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Federal Depository Library Conference

April 15-18, 2007

Summary for San Antonio Area Documents Users Group
and Blume Library Staff
by Kathy Amen

I could almost have copied the introductory paragraph from the Spring, 2006, summary, since this conference was also heavy on GPO and Council presentations and light on educational programs. That might be one reason for the relatively low attendance (a little more than 200 attendees). Still, I found it to be quite interesting and valuable, since it offered a good look at where GPO is headed, and how far they've gotten, in several key areas.

GPO has posted proceedings, and there are podcasts and transcripts available for most of the Council sessions, which is much of what I attended. Therefore, I'm only giving some highlights, rather than detailed summaries, below. I will put a link to the proceedings here as soon as they are available. I've divided my highlights into GPO news • Technical notes • Training . (Unofficial podcasts of many sessions are available here through FGInfo.

The theme of meeting was “partnerships”—echoed in many different contexts and subject areas throughout. Acting Superintendent of Documents Ric Davis seems quite committed toward getting things done and working closely with libraries. He mentioned the value of transparency several times, to make sure there is a lot of communication with library partners. For example, if you are not satisfied with an askGPO request, email him directly (rdavis@gpo.gov).

GPO:

• They have made a big budget increase request, so they'll be asking us to write in support
• The next meeting is in Arlington, VA, with a date change from what was originally announced. The dates are Oct. 14-17.
• A new version of the Library Directoryis coming out. We will be getting emails soon about this, as they will want us to validate current information and add new info such as notes, selective housing information, library URLs, etc. Once this information has been submitted, and the new version is up and running, we'll be able to update information in real time ourselves.
• FDLP desktop beta 2.0 (fdlpdev.gpo.gov/fdlp) was demonstrated. (Note that this is a development URL and they don't want it circulating outside of the FDL community.) It has many cool new features. There is also a survey on the site that they want as many people as possible to take, so they can get more input about how we like it, or don't.
• Z39.50 test is underway
• Authentication has been a hot topic in previous conferences, but this time wasn't not mentioned a lot. But GPO Access will have the 110th Congress Public Laws available with authentication software.
• FDSys (Future Digital System) release 1B, internal pilot, will be coming out soon; they will be asking for beta testers. 1C is first public release, due out in December.
• Digital distribution options and issues were discussed in detail. There will be a targeted survey focusing on this topic in the [near?] future.
• Results of the EPA harvesting pilot have brought up a lot of problems, most stemming from enormous amount of material retrieved (200,000+ items from one of the testers).
• “Inspections.” GPO wants to re-vamp the old inspection regimen, with an emphasis on the assessment of public access. There might be a re-designed self-study, remote assessment of web pages, user satisfaction surveys; other ideas were floated.

Technical notes:

• PURLs will be replaced with “handles”—I think this is just new terminology.
• LOCKSS. A presentation by librarians who use this (and are quite zealous about its virtues) gave me a much better idea on what exactly this is: open-source software that integrates and validates content in a dispersed system of content and supplies it to the user in a seamless fashion, whether it is still on the web or from a system cache.
• A consortium of western states is starting up a digitization project for technical reports. Here is the beta website: digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/techreports.

Training:

• OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) system was mentioned often and I was hoping for a demo, but none was forthcoming. GPO hopes to add several presentations to the one on the Catalog of Government Publications that is now in their "OPAL Archive."

• Another consortium of western states has an IMLS grant to develop training system for docs librarians to use in working with non-docs colleagues. They will have a “train the trainers” conference for their area, but will also have web-based modules that will be available for all. (work-in-progress URL: www.webjunction.org/gi21)

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