ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program --------------------------------------------------------------------- May 1, 2000 GP 3.16/3-2:21/07 (Vol. 21, no. 07) --------------------------------------------------------------------- LIBRARY PROGRAMS SERVICE UPDATE Remarks by Gil Baldwin Director, Library Programs Service Before the Depository Library Council April 10, 2000 Newport, RI Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here in the Ocean State where, according to Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government, the state motto is "Hope." And we all hope that you'll find this a useful and interesting meeting. As part of our changes to the Council meeting format, we're having fewer speakers this morning, with more time allotted to questions and answers. What I will do this morning is give you a topical overview of Library Programs Service (LPS) activities, with a preview of related programs and discussions for the rest of the meeting. It probably comes as no surprise that one of my themes will be to report on the transition to a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program. Although it feels like we've been transitioning forever, we are really just four years into the five-to-seven year transition we outlined in the strategic plan in our 1996 study. Last April we presented to Council a report on the progress of the electronic transition, and asked Council for some feedback on how we are doing. Council's Electronic Transition Committee reviewed our April 1999 paper on Completing the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP, Council Discussion Draft 4/21/99, and the ET Committee report is available here for you. In our 1999 paper we asked, what would the FDLP look like in 3 years? The ET Committee is made up of some very smart people and they, probably wisely, did not attempt a prognostication. Nevertheless, let me take out my crystal ball. Perhaps the short answer is 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. * There will also be expectations for more services, not just from GPO, but also more services from libraries to users. Naturally, our ability to move forward on these issues is dependent upon the availability of resources. The continued pattern of level funding is a real concern for us, and we may find that constrained funding prevents us from undertaking everything that you or we would like to do. We are also likely to find it necessary to curtail some traditional products or services. Proposals to Council Following up on these ideas we have made some proposals to Council that will be discussed at subsequent sessions. Copies of these are available at the registration desk. There are two in particular I want to call to your attention: Our proposal number 2 is to "Increase the Minimum Technical Requirements for Public Access Workstations in Federal Depository Libraries at Regular Intervals." We've been inspecting based on the 1996 technical requirements of a low-end Pentium-chip workstation, and its past time to ratchet these up. The "Recommended Technical Specifications" for new public access workstations coexisted in a confusing way with the technical requirements used for inspections. We want to get these working together in a way that clears up the confusion, and results in better service to the public. We propose to establish a rolling schedule of announcing new specifications, giving you about 15 months of lead time, and then begin to use them as the requirements for inspections. You really want to look at the table of how this timeline will work. It's hard to explain in words, but easy to visualize. [See Council recommendation 5, p. 55.] These technical upgrades are linked to a service proposal as well. Our Proposal number 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. [See Council recommendation 1, p. 52.] The FDLP Digital Divide These proposals are essential steps to move the program forward. It has proven an effective strategy for change to incorporate electronic dissemination into the FDLP in tandem with the publishing agencies' adoption of new technologies. But it is also essential for depository libraries to improve and expand their own capabilities to deliver electronic content to end users. We have done a preliminary analysis of the responses to the 1999 Biennial Survey of Depository Libraries. Over 95% of the responding libraries meet the minimum requirements for public access to electronic information provided through the FDLP. The 1999 survey responses show continued improvement compared to the results of the 1995 and 1997 Biennial Surveys. Over the corresponding time period the FDLP has evolved to the point at which the majority of new products disseminated to depositories are in online electronic format. We are very concerned that 61 libraries (4.6%) still do not offer even a minimal level of public access to FDLP electronic content. Of even greater concern is that 22 of the 268 (8.2%) public libraries do not meet this expectation. Over the coming year we will be considering various ways to close this digital divide within the FDLP. LPS Staff Let's take a moment here to recognize the Library Programs Service staff here today. Would you please stand up and wave. * You already know Sheila McGarr, Chief of the Library Division. * Also here are Robin Haun-Mohamed, Chief of the Depository Administration Branch, and * Tad Downing, Chief of the Cataloging Branch. * George Barnum is LPS' first Electronic Collection Manager. * Vicki Barber is Chief of the Depository Distribution Division. * Sandy Schwalb, one of our Program Analysts, is here. * Steve Kerchoff, an Electronic Transition Specialist, is on loan to us from the Library of Congress, and * Willie Thompson, without whom we just couldn't come to great places like Newport, and * Finally, there's Laurie Beyer Hall, LPS' Supervisory Program Analyst. While she's here, I want to say that we all owe Laurie a big thank you for helping make Y2K a major non-event for the Federal Depository Library Program. Laurie and her team developed some of the strongest contingency plans in GPO, and she did everything possible to make sure that our legacy automated systems weathered the millennium change. Thank goodness we didn't have to use her plans, so you'll never know how good they were, but Laurie and her staff were really on top of things. Thank you! New Titles in the FDLP 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%. Since the beginning of the electronic transition, the LPS has concentrated on increasing the electronic content in the program. For the most part these increases have been funded from program savings resulting from agencies reducing the numbers of titles published in print media. Due to continuing funding constraints, our efforts are focusing more on reducing duplication of formats and media and on containing costs. We are taking a hard look at titles that are distributed in both tangible and online electronic formats. Migrating Products from Microfiche to Electronic--Bills and GAO reports 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 staff met with personnel from the General Accounting Office (GAO) and determined that nearly all GAO publications are available online, either from the GAO web site or from GPO Access. Therefore, except for unusual cases, 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. [See Council recommendation 9, p. 55.] FDLP Electronic Collection (FDLP/EC) George Barnum and I have briefed you many times on the four components of the FDLP/EC, and how the assurance of permanent public access is an essential element as we migrate away from tangible products to solely online dissemination. During our Permanent Public Access Working Group meetings, we have identified another condition under which products become eligible for the FDLP/EC. This condition occurs when the issuing agency itself has made a commitment to keeping its electronic publications permanently accessible. An example is the National Library of Medicine, and we are just beginning to consider the ramifications of this commitment on FDLP product selection and library retention decisions. FDLP/EC Archive The archive component of the FDLP/EC is now in operation. It's not a prototype any more. 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. Except for the intermediary access screen that explains the status of the publication and the date of its capture, the process is seamless and invisible to the user. This is the process that George Barnum and Steve Kerchoff demonstrated at the recent ALA Midwinter Meeting. 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. OCLC Archiving Project However, we are still pursuing the vision of a distributed electronic archive, as we described in our 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, we continue to meet and work with OCLC to develop the requirements, technical infrastructure, and the business model for digital archiving from OCLC. We are very encouraged by the attention that OCLC is paying to this matter, and we hope that our efforts will lead to a service that benefits many different libraries. One of the ideas that we are discussing with OCLC is how to incorporate the archival resource harvest, transfer, storage, retrieval, and maintenance functions into a consolidated software "toolbox." GPO Joins CORC In January 2000, GPO joined OCLC's CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog) project. From 1999 through the present, OCLC has extracted data from more than 4,000 GPO produced OCLC records with PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) for inclusion in the CORC database. Membership in CORC entitles GPO to contribute to OCLC's development of CORC's data extraction software and other software features and to evaluate CORC for potential LPS applications. Tad Downing and Laurie Hall will provide more information on CORC and other cataloging and locator services issues during their Tuesday morning session. New Depository Shipping Contract You all know the litany of shipping problems that began last August. These involved our distribution contractor, Potomac Business Center (PBC), and their subcontactor, United Parcel Service. 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. FDLP Desktop I hope that most of you are regular users of the FDLP Administration Web pages on GPO Access. As you know there's a lot of content there, in fact there are about 700 pages worth. And sometimes it's not so easy to find the article, product, or service that you want. Since the fall Council meeting we've had a team going over these pages and trying out different ways of organizing the content. We've come up with a prototype design for a new set of pages that we're calling the FDLP Desktop. Steve Kerchoff will be presenting the FDLP Desktop on Wednesday morning, and you are welcome to give us some feedback there. We also encourage you to take the URL home and check out the test site, and tell us what you think. We hope to finalize our new design and put it in place later this spring, once we've gotten feedback and had a chance to work with it. So that's a very selective overview of what the Library Programs Service has been doing. For more details, relevant Web addresses, and more, I call your attention to the various handouts, reports, and proposals available at the registration table. Thank you all for coming today, and we look forward to a great week.