publish an interim report containing a list of the sites in Virginia in which Revolutionary War are buried. House Document No. 91 contains an overview of this mandate, comments from employees of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, an index of Revolutionary War veterans by last name, a list of gravesites (organized by locality of burial), a list of the veterans honored at the Colonial National Historical Park, an interim list of sites where Revolutionary War Veterans are reportedly buried or recognized (the narrative explains the distinction), and the sources of information used to compile the gravesite lists.
Interim Special Report: Revolutionary War Veteran Gravesites in Virginia.
House Document No. 91. (Richmond, VA: Virginia General Assembly, 2000).
Matt Wier
State Documents Librarian
Library of Virginia