ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES NEWSLETTER OF THE FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Vol. 20, no. 05 GP 3.16/3-2:20/05 February 25, 1999 PUTTING THE COLLECTION MANAGEMENT PLAN INTO EFFECT REMARKS BY LAURIE BEYER HALL PROGRAM ANALYST Before the Federal Documents Task Force and Cataloging Committee, Government Documents Round Table American Library Association Philadelphia, PA January 31, 1999 Good morning! Today I am going to talk about the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) Electronic Collection. Specific cataloging practices, such as the application of PURLS and the use of the 856 field that were just discussed, must be examined within the broader context of LPS mission, goals and the vision for building the FDLP Electronic Collection. In mid-November, I was given the task of overseeing the analysis and development of procedures that reflect the policies described in the collection management plan, Managing the FDLP Electronic Collection, published in October 1998. (Copies were distributed to all libraries and it is also available for download from the FDLP Administration page.) In other words, I was tasked with preparing to, "make it happen" in LPS. For those of you who don't know me, I usually don't attend conferences. I'm behind the scenes. I do all sorts of different things. In LPS, I've been a cataloger, a supervisor in Cataloging, temporary chief of the Cataloging Branch, and currently I'm the systems/program analyst for several LPS systems. Before coming to LPS in the mid-80's, I worked in a corporate library, a public library and two academic libraries, one in the Federal Depository Library Program. Before this project began, I was the voice behind askLPS and I've worked on a variety of projects from the Web applications for item selections to WEBTech Notes. So I guess Gil Baldwin thought I have enough experience to handle such a task. We shall see. Building the FDLP Electronic Collection is a very daunting yet exciting prospect because for the first time in many years, GPO will actually have a collection to build, manage and care for. To jump start the project, I began talking to LPS staff to try to get a handle on all of the issues involved and soon realized that I could not handle this project alone. I cajoled Gil into allowing Judy Andrews, Electronic Transition Specialist, to be my partner in this endeavor. One of Judy's assignments since she came to LPS this past summer has been to evaluate existing Pathway Services. Judy and I began assessing prior attempts by LPS to bring electronic resources into the FDLP. The piecemeal approach that LPS developed over the last few years had its problems. Attempting to manipulate the existing workflow, which was developed for tangible products, created inconsistencies and bottlenecks. It soon became apparent that we needed to look at electronic resources from a "holistic" approach, through the life cycle of each resource. We gathered together a team comprised of LPS and Electronic Information Dissemination Service (EIDS) staff to discuss how to identify, evaluate, acquire, catalog, and provide ongoing access to the electronic resources that would become part of the FDLP Electronic Collection. Working together with catalogers, classifiers, technology types and just plain librarians, the group recognized there were three important goals that would guide the building of the electronic collection. These were: 1. the need to provide for permanent public access to Government information; 2. the recognition of the reference needs of our user community: and, 3. our historical role of providing quality cataloging for Government information resources. The goals the team identified follow the policies outlined in Managing the FDLP Electronic Collection, and are reasonable extensions of the authority mandated in Title 44, Chapters 19, and 41, the GPO Access law. The team is investigating a wide variety of issues. We will be exploring archiving technologies, building decision matrixes and discussing possible changes to online products and services. We will be experimenting with a lot of approaches, so be patient as we work through this project. This collection is unique and some of the standard techniques we have employed in providing information to the depository community in the past do not work as well as they should. We have to be inventive. And in this dynamic environment it's difficult to agree on the best approaches to take. THE FDLP ELECTRONIC COLLECTION What made our task a little bit easier is the fact that we were not building a collection from scratch. The collection, as defined in the management plan, consists of four categories. Two of the four major components of the FDLP Electronic Collection are already well established: category one , the core legislative and regulatory GPO Access products, and category four, the tangible electronic Government information products distributed to Federal depository libraries. Recognizing that these portions of the collection exist, we chose to focus our efforts on the remaining two components of the collection. These are category two, the remotely accessible products managed by either GPO or other institutions which GPO has established formal agreements, and category three, remotely accessible electronic Government information products that GPO identifies, describes and links to but which remain under the control of the originating agencies. Even though LPS is focusing primarily on these two parts of the collection, the team is cognizant of and discussing the other major issues relevant to the other parts of the collection. PROPOSED DIRECTIONS Here are some of the tasks the team and other LPS staff will be working on in the months to come: 1. Enlarge and improve communications 2. Refine criteria for selection 3. Refine criteria for analyzing resources selected for the collection 4. Test processing decisions 5. Investigate storage options 6. Evaluate locator services 7. Investigate collection management implications COMMUNICATIONS One of the major factors influencing the effective management of the collection is communications. Because so many parties have a vested interest in the FDLP Electronic Collection, the task of facilitating effective communications is critical. To organize this effort, the LPS team have identified four groups of constituents where our communications efforts will be focused in the coming months. They are: 1. FDLP depository community; 2. publishing agencies; 3. peer institutions such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the National Libraries; and, 4. internal GPO offices. FDLP Depository Library Community: Communicating with the FDLP depository library community about our plans for the electronic collection is the reason we're here today. We want to continue discussions about the electronic services LPS and GPO currently provide through feedback from focus groups, askLPS and conferences, including the Federal Librarians Round Table (FLRT). We welcome your suggestions and comments concerning our plans for the electronic collection as outlined here. And we always encourage active participation in our endeavors such as Browse Topics, partnerships and other proposed electronic initiatives including archiving electronic resources. Agencies: Our outreach activities with agencies will help us better manage the resources that make up the FDLP Electronic Collection. By establishing contacts with the agency management personnel, we can explain the importance of providing permanent public access to agency electronic resources and investigate arrangements that will make the goal possible. We plan to become more active participants at conferences hosted by the Institute of Federal Printing and Electronic Publishing, the Federal Webmasters Group and the Federal Publishers Committee. We hope this participation will broaden our knowledge. It will assist us in our evaluations of GPO Web services and enable us to articulate the concerns that we hear from the FDLP community. We are investigating system applications that will allow us to automatically notify an agency when we select an electronic resource for the collection. Peer Institutions: We continue to be in contact with peer institutions such as the National Agricultural Library (NAL), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Library of Congress (LC), and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). Staff of LPS and ETS continue attending meetings dealing with NAL electronic initiatives, LC systems technology activities and most recently , the GPO/NTIS partnership. By attending and participating in such initiatives, a great deal of information can be gleaned and shared with the team. New insights can positively influence our work as we build the electronic collection. Internal: We are also enhancing communications with other organizations inside GPO. We continue to interact with staff from EIDS, GPO Production and the Office of Information Resources Management (OIRM) concerning technology issues. Team members are discussing issues related to software for archiving, authentication and server platforms for storing electronic resources in the collection. Preliminary Criteria for Selection: As our communications efforts continue, our team is also developing the criteria for selection. The first step in determining what will be included in the collection is to assess the legal authority that guides our selection of resources. As with collection development plans that libraries develop for tangible products, electronic resources are selected if they meet the goals and operational mission of the institution. In the case of the FDLP Electronic Collection, the acquisition of online resources is guided by the mission and goals of the FDLP as outlined in Title 44, Chapter 19, U.S. Code, Section 1902. "Government publications, except those... required for official use only or for strictly administrative or operational purposes... shall be made available... for public information." Evaluation includes analyzing the resource to determine if it meets the basic tenets of Title 44. Is it official, authentic Government information? This is usually defined by a .gov, .mil, or .fed.us domain, but occasionally may be an .edu or .org domain, if information found on the site indicates an official relationship. Does it present a major activity of the agency, or is it the product of a major activity of the agency? Reviewing the resources one by one tests both the item and our selection criteria. Non-selection: Most collection plans allow for the non-selection of materials that do not meet the scope of the institution. In the case of the FDLP, Title 44 provides guidance for allowing the exclusion of official use only or administrative material. The LPS team has identified some items that we will not include in the FDLP Electronic Collection. These items are: 1. events/announcements; 2. biographies; 3. job announcements; 4. some news releases; 5. organizational charts; 6. sales/promotional literature; 7. posters; and, 8. items of low informational content. We may expand this list as we continue to review new online resources. Preliminary Criteria for Analyzing Resources Selected for the Collection: Once the selection has been made, the team examines the item's presentation and content. At our team meetings we always ask a lot of questions. Oftentimes, we may e-mail the webmaster or call the agency for additional information. We try to determine how valuable and useful this product is to the FDLP community, and which current locator service would best provide the bibliographic control for this resource. One thing the team agrees on is that some form of bibliographic control will be provided for all resources selected for inclusion in the FDLP Electronic Collection. Processing Decisions: After selection analysis is complete we continue by questioning how a resource will be processed. We are in the initial stages of building a decision matrix, based on our answers to these questions. This matrix will expand and grow as the team continues to evaluate online resources. We will be using actual resources to work through the matrix to see if the results are satisfactory. Beginning with the 1999 "New Additions" list on Browse Electronic Titles (BET), entries have been processed using this preliminary decision matrix. All the processing decisions have yet to be made. We plan to have the matrix more complete by the April Federal Depository Library Conference. Evaluating Locator Services: Examining a resource throughout its life cycle includes listing it in the most appropriate locator service. LPS staff is brainstorming and we are currently examining the potential merger of several tools. This may entail changes in format and presentation for the services we continue to maintain. Our major goal is to provide the services that are easy to use, easy to maintain, and give the best possible access to the electronic resources in the collection. We are currently focussing on BET and Browse Topics. BET: After hearing user input from various focus groups, we are working on some major improvements to the BET. Users want the ability to browse, but also the ability to search all the entries on the BET. We plan to create a database of electronic resources. We are playing with several names: * CORE - Current Online Resource; * NET - New Electronic Titles; and, * SCORE - Searching Current Online Resources. Let us know what you think. We will continue a browsable list of new additions to the collection, but instead of maintaining a long list by agency, you will be able to search a database. We plan to use the same OpenText software that we currently use for WEBTech Notes. The database will include previous BET entries and will be updated weekly. Look for announcements on the BET site. Browse Topics: We are also investigating additional ways to present Browse Topics. We are talking with depository librarians who currently provide a topical approach to Government electronic resources. Maintaining Topics is very labor intensive for LPS staff. We are open to developing a partnership arrangement for Topics and welcome any suggestions from the community. Storing the Collection: We've selected it; we've processed it, and found a way for a user to find it. Now how do we make sure it's still there when you need it? The team envisions the collection being stored using a combination of server space at GPO, at agency sites and at institutional partners' sites. We are currently investigating the possibility of permanently capturing selected agency online resources and archiving them on GPO servers or partnership sites. We are testing archive software and exploring server capacities. At this time, we are considering have the PURL direct users to the agency version until the agency link is broken and cannot be reestablished. Then users will be directed to the archived version stored on GPO servers. This might be an answer to part of the challenge of providing permanent public access. Other questions we are currently asking are how to organize an archive, how users will be assured that the archived version is authentic and what potential maintenance issues we will face as the collection grows. Managing the Collection: The team, in these short few months, has identified a multitude of tasks and proposed directions for LPS to take. These initial efforts are essentially preparing a foundation for building, organizing and managing the collection. This work has been accomplished using existing GPO personnel. An electronic collection manager is needed to coordinate these diverse activities. LPS is taking steps to fill the position of Collection Manager. This will be a key position for the FDLP Electronic Collection. The manager will need to address personnel, maintenance, resource allocation issues and promote cooperation with partners. Certainly a challenge! The Work Continues: Where do we go from here? We have a lot of work to do as you can see. Gil and other LPS managers, Tad and Robin, whose staff is part of the team, continue to support the team and its work. In the months to come, the LPS team will continue to pursue: 1. Better communications with all concerned stakeholders; 2. Work towards consistent internal processing procedures; 3. Create locator services that are easy to use and manage; 4. Pursue permanent public access to the FDLP electronic collection, and finally, 5. Investigate the feasibility of installing an integrated library system at LPS! I want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you this morning about this new endeavor. Be sure to give us your input. Judy and I will be discussing our progress in April at the Federal Depository Library Conference at the Holiday Inn-Bethesda in Bethesda, MD. We'll see you there.