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Federal Depository Library Conference

October 17-20, 2004

GPO News and Initiatives

Big Picture Issues

GPO's main concerns these days are:

• developing models and procedures for content management of their electronic collection (and by extension, the totality of electronic government information as well)
• version control (identifying and assuring permanent access to, primarily, various versions of bills and regulations, but also subsequent editions of other docs) and
• establishing digitization priorities. We heard technical presentations at the beginning and end of the conference from engineers who have been called in to consult on the first two of these problems.

As to content mangement, the top GPO folks agree with us that permanent, free, public access to government information is the top priority. But within this requirement lurk a lot of troublesome details: what level of service will be free? what formats for the information? how will it be accessed?, etc. Given the stupendous variety of types of information we are discussing, and the large number of agencies and individuals involved in its production, this is a truly daunting challenge. Overall, the content management system will need to handle the conversion of non-digital material to digital form, the harvesting of digital content from agency and other websites, and the deposit of digital material directly with GPO. All these kinds of content need to be verified and authenticated, preserved, and made accessible.

Version control is related to content management, of course, but is such a thorny problem it was given special attention at the conference. GPO is interested in getting feedback from the user community about what levels and types of control are needed. For many users, including lawyers, researchers in public policy and the history of governmental activity, etc., having access to older versions of material is vital. In an electronic environment, when superceded paper versions of documents and parts of documents are not available for libraries to keep if they so choose, this could be a serious problem for these users.

Statistics and other tidbits

In addition to these big picture issues for which they sought feedback, GPO also passed along the usual tidbits of news and statistics. The most noteworthy statistic is that for the last fiscal year, only 14% of the items distributed to libraries were tangible with no electronic equivalent. It looks like the almost-paperless society could conceivably already be upon us. In other news, GPO is closer to setting up its mirror site for GPO Access. It will be a distributed system through Akamai. This is a vital project which will ensure functioning of the system and permanent public access to material in the event of a natural or other kind of disaster at the main site. The mirror site will include everything, including the PURL server, an important inclusion since libraries use PURLS for most of the links in their catalogs.

They are also working on digitization projects: early next year the 1999 bound Congressional Record (the first title on the digitization survey list) will be available on GPO Access and earlier and later years will follow. At present, only the daily issues of the Record are on the system. Also available soon will be the 108th Congress' Statutues at Large. Again, at present only the slip laws are available. The next big title to be digitized will be the U.S. Reports.

The inspection process is expected to be replaced by consultants, paid by GPO but based in libraries throughout the country. The first proposal for hosting a consultant has been accepted, in Michigan. They'll be posting the MOU covering this partnership soon so that other interested libraries can see what they might be getting into. The self-study questionnaire will probably no longer be required, but they are planning on making it available as a self-assessment tool.

More tidbits from GODORT operational issues forum

[note: a summary of the GODORT forum is now available]

This was mainly a bull session on picky problems, but since GPO staffers were there and responded to some of the questions, I thought I'd include it on this page.

• GPO's new ILS will allow shipping lists, or something resembling them, for electronic-only publications, making learning about them easier for us
• If you experience a problem with the PURL server, Bulletin Board, or similar applications, call the toll-free number on the GPO Access Help Page, rather than sending an email. This will allow them to send a "Technical Failure Notification" to the appropriate people for quick action
• GPO will continue to make MF for the "dual format" items (Congressional Reports/Documents, hearings, etc.) even though other MF distribution is being phased out
• considering the new ERIC full-text service, GPO will be cataloging all documents in the database that are within the scope of the FLDP. Robin Haun-Mohammed indicated that this main mean more titles than the roughly 10% they were cataloging before. And Jim Noel of Marcive repeated to me that whatever GPO catalogs, Marcive will send subscribers in the monthly record dumps
• there was some discussion of the "carrot crop," ideas for incentives to libraries to stay in the program. One of the items is free access to databases that others have to pay for. There is a list of these database arrangements at GPO Access
• also some discussion of the Print on Demand service GPO is pushing (there were sample printed-on-demand documents on display); most folks at this meeting were pretty skeptical that such a system would work to our satisfaction, our main concern being the amount GPO would allow depositories in an "account" to buy POD titles

NOTE: At a future date, GPO will publish proceedings from this conference. Consult this list of the handouts collected if you want to see more details from these presentations, but here are online versions of some of them:

Future Digital System Summary
POD Survey Results
GPO Recommended Readings

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