ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES
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July 1, 2003
GP 3.16/3-2:24/08
(Vol. 24, no. 08)
Summary, Regional Meeting
2003 Federal Depository Library Conference
April 9, 2003
Reno, NV
Maureen Olle, Louisiana State University, conducted the meeting.
There were approximately 45 people in attendance during the first session.
Maureen asked everyone to introduce him/herself and give a brief overview of activities in his/her regional. The following topics were reported on:
- Budgets and budget cuts
- Staffing
- Retirements
Carolyn Kohler (University of Iowa) in June 2003
Ridley Kessler (University of North Carolina) in August 2003
- Reorganizations of documents departments
- Moving documents collections
- Merging of documents reference responsibilities with other departments
Minnesota had 100% support for its plan
Pre-1976 cataloging
- Flooding disaster
- State association meetings for documents
- Storage (remote climate controlled)
- Digitizing projects
- Processing changes
- Working with state documents
- MIKEL machine (microfiche to PDF format) (CA)
- Chat reference not working
- Program: Shared Regional Models
- Kathryn A. Thomas (North Dakota State University)
Shared Regional in North Dakota
North Dakota State University and University of North Dakota have been a shared regional since 1968.
Kathryn presented the history of this program, outlined the responsibilities of each institution, discussed the pros/cons of this arrangement, and the problems that they have encountered.
She would recommend a shared regional for other states since it has worked well in North Dakota for 35 years.
- William Sudduth (University of South Carolina):
Shared Regional in South Carolina
University of South Carolina and Clemson University have been a shared regional since 1986. The South Carolina model is based on the one in North Dakota.
Bill presented the history of this program, outlined the responsibilities of each institution, and discussed the model’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the issues involved in the process and procedures.
He concluded that this model has been successful in South Carolina.
Second Session
Maureen Olle conducted the second session of the meeting that was intended for discussion purposes.
There were approximately 32 in attendance during this session.
- Super regional or super regionals:
What is this-need definition.
1 super regional?
2 or 3 states working together?
Subject based?
Format based ?
GPO’s proposed national collection-to begin with this collection would not be in-depth. It may be in the future.
Need to look at previous discussions:
Chicago Conference
1993 (?) Council report by Bob Oakley
Disposal lists
Value of doing?
All regionals do not follow same procedures-some regionals do not want fiche on lists, others only look at documents published before a certain date, etc.
How do library administrators see this responsibility?
Are services more important than disposal lists?
Administrators need to understand the responsibilities of a regional and what staff is needed to fulfill those responsibilities.
- Regionals need more flexibility in order to fulfill their responsibilities.
This can be accomplished by changes and updates to Instructions (Robin).
Regionals need to begin a dialogue of what would be helpful. This needs to be done more often than just in the twice yearly meetings. Can this be done via e-mail, phone calls, etc.?
- Regionals can look at selective housing arrangements.
- Is there a need to conduct meetings of regionals in areas of the county to discuss shared responsibilities?
- Many regional librarians do not attend or are unable to attend meetings.
- Self Studies/Inspections/Consultants (Robin)
Libraries/librarians have problem with word "inspector." However, if this is not used, the process is often not given the respect it requires.
GPO is proposing the use of consultants as part of the inspection process. A consultant would be assigned to a state or region. He/she would be stationed in a depository library and would make regular visits to all depositories in the area. The consultant would make recommendations, do training session, and work with the regional librarians. GPO would like to do a pilot project and is encouraging regionals to submit proposals for this.
Self-study process is not working as planned. It takes too much staff time to do a complete and thorough report on each depository’s self-study. GPO may have to go back to inspecting all depositories. Changes are coming.
The self-study report is a valuable evaluation tool for the depositories to use to assess their performance and procedures. There is a need to keep this tool or provide another one for depositories to use.
Do you need a librarian as an inspector?
GPO believes it can use the biennial surveys and comments from regionals to identify "at risk depositories."
SOAR (Subcommittee on Attrition and Retention of the Operations Committee of the Depository Library Council) is continuing to identify reasons depositories are leaving the program and is examining procedures for identifying those libraries that are at risk. New procedure for relinquishing depository status will be made. John Phillips (Oklahoma State University) will be the new chair of the Council’s Operations Committee and the chair of SOAR.
- Marianne Ryan (University of Maryland) is working with GPO to arrange for a regional meeting to be held during the summer of 2003.
- Marianne volunteered to be the moderator for the fall regional librarians meeting.
Submitted by:
Susan Field
University of Georgia
23 April 2003
Reviewed by:
Maureen Olle, Dan Barkley, John Phillips and Robin Haun-Mohamed
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