NOTE: some of the links in the text below are no longer valid. The following accounts are taken from our notes. If you have any questions, let us know and we will try to find more information in the notes or handouts. Also let us know if you would like copies of any of the handouts noted in italics in the accounts below.

GPO has published proceedings of this conference.

Sessions:  Census | Council Recommendations | Disaster Plans | Displays | Docs Citator | FirstGov | Full-Text Periodicals | Grants | Marcive | OCLC Archiving | Post-Depostory Era | Retro cataloging | Statistics | Stat-USA

The first morning of the conferences was taken up with what Sheila McGarr refers to as the "GPO Talking Heads," a plenary session featuring reports from GPO personnel (and sometimes others). This year these reports were even more interesting than usual and were listened to avidly by the 500+ attendees. We heard from:

• Michael DiMario, the Public Printer (who will probably be replaced by an appointee from the new president early next year)
• Andrew Sherman, Director of Congressional, Legislative and Public Affairs for GPO
• Francis Buckley, Superintendent of Documents (and former docs librarian from Detroit Public)
• Gil Baldwin, Director of the Library Programs Service which oversees the Depository Program
• T.C. Evans, Asst. Director, Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services
• Judith Russell, Deputy Director, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (and former GPO staffer)

Michael's summary of big issues discussed at the Conference covers the major points made in the GPO reports. A few other details:

Buckley, who sees the FDLP as a "safety net" for folks who cannot access government information on their own, talked about the idea of sending the "source files" of electronic documents to Depository libraries for archiving. He commented that GPO usually does not get source files from the agencies, but rather gets camera-ready copy, which is preferable if the document is also going to be printed.  (Tim Byrne, a regional librarian from the Univ. of Colorado, gave a presentation dealing with the idea of distributing electronic files at the Regionals' meeting on Sunday. It is on the web at http://spot.colorado.edu/~byrnet/Regional/PPA.ppt. NOTE: this is a Powerpoint file)

Buckley also noted that we were very lucky that the proposed GPO budget cuts were included in the same package as cuts to some more high-profile agencies such as the Capitol police. Otherwise, he fears, they might have been passed without notice.

Judy Russell of NCLIS thinks that agencies are beginning to understand the concept of permanent public access to their material. NCLIS' report on the government information scene is due December 15. Details are at their web site: www.nclis.gov.

There are copies at the FDLP Desktop of two of the items brought as handouts to the meeting:

• LPS 2000 Annual Report
• Draft Policy Statement on Dual-format Distribution (referred to as the "SOD")

There were two other handouts--LPS Update, and GPO Access Update--that appear not to be on the Desktop, but will probably show up in Admin Notes. Email Kathy if you'd like copies now.

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Chris and Michael attended a presentation by the coordinator of a cooperative retrospective cataloging project going on in Ohio. Five libraries there that have substantial collections of older documents are joining forces to catalog pre-1976 material. Cataloging records from the project will be available through OCLC. Email Chris or Kathy if you'd like a copy of the handout from this session.

The OCLC/GPO Archiving project is an outgrowth of the experimental ERIC project of a few years ago. The kind of material they are talking about archiving is what is on GPO Access plus "core" agency information. They are working on development of an integrated system that will use PURLs and will manage storage, cataloging , access and migration. The main problems they are addressing are the exponential growth of the information to be archived, the rapid pace of technological change, and the ever-rising expectations of our users. They hope to have a product available in about a year and are negotiating pricing with GPO, but the "product" will be distributed no charge to Depository libraries. There is a more information on this project in its larger context in this section of Michael's summary, and also at GPO's Permanent Public Access (PPA) site.

The provocatively-titled panel discussion--"Government Information Reference Services: New Roles and Models for the Post-Depository Era"--was a lively one. None of the panelists felt that the Depository Program is, or should, go away any time soon, but they did express concerns that we need to reevaluate our services, taking into account the fact that users of government information no longer need to visit us physically to find what they need. Some of the noteworthy points made by the panelists:

• libraries need to place increased emphasis on helping users to find information on their own (both in the library and through the libraries' web pages)
• we may need to develop new measures of what we are doing, since simple counts of reference questions may indicate that need for our services is diminishing, when, in reality, it is changing form and may even be increasing
• the reference librarian is becoming a reference therapist, helping the user to define his/her information need (not new, but of perhaps more importance before venturing onto to the web in search of the information)
• remote users aren't remote, they're right where they want to be (at home, in their offices, etc.); WE'RE "remote"
• users want answers, not attitude (swallow print-centric opinions if the information can be found more easily online)

The presentation on Applying for Library Grants, by a representative from the Institute of Museum and Library Services ( this is a recently established (1996) independent grant-making agency; their web site is: www.imls.gov) included some essentially common-sense tips, and also examples of funded projects. The session also included a presentation on the Technology Opportunities Program under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (which sounds similar to Texas' TIFF grants). Email Chris or Kathy if you'd like to see the handouts for these presentations, which include copies of the presenters' slides.

A presentation on Finding Government Economic Statistics online, by a representative from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was very valuable and interesting. Kathy plans to incorporate some of the best suggested pages from the presentation into her Government Statistics page. If you would like a copy of the session handout, which includes screen shots of the web pages discussed, email Kathy.

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An announcement of general interest from the Marcive users' meeting: Marcive may begin getting cataloging for their service directly from GPO instead of LC. This will probably mean that 019 fields will be included in the records. If you have an opinion about this change, email Jim Noel at Marcive.

The Census Bureau update session is always eagerly anticipated, especially since we will begin seeing new decennial Census data next year. All 2000 data will first appear on the Bureau's web site. When enough states' data has accumulated to fill up a regional DVD (and they hold a LOT of data) DVDs will be issued. We think that DVD will be the format depository libraries will be getting. The Bureau plans to make extensive use of PDF files for reports and maps; this will make them easier to print from the web site. The reports will use the proprietary software that we have heard about on govdoc-l (which Mr. Kavaliunas from Census says is very nice software with a lot of functionality) but the data will also be available in ASCII (which is better for long-term access). Census 2000 reports will use the same MSA divisions as the 1990. Next time, however, they plan to use ZCTA (Zip Code Tabulation Areas).

Apparently Congress is still undecided about whether to allow sampling to correct suspected undercounts in the "100%" data, which includes that used for redistricting purposes. If sampling is allowed, Census will probably issue TWO versions of this data, the straight counts and the adjusted counts. Have their email address handy for referring confused patrons. The handouts from the Census session were a description of the planned products that will be generally available, and a chart of anticipated release times. If you'd like copies of these, email Kathy.

News from Stat-USA: we now have two simultaneous users to the online product. You don't have to do anything to get the second user, our passwords are simply configured to allow two users now. They are developing a manual oriented to academic users; it will be out soon. NTDB as a CD is no more (some may still be in the GPO pipeline). They are considering burning CDs that "capture" the web site content once a year to provide long-term access to the data (but their primary concern has always been providing data of current interest; we need to keep reminding them of historical research needs.) The Stat-USA folks are very concerned about efforts from the information industry to put limits on what kinds of data government agencies can distribute. See this section of Michael's summary for more details.

The FirstGov presentation was very interesting. Thomas Freebairn, its director, gave us some background on the development of the portal site. The (very wealthy) developer of the Inktomi search engine, which apparently is the "behind the scenes" workings of many major web search services, offered free use of his software for three years and a considerable amount of money to develop FirstGov as a stimulus for government to make more information available online. It is intended to be a portal, and complement existing services, not replace them. Mr. Freebairn noted that cross-agency cooperation is rare in government and he would like for FirstGov to be a model in this; particularly, it's difficult for an executive-branch agency to work with a legislative agency like GPO, but he wants to work with GPO Access, not against it. One current limitation in this effort is that the FirstGov search engine doesn't search WAIS databases, which means that it doesn't pull up items in the Federal Register, Congressional Record, and other databases of this kind in GPO Access. He said that improvements will be coming to the search engine and hopefully this limitation could be overcome. Another perspective on FirstGov is in this section of Michael's summary.

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One of the most entertaining sessions was the one on library displays. Folks from two different libraries in Minnesota detailed ways they display and highlight their collections. The library at St. Olaf's College uses cardboard magazine boxes to store most of their documents and puts catchy pictures on the front of the boxes. Minnesota State at Mankato has a set of display tables and several hints for this kind of display were given: look for "patriotic" fabric that can be used to drape displays around the 4th of July; save different sizes of boxes for propping up display items and varying the height of the display, keep records of items used for repeat displays. This last point is what led the folks at Mankato to develop the displays clearinghouse, and its director wants to encourage submissions as well as use of the clearinghouse and its accompanying tutorial. Rhonda's wonderful Internet display was one of the slides he showed of displays already on file at the clearinghouse. One of the handouts given at this session was a bibliography on library displays. It is available at the clearinghouse, but if you'd like a paper copy, email Kathy.

Chris attended a session on Disaster Response Plans. He gave the handout to Tina, who has been collecting these plans for some time. Email her if you want a copy.

Ken Furuta of Arizona State has developed an ingenious automatic government document citing program that he talked about. You can find the "DocsCite" program at www.asu.edu/lib/hayden/govdocs/docscite/docscite.htm.

Paul Arrigo, who used to work at the Texas State Library, talked about his project at Washburn Univ. Law School, where they are archiving and indexing electronic government periodicals. This is full-text indexing and you can search their database at 198.252.9.95/home/govper.html. [NO LONGER AVAILABLE ONLINE] The project started as a help for folks looking to print missing issues so that full volumes could be bound. But Paul says it has taken on a life of its own, carrying it  beyond this modest beginning.

The Council Meeting Wednesday afternoon, where the recommendations that are to be presented to GPO were read and discussed, was a very quiet affair, with none of the expected fireworks about electronic dissemination. Most of the comments that surfaced during the rest of the conference--concern about permanent access, keeping some titles in print, confusion about the meaning of "dissemination" in an electronic era--are more or less addressed in the recommendations. The recommendations will eventually appear on Council's web site: www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/council/index.html, and of course will come out in Admin Notes as well.

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Kathy also has the following handouts for loan/copy, from sessions none of us attended. Email her if you'd like to see any of them:

• Institute of Peace Packet
• Transportation Research Information Services
• NRC reading room fact sheet
• NIMA
• DTIC

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