ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program [ Back Issues ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- May 1, 1999 GP 3.16/3-2:20/08 (Vol. 20, no. 08) -------------------------------------------------------------------- THE LIBRARY PROGRAMS SERVICE IN TRANSITION Remarks by Gil Baldwin Director, Library Programs Service Before the Depository Library Council and Federal Depository Conference April 12, 1999 Bethesda, MD Good morning, everyone! It's great to see such a large turnout for our combined Federal Depository Conference and Depository Library Council meeting. This will be the last time we get together like this in the spring; our next combined session will be in the fall of 2000 in a place that many of you may remember, the Holiday Inn Westpark in Rosslyn, VA. Status of the Transition Recently we have been taking stock of where we stand with the transition to a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). In our 1996 study, the Government Printing Office (GPO) included a strategic plan for the FDLP electronic transition. While the strategic plan covered fiscal years 1996 through 2001, 28 specific activities were described and milestones established for FY 1996-1998. This progress report is an update on actions taken to accomplish these specific milestones. GPO is pleased to report that 86% of the transition activities for the FY 1996-1998 period have been completed or that, while work is still underway, substantial progress has been made. Of the four deferred activities two were dependent upon additional funding from Congress and were not begun since the requested funding was not approved. The Next Three Years While we were pleased about how much has been accomplished, the more critical part of this effort will be to visualize what the program will look like in less than three years, and then to make the necessary mid-course corrections necessary to attain that outcome. As part of this planning, we have developed a set of assumptions about key Governmental, environmental, and organizational issues that will shape what the program becomes. Here are some of the key assumptions that we are working with: * By FY 2002, we will have completed the major portion of the transition. After that the FDLP will continue to evolve in response to developments in information technology, agency publishing practices, and the legislative and information policy environment. * The statutory basis for the program will not significantly change; there will still be unresolved issues of overall Government information policy. * The allocation of GPO program resources will continue to shift from acquiring and disseminating tangible products to managing the FDLP Electronic Collection. There will be a parallel trend in depository library operations. * The mix of depository products will change in tandem with agency publishing practices. When agencies publish both print and electronic versions of a product, GPO's general approach will be to select the electronic version for the FDLP. * Demographic changes, advancing technology, and a population more comfortable with computer use will change the perception and expectations of the FDLP among both depository librarians and public users. Council Committee Activities Many of these issues will be discussed in Council committee sessions tomorrow afternoon from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Maryland Room. These discussions will involve both the Cataloging and Locator Services Committee and the recently-formed Electronic Transition Committee. Some of our topics for discussion will be whether these assumptions are valid. Are there other relevant assumptions? What actions should GPO take to strengthen the FDLP in light of these assumptions? In addition to the electronic transition activities, we will also be looking at some bibliographic issues which have come up in the context of building the FDLP Electronic Collection, including: * Re-examining the need for availability records; * Eliminating the distinction between serials and periodicals, and * Enhancing the Periodicals Supplement. FDLP Electronic Collection In the 1996 Study, we said that by now we would attain a depository product mix of approximately 30% paper, 20% microfiche, and 50% electronic. When we expressed this target three years ago we wondered just how attainable it was. If anything, we may have underestimated the pace of change in electronic publishing. About a year ago we started routinely enumerating the number of titles in the FDLP Electronic Collection, which gave us the ability to compare apples and apples. We can now make a straight up comparison of the tangible product titles we had always reported and an equivalent number of titles on GPO Access and on the agency sites to which we point. For the first half of FY 1999, the new titles available through the FDLP include about 20% paper, 40% microfiche, 40% online electronic, and just over 1% in CD-ROM. And the trend toward online publishing seems to be accelerating. Compared to last year, tangible product copies and titles in the program have declined 3.5%. For the first time we are seeing CD-ROM publishing dropping off. But the growth area is in the online portions of the Collection. During the first half of the fiscal year over 13,000 online titles were added to the FDLP Electronic Collection. For LPS, and indeed for all of us with a stake in the FDLP, this means that we must continue, and where possible accelerate, the reallocation of program resources from processing, maintaining, and servicing tangible products to equivalent activities in support of the FDLP Electronic Collection. In our plan, the FDLP Electronic Collection is described as having four components. All along, several of us felt that the most challenging area of the collection is what we called Category 3. This group includes any electronic resource that we bring under some type of bibliographic control, whether through full cataloging or one of the locator services. We were concerned that expanding the scope of the collection in this fashion, without having some degree of control over the electronic products themselves, could lead to difficulties in providing permanent public access to those products. The thrust of our internal discussions was how to "elevate" Category 3 products into Categories 1 or 2, which include products under the direct control of either GPO or one of our program partners. Now we're exploring ways to do that, by incorporating data archiving into our processing workflow. Initially we are testing archiving on a GPO server, but we are looking toward the day when FDLP electronic products will also be routinely archived at partner sites. Electronic Collection Team To move forward with building the FDLP Electronic Collection, I have established within LPS a cross-organization team made up of staff from the Office of the Director, the Depository Administration Branch, and the Cataloging Branch. The EC Team is established as an ongoing entity; to operate as long as it's deemed necessary and effective. We have begun with a core group of some 10 persons, but other individuals may be rotated into service on the EC Team to gain experience in managing elements of the FDLP Electronic Collection. The purpose of the EC Team is to develop, document, communicate, test, and, when necessary, modify work procedures and related policies for the FDLP Electronic Collection. The scope of this effort should include the full range of activities for products in the collection, including (but not limited to) identification, evaluation, selection, classification, bibliographic control, persistent naming, archiving, and communication with stakeholders. The EC Team will also be the focal point in LPS for tracking such related issues as archiving technology, NARA policies, and similar developments in other agencies and institutions. The EC Team looks for opportunities to expand the collection and integrate functional activities and services. With the help of GPO's Production Department, we are test-driving methods of archiving agency information products to make good on the commitment to permanent public access. Judy Andrews from James Madison University, who is one of our Electronic Transition Staffers, and Laurie Beyer Hall, LPS' supervisory program analyst, have both worked intensively with the EC Team. Laurie and Judy will be on the program tomorrow morning, and they will show you in some detail how we envision processing electronic products for the collection. Migrating Products from Print to Electronic Two years ago we proposed to phase out certain FDLP titles which were distributed in microfiche when an official, reliable electronic version was available from the agency. Subsequent discussion revealed that the library community felt our proposal was premature. The principal reason for concern was our inability to guarantee permanent access to the electronic versions. Since then we have affirmed our permanent access responsibility and we are routinely archiving the historical GPO Access products. We are also beginning to archive the Category 3 products that we point to as part of our workflow, so we feel that we are in a position to allay the permanent access issues. This is another direct result of implementing the FDLP Electronic Collection Plan. The criteria we have identified for carrying out these product migrations is covered in one of our handouts, but I wanted to raise the issue again because it is an important piece of the transition process. I want to stress this is not product conversion - we are not taking a print product and using technology to produce an electronic version. These are cases in which there are official, essentially equivalent, versions in both print and electronic media, and we are selecting a version for the FDLP. These decisions are based on expected usage, reliability, completeness, and so on, but our decisions must take into account the expectation of the Congress that this program will become increasingly electronic in nature. But while changing the FDLP dissemination format for existing products is one issue, we also find products new to the FDLP, that are available both from the agency Web site and in print. In these cases, we will generally bring the electronic version into the program, but we are not attempting to secure the print version unless it is of extraordinary value. Replacing Print Products Already in Depository Collections At the spring 1998 meeting, the Depository Library Council asked us to provide guidance on retention of tangible publications that are also available in the FDLP Electronic Collection. In response to LPS' request, GPO's General Counsel has issued a memorandum opinion concerning the legality of withdrawing tangible formats and replacing them with on-line electronic equivalent versions. We have incorporated this information into a handout entitled "FDLP Guidelines on Substituting Electronic for Tangible Versions of Depository Publications." This is a draft for discussion, and we welcome your input. But I'd like to hit some of the high points. A depository is permitted to replace tangible versions with electronic equivalents provided the electronic version is complete, official, and permanently accessible. Because of the importance of the permanent access issue, we are focussing first on GPO Access databases. We have put together an initial List of Official GPO Databases that May Be Substituted for Tangible FDLP Products, and these products may be considered for substitution. In addition, electronic versions of publications residing at content partnership sites meet these requirements. In keeping with the free access provisions of the FDLP, Government information in electronic form must be free of charge to the user. But we'd like to see the substitution process done cautiously. The substitution of electronic versions must follow the general rules and regulations that cover the disposal of any tangible FDLP products. These are covered in some detail in the handout, but I want to emphasize that this is a process that requires care and consideration, needs to follow established procedures, and should be coordinated with the Regional and the other depositories in your service area. Recommended Specifications for Public Access Work Stations We are updating the 1998 "Recommended Specifications for Public Access Work Stations in Federal Depository Libraries," which was published last June. We have forwarded a draft to Council, and we have put the draft out on GOVDOC-L, MAPS-L, and LAWLIB for comments by May 5. We will be including DVD capability in the recommended configuration for the first time, as we are beginning to see DVD products coming out from certain early-adapter agencies. Please take a look at the draft in the handout and send us your comments. We would be especially interested to hear if this approach, featuring detailed specifications updated on an annual basis, is still useful to you or whether we might come at this another way. Keeping America Informed For those who are planning efforts to publicize your depository operations, we have just completed a new brochure about the FDLP, called "Keeping America Informed." We have samples of these here at the hotel so you can see what it looks like, and every depository will get a package of 100 delivered to you later this spring. Then if you want additional copies our Promotions and Advertising Office will provide them to you on request. LPS Staff Developments Before I relinquish the microphone, I want to say a couple of things about some Library Programs Service personnel and recognize some of the people who are here today. Among the LPS staff there's about one LPS person for every 12 depository libraries, and we work together to give you the best service that we can. This week over 30 of us are involved in this meeting in one way or another. Please feel free to call on any of us if there's anything we can do to help you. Would all of the LPS people in the audience please stand up and wave. We have the red stripe on the bottom of our badges for easy recognition. I'd also like to put in a plug here for joining our Electronic Transition Staff for the 1999-2000 "term." Judy Andrews will be joining us for a second year, and I look forward to continuing to work with her on the NTIS Pilot Project, building the Electronic Collection, expanding partnerships, and other projects. But we are still looking for another person who would like to spend a year in GPO helping us with the work of the electronic transition. We expect that one of the key roles for the next person will be in the area of outreach to agencies, both in terms of spreading the word about the FDLP and permanent public access, and in developing the tools for agencies to notify us about their products. You may have seen my announcement on GOVDOC-L back in January, and there's a handout here about the opportunity. So don't be shy - come up and make yourself known.