From jrussell@gpo.govTue Apr 30 08:43:28 1996 Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 17:38:05 -0700 From: "Judith C. Russell" Reply to: Discussion of Government Document Issues To: Multiple recipients of list GOVDOC-L Subject: FDLP Study: Depository Library Council Statement STUDY TO IDENTIFY MEASURES NECESSARY FOR A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION TO A MORE ELECTRONIC FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM (FDLP) On April 18th there was a meeting of the FDLP Study working group and advisors in order to provide the advisors with an opportunity to present their preliminary reactions to the draft Report to Congress. The minutes of the meeting were posted separately. Supplemental statements were submitted by NCLIS, the Depository Library Council and the library associations. IIA is not submitting a supplemental statement at this time. The Depository Library Council statement is provided below. The others will be posted separately. Public comments on the draft report are still welcome, but should be submitted NOT LATER THAN Friday, May 24, 1996. Comments may be submitted by Internet e-mail to study@gpo.gov, by fax to FDLP Study at (202) 512-1262, or by mail to FDLP Study, Mail Stop SDE, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20401. Please be sure to include sufficient information to identify yourself and enable us to contact you for additional information or clarification (e.g. name, affiliation, telephone number, e-mail address). ************************************************************************** Draft Report to Congress: Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program Joint Meeting of the Working Group and Advisory Group Thursday, April 18, 1996 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 628 PRELIMINARY COMMENTS OF THE DEPOSITORY LIBRARY COUNCIL ON THE DRAFT REPORT TO CONGRESS Daniel P. O'Mahony, Chair Depository Library Council On behalf of the Depository Library Council, I would like to thank the members of the Working Group for this opportunity to provide you with direct input and our initial reactions to the Draft Report to Congress. We're especially grateful for your scheduling this meeting at this time during the week of the Spring Council Meeting and Federal Depository Conference when many of us are here in Washington and could meet with you. I also want to acknowledge that the report was issued in "draft" form, and express our appreciation for the opportunity to comment on the report at this stage. In addition to our remarks today, the Depository Library Council will be submitting a more complete written response to the Draft Report within the 60-day comment period. Further, I'd like to commend the Working Group, not only for the opportunities we've had throughout the study process to provide input, but also for your listening to what we've said -- it's obvious that at each successive step in the process that the comments from the depository library community have been seriously considered by the Group, and the Draft Report reflects that. I think much of the initial reaction of members of the Depository Library Council to the Draft Report was quite positive. The report, I think, reflects the original tone of the Senate report that originally directed that the study be conducted -- namely, it tries to take advantage of new information technologies to enhance and improve public access to government information. As a few people have mentioned already, many of us at this meeting this afternoon are, literally, coming directly from the GPO Federal Depository Library Conference and Spring Meeting of the Depository Library Council. Approximately 600 depository librarians from all over the country gathered here in Washington this week for these meetings, and for the better part of the past three-and-one-half days, we have been discussing the impact of this transition on the citizens in our local communities and on our services for government information. There is a lot in the Draft Report to Congress that depository librarians are pleased with -- the following is not a comprehensive list, but briefly: - --Depository librarians support a timeframe that gives our libraries, our patrons, GPO, and government agencies, a realistic chance for preparing for and adapting to the transition without major detriment to our services for government information; - --The Depository Library Council recommended the adoption of the Principles of Federal Government Information and the Mission and Goals for the FDLP, as stated in the Draft Report; - --Depository librarians are excited about the potential for expanding and enhancing the array of government information available to the public, as described in the Draft Report; - --Depository librarians were pleased to see a recognition of the need for government-wide coordination for making federal information publicly accessible; and - --Depository librarians agree that changes to Title 44 are necessary to facilitate the transition and ensure the statutory authority of the program. Depository librarians at the conference were also pleased to see that the report stresses the traditional and ongoing services and value of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), and extends these services into the electronic environment -- specifically, identifying and cataloging government information so people can find it, retaining and preserving government information so people can continue to have access to it in the future, and providing public services for government information that help people effectively utilize this information to meet their needs. Librarians this past week, however, also expressed their concerns that this transition should support and enhance public access to government information, and it should not introduce new technological, financial, or other barriers to the public. Much of the discussion this week focused on the need for coordinated and standardized bibliographic access -- providing the public with information that enables them to identify and locate electronic publications. In a decentralized and highly volatile electronic environment, this cataloging or locator information is absolutely critical, but it is also much more complicated to achieve and to maintain. It is imperative that GPO work closely with agencies from all branches of government to develop coordinated, coherent, and consistent means for identifying, locating, and describing government information for access by the public. Closely related to this is the concern of ensuring that the public will be able to get to these electronic publications in the future. And sometimes that "future" is just a few days or weeks away. Virtually every librarian at the conference could relate firsthand to stories about user frustrations with the Internet -- users from all types of libraries who were exasperated because they couldn't find files that had changed locations or disappeared altogether. As agencies' World Wide Web and other computer sites evolve and the locations of electronic files are changed, there needs to be a systematic and coordinated mechanism within the FDLP to identify and track these changes. Just as important, there must be an organized way to ensure that these electronic publications will be retained and preserved so that users can have continued and reliable access to this information in the future. Librarians at the conference this week also described the present limitations of the technical infrastructure and the difficulties users encounter when trying to use electronic files. A number of librarians told various "horror stories" about their experiences in trying to download large files for patrons. In many cases, people have to spend unreasonable amounts of time or perform a complex sequence of steps to access, obtain, and format the file(s) for viewing. One librarian on the west coast, anxious to get a copy of the Draft Report to Congress on the GPO Study, had to spend more than three hours downloading, formatting, and printing the appropriate files in order to obtain this approximately 150-page report. [This librarian was not, by the way, from a small, poorly connected and electronically challenged library, but from a large academic research university with access to high-end equipment and direct Internet connections.] Given this experience, librarians are not looking forward to the prospect of potentially having to download, for example, a congressional hearing of several hundred pages or a 1,600 page bill on health care reform. Day in and day out, some of users' most frustrating experiences occur when the format that the publication is available in is not the most appropriate for the content of the information or the use the patron or the publishing agency intended for it. Many of the depository librarians here this week also were very concerned about restrictions being placed on electronic government information, such as user or access fees and exclusive or copyright-like restrictions. Increasingly we see examples -- such as the U.S. Industrial Outlook, Tide Tables, Foreign Broadcast Information Service reports -- of information that as it migrates to electronic format becomes less accessible to the public due to fee-based or other restrictive agreements. An underlying issue to many of these concerns, obviously, is cost -- costs in terms of access, equipment, staff, support, training, and other resources -- not only to libraries but to users as well. The Depository Library Council and depository librarians have serious concerns about the costs of a more electronic FDLP, as well as the technical capabilities of libraries, agencies, and other partners in the program to take advantage of new technologies. We strongly support the Technical Implementation Analysis requested in the Draft Report's Strategic Plan in order to gather the critical data that is needed to assist and evaluate the implementation of the transition. So we have a number of concerns about the transition, but depository librarians are indeed excited about the potential for a more electronic FDLP for enhancing public access to government information, because, probably more than most, we understand and appreciate the tremendous advantages of some kinds of electronic information. Our cautiousness is borne out of our concern of the impact this transition is likely to have on the users of government information whom we serve everyday. On behalf of the Depository Library Council, I would like to again thank the members of the Working Group for this opportunity to share with you our initial impressions of the Draft Report to Congress, and we look forward to continuing the cooperative relationship developed throughout this study process, and the opportunities for continued input and communication as the transition is implemented. Again, the Depository Library Council will be submitting our more detailed written response to the Draft Report to the Working Group by the end of May. ================================================================= Daniel P. O'Mahony Phone: 401-863-2522 Government Documents Coordinator Fax: 401-863-1272 Brown University Library - Box A ap201159@brownvm.brown.edu Providence, RI 02912 GovDocs@Brown.Edu