ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 25, 1999 GP 3.16/3-2:20/14 (Vol. 20, no. 14) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Developments in DAB Remarks by Robin Haun-Mohamed Chief, Depository Administration Branch Before the Depository Library Council to the Public Printer Kansas City, MO Monday, October 18, 1999 Good morning. I'm pleased to be here this morning to update you on activities in the Depository Administration Branch. With all the issues raised thus far, I expect this to be a very interesting Council meeting. To start off my discussion, I am pleased to announce the selection of John Tate for the position of Supervisory Publications Management Specialist. Many of you know John not only because of his long term of service with Depository Services and his role in many of the Federal Depository Conferences, but also as a classifier several years ago. Mr. Tate is replacing Earl Lewter, who has taken on the rather daunting task of managing and responding to askLPS inquiries. We also recently hired a Publications Management Specialist to replace the person who was promoted earlier this spring. The primary duties of the new staff member will be to assist with identifying and acquiring fugitive publications once the basic training has been completed. In coordination with the training for the new staff member, all Acquisitions and Classification staff will go through a series of review and training sessions. I have a lot of product update information for you today. Depository libraries are now able to use Northern Light's usgovsearch at no charge to the library. It is available to members of the library community without a mandatory registration requirement for access. The free Public Library Access Program version of usgovsearch will search across government sites and content that is available without charge. The free site does not contain any fee-based content from any source. The URL for the usgovsearch site has been included on the DAB handout. According to Northern Light, libraries are encouraged to point to this unique site from their resource listings or home page. My thanks to the depository librarians who originally forwarded the information about usgovsearch and also kept me apprised of responses from Northern Light in regard to free access for depository libraries. After several discussions between Northern Light and LPS, Northern Light decided to avoid the problems associated with passwords and IP addresses and is making usgovsearch available to all K-12 school libraries, public libraries, and Federal depository libraries as noted above. The Census Bureau's American FactFinder was released early this spring. Everything on the database is available to all at no charge. The only applications currently being considered for future charges are the big downloads of files and the do-it-yourself tabulations from Census 2000. Libraries should have received the first of the 1997 Economic Census data on CD-ROM. This will be a cumulative disc with quarterly releases over the next two years. The ECON97 Report Series, Economic Census 1997, Report Series Disc 1A, Issued August 1999 in CD-ROM format was distributed to the libraries earlier this month. An old familiar face will be making a comeback this fall. Business America will resume publishing in November, under a new name, Export America. This will be a monthly publication that will be available for sale through the GPO Sales Program, and distributed to over 1100 depository libraries in paper format. There will be an online site for the publication, but it will only have the feature articles and an updated trade show listing. Another publication is being published under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Oxford University Press. Copies of the Public Health Reports continue to be provided for distribution to the depository libraries from HHS, the Public Health Service, and Oxford University Press. Effective with the November 1999 issue, the National Trade Data Bank will change access software from Autographics to Enigma. The Enigma, Inc. software will allow users of the product to extract documents and copy them in their native format or in a format that retains most of the original formatting characteristics. STAT-USA will issue a beta copy of the new NTDB in early October. Production will start with the November issue. FY 2000 will be a transitional year for the NTDB. LPS will be moving toward phasing out the NTDB on CD-ROM and using the funds instead to increase access to the STAT-USA Internet service. The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is making some changes in scheduling products to be issued in DVD format. PTO plans to isssue USAPat on DVD effective with the January 2000 issues. In late May, LPS surveyed some different PTO material. PTO still tentatively plans to issue this material in DVD format for the fourth quarter of 1999. PTO has advised LPS that they will not produce materials in both CD-ROM and DVD formats. When the DVDs are ready, that is the only format that will be available. In August, libraries receiving the bound Congressional Record were directed to return specific volumes of the Record to GPO for rebinding. Most libraries have done the return and the material has been sent to the GPO following instructions from the Congressional Printing Management Division. The volumes will be over-sewn and sent back to each library. Libraries should expect to see the volumes back in their libraries by the end of this calendar year. If you have any questions or problems with the Record, please let me know. At the beginning of each fiscal year, LPS goes through the process of rolling over the item numbers from the pending additions to an active status. This allows the item selection additions the librarians made during the update cycle to become active for the lighted bin system. Well, this year we were fortunate enough to be able to do this twice! In August, a librarian notified LPS her Item Lister selection records had dramatically increased. When we checked, we found the pending additions from the summer's update cycle had gone into effect on July 30, instead of October 1. The lighted bin system had been using the information all month, which resulted in an increased number of rain checks for shortages. The file was corrected on August 27 and the numbers again rolled over on October 1, 1999. Again, it was a very busy update cycle with 947 libraries making over 63,000 changes to the item selection profile. Deletions accounted for over 60% of the changes. With the Year 2000 potential problems on everyone's mind, here is a brief update on the steps already taken for the DAB systems. We always begin with a new series of shipping list numbers starting with October 1st. This year we began using the full four-digit year for the shipping lists. The changes and format are shown in the DAB handout. For example, when you see a shipping list number now, it will look like this: 2000-0031-P. The change affects the different data fields in different ways. Please review the handout for the instructions on accessing the shipping lists on U.S. FAX Watch and the Federal Bulletin Board on GPO Access. Here are the final shipping list numbers for FY 99: 99-0372-P 99-0071-E 99-0977-M 99-0043-S 99-2031-S for the NIMA maps. LPS has begun distributing the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) maps once again to the libraries. This has proven to be a larger challenge that we anticipated for a couple of reasons. The first is mass quantities of material sent to LPS from the Defense Logistics Agency, acting as NIMA's distribution agent. In addition to the mass quantities, there were many duplicate maps sent-requiring each to be looked up before it could be prepared for shipment to the library. But the lookup didn't always include reviewing OCLC records, thus there were some duplicates distributed that should not have been sent. Treat the duplicates as secondary copies and follow the Instructions to Depository Libraries for dealing with secondary copies. There has been one other challenge--many, many maps were sent short. There is no where to store them while awaiting the reorders from NIMA for the shorts. Yes, this is fun! Distribution staff and classification staff will be journeying to Richmond to "visit" about these problems next Monday. There is good news and bad news about receipts. Okay, the good news first, the backlog count in Acquisitions and Classification is 3200. The number of titles waiting for conversion to microfiche is less than 300, meaning at this time, there is essentially no backlog for microfiche conversion titles. The backlog material is generally the Technical Manuals and Flood Insurance Studies, which can be sent to only one contractor. All work is sent on one of the 15 microfiche contracts the day after receipt in the Micrographics Control Section. This is also the time when I speak about our microfiche contractors. Last Wednesday, October 13, 1999, I posted a message on askLPS and the discussion lists asking libraries to check their receipts for a list of specific shipping lists. It is very important that every library that did not receive the material make a claim as soon as possible for these lists. If you need the information from that posting, please see me during this council session. We continue to have consistent problems with one contractor, and once again are trying to be sure they are performing as required under their contract. The bad news about receipts is there are only 3200 publications in the backlog. We continue to see a decline in the number of tangible products distributed through the FDLP. Some of the decline is due to Internet publishing, but it appears that the agencies have never really recovered from the printing budget cuts taken back in 1996 when the appropriations process slowed all government printing. In 1992, DAB processed 89,000 publications. In 1993, the figure dropped to 69,000 and in 1998, the figure was 44,300. The projected number of publications classified for 1999 is up slightly, at 46,500, but this includes many online publications classified in coordination with the BET and PURL processes. Here is a quick summary of the activity associated with classification of online publications. For FY 1998, there were 874 new Browse Electronic Titles entries posted on the BET pages. For FY 1999, there was a slight increase in the number of new titles, 943 entries. Staff from the Cataloging Branch, the Office of the Director, and DAB have been working on systematizing the identification and review of potential electronic titles, and then cataloging and applying the PURLS in a consistent manner for the BET entries. We have made a great deal of progress along these lines as Gil has already relayed to you. I want to tell you what we are doing to improve the response time for inquiries, especially the askLPS inquiries. LPS started the year with a balance of 1436 inquiries. In FY 99 we received 15,126 and processed 15,157, leaving a balance of 1405 inquiries. These counts include e-mail, askLPS, phone, fax, and written inquiries. For the askLPS service, LPS received 2992 inquiries and processed 3025. In June, one staff member was assigned full-time to working with the askLPS inquiries. Some of the inquiries can be dealt with in a straightforward manner, especially those dealing with direct mail claims, but many of the inquiries relate to fugitive or missing documents. This is an important but time consuming effort, and our highest priority is the processing of the material we have in hand for distribution to the libraries. As you can see, askLPS continues to be a challenge, but we making efforts to improve these services. I'd also like to review the publication shortage and rain check policies for Council. Shortages can occur for any number of reasons. They fall into five major categories: Deal Directs, Incorrect Orders, Contractor Shortages, Errors in Processing, and Fugitive Publications. 1. Deal Directs: The annual update cycle allows libraries the opportunity to add material to their item selection profiles. Many of the publications distributed through the FDLP are acquired through a deal direct arrangement between the agency and a contractor under a GPO administered contract. This material tends to be serial in nature-serial publications or established monographs in a series. Once the process has been set up, GPO does not see the requisitions again until they are reviewed for the next fiscal year. Many times these contracts have more than one publication on them and the agencies are then instructed to contact LPS directly for the correct quantities for depository distribution. Well, you can probably guess how many times that happens. If the agency guesses wrong, when the publication arrives, it is probably going to be short. 2. Ordered Incorrectly: There are two main causes for incorrect orders: agency error and acquisitions error. A. Agency Error: When the agency submits a 3868, Notification of Intent to Publish, that is not correctly or completely filled out, the chances are very good the publication will be short, as item number assignment is based on this information. The three most common problems associated with the notification process are lack of information concerning reprint status, missing series information for monographs, and incorrect information about the agency submitting the requisition or 3868. The problems associated with reprints include wasting of time and money to order the publications. And when it's determined to be a duplicate or reprint of something we have already distributed, additional time and money is spent in trying to find a good home for the publication. If the title is in the Sales Program, we offer it to Sales. If it is not, we ask the agency to pick up the stock. The problems that arise when the series information is not included with the notification or SF-1 usually result in a shortage. There is quite a difference in the number of libraries selecting general publications for the Air Force (Item 0424, 384 copies) and the Army Air Forces in WWII (Item 0422-M, 854 copies). When an agency or commission submits their requisition or SF-1 under another agency's print contract, a shortage will often result. For example, many of the Presidential general publications (Item 0766-C-03, 770 copies) are submitted as miscellaneous general publications under programs for the Department of the Interior (Item 0603, 634 copies). All information on the SF-1 or 3868 shows the material to be an Interior publication. Only when the product is delivered is the real publishing agency identified. B. Acquisitions Error: The acquisitions staff in DAB did not choose the correct item number due to misreading of the List of Classes data, or because of problems in identifying the correct class and item number. The publication can be short or LPS may have many overs. 3. Contractor Shortages: If the publication was ordered correctly, but the contractor did not provide sufficient copies, the publication may be held until Customer Service can go through its claims process. If the publication is only a few copies short, the stock will be prepared for shipment and rainchecks will be issued. 4. Error in Processing: We only order a limited number of extra copies of publications for claims. If the publications are very small, when the boxes are cut open, a few of the copies may be damaged. Or sometimes a box of stock cannot be located when the material is being prepared for shipment. Staff put the ship short with rain check symbol on the shipping list just in case the box cannot be located by the time the material is distributed on the distribution line. 5. Fugitive Publications: If the publication is a fugitive document and the agency can only supply a limited number of copies, we try to obtain at least enough for distribution to the regional libraries. A copy is sent for microfiche conversion for dissemination to the selective libraries for products that can be microfiched. There are several possible solutions for each of the problems noted above. A. If the document is a paper publication, we can call the agency and try to obtain the additional copies at no charge from the agency. A rain check is then issued and the material is shipped short with rain checks. B. We can check with the Sales Program and acquire the requisite number of copies from the Laurel GPO facility. Again, the publication is prepared for inclusion in the shipment with the notification and shipped short with rain checks. C. If it is a small publication, and the requisite number of publications is also small, we can make photocopies and send them out in the regular shipment. D. If it is a color publication that will not photocopy well, the agency cannot supply the missing copies, and Sales does not have the publication in the Sales Program, it is shipped short with no rain checks.