ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program --------------------------------------------------------------------- January 25, 2000 GP 3.16/3-2:21/03 (Vol. 21, no. 03) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Depository Library Council to the Public Printer Fall 1999 Meeting Recommendations, Action Items, and Commendations 1. Technological Capabilities Council recommends that GPO evaluate and report on the technological capabilities of the depository libraries to provide cost-effective public access to electronic Government information products. This will include using information from the 1997 and 1999 Biennial Surveys about the costs and availability of equipment, software, telecommunications, staff training and other depository library expenses for accessing and utilizing electronic Government information products through the FDLP. Rationale: In the Progress Report on the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP 1996-1999, GPO reported the Biennial Survey includes questions on the technological readiness of Depository Libraries. Council would like a qualitative assessment of the technological capabilities of depository libraries. 2. Disposition of Depository Collection to NARA Council recommends that GPO report at the Spring 2000 Depository Library Council Meeting on the status of records disposition of depository publications cataloged in the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, including electronic files for publications with no paper copy, microfilm, or microfiche equivalent, and the related file documentation. Rationale: The GPO collection of depository publications cataloged in the Monthly Catalog is a valuable resource in terms of options for permanent public access. Council encourages GPO's efforts to ensure appropriate records management practices for these publications and would like to be kept current on progress in this area. 3. GPO Access Gateways Council recommends that GPO evaluate and define the future role of GPO Access Gateways. Rationale: GPO encouraged depository libraries to become GPO Access Gateways in order to expand free public access to GPO Access. Gateway libraries expend time and resources in this effort, which still requires all gateways to update their sites with links to all GPO Access databases. Recently several libraries have dropped their gateway status. Gateway providers and the depository community need clarification regarding the continuing role and purpose of gateways. 4. Communication Between GPO And Library Directors Council recommends that GPO establish direct, periodic (minimally on an annual basis), issue-oriented communications to directors of depository libraries. Copies of the communications should be supplied in advance to depository librarians. Rational: Council recognizes the need for direct communication from GPO to directors at depository libraries in order to reinforce the importance of the program, to inform directors of current issues facing depositories, and to form a basis of discussion between depository librarians and their administrators. The proposed communications would assist in building awareness and support at higher levels. The communications might be patterned on the "Briefings for Academic Officers" that is an adjunct piece to Journal of Academic Libraries. 5. Digital Storage Facility Council is pleased at the efforts by GPO to develop a digital storage facility to provide permanent public access to its electronic resource collection. Council urges GPO to develop a plan for the archive and to move its current state from testbed to a publicly accessible electronic repository. Rationale: Council understands that the online facility has two years storage capacity. Council urges GPO to develop strategies to manage material which may be transferred to offline on-demand storage and update Council at the next meeting. 6. Silver Halide Masters Council recommends that GPO verify the presence of silver halide masters for microfiche distributed through the FDLP and stored at NARA and/or LC and to identify cost effective procedures for replacement copies of aging microfiche in our collections, and inform the library community of these procedures. Rationale: Council assumes that the depository program will still have access to copies made from the silver halide master. Since many of our microfiche are approaching 25 years old, we believe that setting a procedure now for libraries to follow for getting replacement copies would be wise planning. 7. Coordinate Government-wide Discussion of Permanent Public Access Council recommends that GPO continue to assume a leadership role in bringing together key Government officials and other appropriate representatives to hold collaborative discussions regarding the permanent public access of electronic Government information. Rationale: The current Federal Government information landscape has become increasingly fragmented as individual Federal agencies publish directly to the Web in lieu of using traditional channels for printing, dissemination, and records disposition. Though agencies publishing directly to the Web often meet immediate missions to create and distribute information, they too often ignore issues of permanent public access and preservation, functions traditionally carried out through the FDLP and NARA. High level discussions among major Federal and private stakeholders, including GPO, NARA, the national libraries, and the archivist and library communities, will help clarify roles and focus issue oriented discussions regarding electronic information resources. 8. Review of Online Locator and Finding Aid Tools Council recommends 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. The Council requests a report prior to the Spring meeting. Rationale: Council is concerned that the current online tools may be redundant with other online tools and may not be as effective or necessary as when they were first developed. Council believes that an analysis of usage from the Biennial Survey and Web statistics will assist GPO in its review of these tools. The report will assist GPO and Council in deciding the future of GPO locator tools. 9. Self Study Process Council is encouraged by the modifications that GPO is making in the self-study schedule. Council recommends that GPO investigate methods for providing timelier acknowledgment of the submission of self-studies, and information for depositories on the status of self-studies and inspections. Rationale: Depository libraries take the self-study process seriously, and devote large amounts of time to the preparation of their reports. Libraries now receive no acknowledgment that their self-studies have been received. A brief acknowledgment, even by e-mail, would assure depositories that their studies were in the process, and would be a courtesy much appreciated by the libraries. The time delay between self-study submission and evaluation reports would be more acceptable to libraries if some information on progress could be made available. Efficient ways of accomplishing this could be regular communication with Regionals, and/or a web page with general information on the schedules of the inspection team. ACTION ITEMS 1. Electronic Transition The Electronic Transition Committee will review GPO's progress on the transition to a more electronic FDLP and prepare a final report to Council for the Spring 2000 Council Meeting. 2. Digital Products on Tangible Media Council recognizes the importance of preserving digital products distributed to the FDLP on tangible media. Accordingly, the Preservation Committee will examine issues concerning library cooperation in digital preservation activities, digital preservation training for depository librarians, and develop a draft assessment tool to list and describe at-risk titles distributed through the FDLP. The Preservation Committee members will report to Council at the spring 2000 meeting and provide an assessment tool for review. 3. Closing of NTIS Council will monitor developments regarding the Department of Commerce's decision to close NTIS. Council will analyze any legislative proposal and advise the Public Printer about concerns Council may have regarding organizational, access, or preservation issues. Council sent a letter to the Public Printer in September 1999 recommending that GPO take an active role in deliberations regarding the closing of NTIS. Council's letter also articulated several concerns regarding the continuation of NTIS' important functions. 4. GPO Access Usage Report The Chair of Council will appoint an ad hoc committee to review the GPO Access Statistical Report (October 14, 1999) for methodology and content and to report back to Council and GPO. 5. Value of Depository collections Council will establish a web page to assist libraries in estimating the cost or replacement value of their depository collections. Relevant research, reports and data from GPO and other sources will be added as appropriate. 6. Archiving dynamic databases The Council Preservation Committee will work with GPO on issues associated with the archiving of dynamic databases and will report their work to Council. 7. LPS Administrative web pages Council will work with LPS staff to evaluate the components of the administrative web pages to improve their functionality for depository libraries. The implementation of a site search capability will be an important component of this activity. COMMENDATIONS 1. PubSCIENCE Council commends GPO and the Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information for sponsoring public access to PubSCIENCE, a web-based product that provides access to more than a million citations to journal articles in the physical sciences with connections to a growing number of full text articles. Council is especially pleased to see GPO and OSTI continue in their partnership to provide essential energy-related information to the public and hopes to see additional products available in the future. 2. GPO Access Improvements Council commends GPO for the significant improvements made to the GPO Access site, including the development of Site Search, the opening of GPO Access to Web indexers, and the reorganization of the GPO Access interface. These enhancements improve the intelligibility of the site through more intuitive organization and "search this site" capabilities. The enhancements further demonstrate GPO's commitment to open public access to Federal Government information by allowing Web crawlers to index GPO materials, thereby adding important links from Web search engines to the rich collection of materials on GPO Access.