ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program --------------------------------------------------------------------- May 1, 2000 GP 3.16/3-2:21/07 (Vol. 21, no. 07) --------------------------------------------------------------------- COMPLETING THE TRANSITION TO A MORE ELECTRONIC FDLP COUNCIL DISCUSSION DRAFT 4/21/99 NOTE: This is a longer version of the discussion paper dated 3/24/99 that was given to Council at the Spring 1999 meeting. Each of the action areas has been expanded with potential action items or considerations. Council is invited to review and comment on this paper to facilitate the development of goals and milestones for the transition to a more electronic FDLP. Any actions and milestones developed should fit into a timeframe from now through the end of FY 2001. According to the strategic plan in GPO's 1996 Study, the FDLP electronic transition will be complete at the end of FY 2001. What should the FDLP look like in 3 years? What actions are necessary to attain this outcome? A. Assumptions: 1) 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. 2) Continuing technological developments will drive publishing, information dissemination, and library services. 3) The trend toward decentralized Federal printing, publishing, and dissemination will continue. 4) The statutory basis for the program will not significantly change; there will still be unresolved issues of overall Government information policy. 5) The number of depository libraries will stabilize around 1300 libraries; most of the losses will be among small public and Federal agency libraries; there will be limited offsetting new designations from the Congressional redistricting following the 2000 census. 6) 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. 7) 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, especially for titles currently considered appropriate for conversion to microfiche. However, the FDLP will include paper for core products as long as agencies publish in paper. 8) Providing cataloging and locator services for Government information products will remain a critical and growing GPO role. 9) 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. 10) There will be increased demands upon the Government to provide training and user support for electronic products and services. Discussion: * Are these assumptions valid? * Are there other relevant assumptions? * What actions should GPO take to strengthen the FDLP in light of these assumptions? B. Potential Action Items and (as yet undated) Milestones The above assumptions will lead us to define management direction and major activity areas for GPO and other FDLP stakeholders. Most of these may impact GPO, depository libraries, and/or Federal publishing agencies. In your comments, please specify who the affected or responsible party might be and when, in your view, the action should happen. 1. Permanent Public Access, Storage, and Archiving Develop a working prototype electronic archive and related procedures (GPO, 1999). Archiving ("storage") - obtain publicly accessible server space for our experimental archives. Examine and obtain appropriate hardware and software. Most immediate need is "grabbing" software. Potential copyright/intellectual property issues of web caching. Establish the storage sites mix between: * In-house * Remote, but still GPO * Partner sites Define scope of archiving. * Should "superseded" versions be retained? * Which products or collections are already archived and which are endangered? * Should databases be archived at specific intervals? * Should only the latest version of a database be retained? Migration/Transformations: We should guarantee authentic nature of the "data" not necessarily the search & retrieval software. Significant steps toward permanent access: (a) Dedicating sufficient resources (financial and staff) to archiving. (b) Authentication. Evaluate options and implement a solution that will verify that documents are authentic, and will aid in persistence. (c) Archiving (Establish criteria for inclusion, test, implement technology) (d) Establish policies and procedures. (e) Develop a model system for agency notification of changes and new products. (f) Study + define a strategy for migration/refreshment of data. 2. Information Delivery, Format issues, Products in the FDLP Product Mix - FY1999 (Oct - March) Online 40% Paper 20% MF 40% CD-ROM < 1% All tangible products down by 10% compared to last year. Online delivery mechanism - need to establish a migration path from WAIS to ? Determine, on an annual or semiannual basis, a mix of formats based on user need, product availability, and GPO resources. This suggests a more active management approach toward a specific target. Fully implement the "electronic only where appropriate" goal, defining the core more carefully and developing a mechanism for instituting permanent access. Gather up-to-date cost information and establish a role for scanning in the Collection generally. Determine if there is justification for format conversion for retrospective materials. Determine the role and implications of scanning to take the place of MF conversion for limited application for retrospective conversions. Look at contracting for scanning to use instead of MF conversion. Need to develop model contract specifications. Should a goal be to use scanning for the print to electronic "conversion," replacing the current print to microfiche conversion? 3. Locators and Bibliographic Control Continued responsibility for cataloging both print and electronic products; value to users to identify and locate all types of products from a combined tool. Investigate potential of/participate in OCLC's CORC research project. Investigate possible use of non-MARC records for Internet resources; e.g. Dublin Core. Need for integrated systems and processes - reduce use of legacy systems. Need to define future of the indexer. Refer users to a non-Governmental search engine or site? Advanced Search Facility (ASF)? 4. Notification and Discovery Develop a model system for agency notification of significant changes and/or new products. We need to notify agencies when we "grab" their content for archiving, and initiate a dialog to help us manage the products. Investigate/search for partner agency to develop notification methods that don't burden the agency. Establish authentication routines that will identify changes. Come up with single easy way for agencies to notify us of new electronic products. At front end - automated? Possible to use Pathway Indexer, ASF, or other indexer or robot in the discovery process? Most vital element for agencies is to notify us of significant changes. Depository library community, news media, etc., needs to advise GPO of new products. GPO will probably not have staff to do intensive "site mining." 5. Authentication Need to monitor, investigate, learn more about. Issues: What about authentic nature of information on sites other than the .mil or .gov domains. Short-term goal: Need a disclaimer on SuDocs site about sites were pointing to. What are the technology solutions? Example: Authentication through watermark. How do we incorporate authentication routines in our archives? What is the role of non-Governmental entities in developing an authentication solution? 6. Partnerships New model for partnerships based on view that GPO will take a more active role and that the agencies' role will be reduced, at least at the point of initiating the partnership. State Dept. level of participation is atypical. Develop a comprehensive approach to engage agencies; get a partnership "package" together to help potential partners understand roles and responsibilities (GPO, 1999-2000). 7. Outreach General arenas: * Publishing agencies. * Within GPO, to improve coordination and consistency of message. * To the depository library community. * To the general public. Expand efforts to learn about archiving policies, practices, costs, etc., at domestic non-Governmental and international sites. 8. Organizational Changes GPO - Need to develop a cross-organizational team to do outreach to agencies. Should include LPS, EIDS, Sales, Customer Service, Procurement, Production. Are there other possible cross-organizational teams? Personnel allocations/staff makeup in LPS and GPO shifting incrementally. Do we need a reorganization? What would it look like? 9. Training and User Support; Product Support Training for new depository librarians. Increased expectation that GPO be knowledgeable about both the content and the operation of FDLP electronic products. 10. Services for librarians administering depositories. "Virtual reference desk." Need to develop easier-to-use, more effective Web presence. 11. Measuring Depository Library User Satisfaction Encourage depositories to undertake user surveys or other data gathering and analysis to measure user satisfaction and ultimately improve services to the public. Emphasize services based on electronic information. --------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Back to the Table of Contents ] --------------------------------------------------------------------- GPO's Cataloging and Locator Services: Actions in Progress and Proposals for Change [See related Council recommendation 7, p. 54.] In October 1999 the Depository Library Council recommended "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." This review is taking place in the context of the transition to a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Many of the transition activities to date have emphasized changes in the formats and media in which FDLP information is published, disseminated, and kept permanently accessible. It is now appropriate to reexamine the cataloging and locator services and related outputs provided by the Library Programs Service (LPS) in order to develop plans for future development and improvement. This paper describes actions already in progress to improve these online cataloging and locator services. It presents, for Council's consideration, four Government Printing Office (GPO) proposals relating to these online services, along with two additional proposals pertaining to the tangible cataloging output products derived from GPO's cataloging records. Objectives GPO's objectives are to: * Improve the users' ability to identify, locate, or link to relevant content, by reducing the potential confusion to users of GPO's cataloging and locator services and providing more comprehensive coverage to the print and electronic publications in the FDLP, especially of products in the FDLP Electronic Collection (FDLP/EC). * Assure that cataloging and locator service records created by GPO for an electronic resource link to an official and authoritative copy of the resource, whether the content is on GPO Access, in the FDLP/EC archive, at the originating agency site, or at an FDLP partner site. * Evolve LPS' processes and organization to better manage an environment in which online electronic information is the predominant dissemination format for the FDLP. Operationally this requires integrating the acquisition and bibliographic control of electronic resources into the regular LPS workflow. * Maximize productivity, simplify maintenance of the cataloging and locator services, accept more metadata from external sources, and more effectively utilize the data LPS creates. * Modernize the mix of cataloging output products to maximize their utility, simplify production, and reduce resource requirements. Discussion The discussion of cataloging and locator services in this paper applies to the services that are maintained by GPO and/or a partner and are used to identify and locate products in the FDLP tangible and electronic collections. In describing an existing or proposed service, this paper will focus on the end product used by an external constituency rather than on the internal processes necessary to support the product. GPO is working to enhance the design, scope, and operation of some of the cataloging and locator services now offered by GPO and its partners. Six products1 were considered in this review. LPS staff considered usage data compiled from the 1999 Biennial Survey, the GPO Access Web logs, Council and user input, as well as some four years' experience with these services. Based on these factors, LPS intends to move toward the following mix of GPO services and partner services. 1) GPO Services: * Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP; "Monthly Catalog on the Web") * Current awareness service for new additions to the FDLP/EC, replacing today's Browse Electronic Titles (BET) * Simplified browsable GILS application 2) Partner Services: * Federal Agency Internet Sites (maintained by Louisiana State University) * Browse Topics * Pathway Indexer replacement Actions Underway Within GPO actions are already underway to: 1) Enhance the CGP application, with the goal that cataloging records represent everything disseminated or made accessible through the FDLP, whether in tangible or online electronic format. 2) Participate in OCLC's CORC project to gain experience with alternative means to describe and link to content in the FDLP/EC. Investigate incorporating CORC and/or Dublin Core records into the CGP. 3) Work with OCLC to develop an integrated, CORC-based software module that incorporates cataloging in a variety of metadata schemes, PURL assignment, Web resource capture, and archiving. _________________________________________ [ footnote from paper version of Administrative Notes, bottom of p. 43 ( return to TEXT ) ] 1 The six products reviewed (in order of usage, from greatest to least) are: - Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) < www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/adpos400.html > - Browsable GILS applications < www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/gils/gils.html . - Browse Topics - Browse Electronic Titles - Federal Agency Internet Sites (LSU) - Government Information on Selected Internet Sites (Pathway Indexer) > _________________________________________________________ 4) Conduct the initial requirements analysis and other planning directed toward the acquisition and implementation of a commercial, off-the-shelf replacement for the legacy mainframe systems that support essential LPS operations. Online Cataloging and Locator Services: Proposals for Council Consideration GPO proposes to: 1) Develop a depository library community partnership to assume administrative responsibility for the Browse Topics application. GPO will continue its oversight and policy direction role. 2) Simplify the browsable GILS applications. Two current pages, Browse GILS Records by Agency and Browse GILS Pointer Records, will be combined into a single browsable tool. The Browse Pathway GILS Records will be eliminated. Pathway GILS Records are created by LPS staff based primarily on information from the U.S. Government Manual, and are not recognized as official and authoritative by the agencies. GPO will continue to partner with publishing agencies to facilitate those agencies' fulfilling their mandated GILS responsibilities. 3) Replace the Harvest shareware-based Pathway Indexer by identifying an external partner to provide this type of service. The Pathway Indexer is the least-used current service. 4) Improve the current awareness value of Browse Electronic Titles (BET) by posting weekly lists of online resources added to the FDLP/EC. The service will be renamed New Electronic Titles (NET). NET entries will appear in a true title arrangement, instead of the BET's current arrangement by agency. After four weeks, the oldest NET list will be moved to an NET archive. LPS will prioritize cataloging all products listed on NET so they will appear in the searchable CGP as soon as possible. These steps should improve the focus of the BET while encouraging users to search the CGP as the prime resource for identifying, locating, and accessing both tangible and online products. Tangible Cataloging Output Products: Proposals for Council Consideration GPO currently publishes the Monthly Catalog in three formats: paper, CD-ROM, and online. The data are also provided to the Library of Congress for redissemination to subscribers. The proposed changes will reduce the resources required to produce the tangible products and will allow greater dedication of resources to the online cataloging and locator services. Specifically, GPO proposes to: 1) Phase out production of the Monthly Catalog CD-ROM edition following completion of the 2000 issues. The CD-ROM edition's design is not optimal, it is slow and expensive to publish, and it replicates content presented in the CGP on GPO Access. A possible alternative is to reduce the frequency of the Monthly Catalog CD-ROM edition to an annual cumulation. 2) Change the print Monthly Catalog to a browsable current awareness list of products arranged in classification number sequence. This will speed up the announcement of new FDLP products by allowing LPS to produce the print edition via desktop publishing. This will shorten production cycles, reduce costs, and will still meet the monthly "pamphlet" format requirements of 44 USC 1711. Attachment 1: GPO Cataloging and Locator Services Usage Data from GPO Access Web Logs, 1999 May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct TOTALS Monthly Average Catalog of 15566 17658 17968 15486 20065 20132 106875 17813 U.S. Govt. Pubs. GILS 15550 16484 15805 14024 15893 16476 94232 15705 Browse Topics 3824 3718 3640 3592 4627 4902 24303 4051 Browse 3664 3830 3435 2989 3580 3726 21224 3537 Electronic Titles, What's New Federal 2489 2666 2261 2256 2821 3048 15541 2590 Agency Internet sites - LSU Pathway 1346 1556 1301 1295 1374 1532 8404 1401 Indexer Attachment 2: Depository Library Usage: Biennial Survey Data Question 43: Do you use the following? Yes Did not Know Not useful know about about, but not how to use Catalog of U.S. 1211 25 23 76 Govt. Pubs. GILS 905 60 127 243 Browse Topics 902 236 67 130 Browse Electronic 936 215 81 103 Titles, What's New Federal Agency 1210 74 13 38 Internet sites - LSU Pathway Indexer 974 238 43 80 Attachment 3: Subscription and FDLP Selection Data for Monthly Catalog Print and CD-ROM Products Product Item no. Depository Copies Price Copies Sold CD-ROM (full) 0557-C 887 19 (subscription) $199.00 Paper 0557-D 334 140 (subscription) (abridged) $52.00 Periodicals 0557-D-01 872 18 (annual) $32.00 Supplement 1999 Congressional 0557-B 399 to be to be Serial Set determined determined Catalog, 103d (spring 2000) Congress