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Miscellaneous Operational News
from the Fall 2003 FDLC
Microfiche. Several GPO folks indicated that the days of MF are numbered. Current MF outsourced contracts are being let run out. "By the end of the year" is one time frame I heard, we won't be getting any more microfiche. Titles currently sent to us on microfiche will all be available digitally.
GPO Access changes. Phone-in customer support is now available 7 am. to 9 pm. Eastern time daily.
Their new electronic customer service program (accessed by clicking on "help") incorporates a "knowledge base" of anticipated frequently-asked questions. You can search this database for answers in a number of specific categories. One really nice feature of the new program is a "email me if this answer is updated" button, which appears on each "answer" in the knowledge base. This service replaces "Ask LPS," a move which some GPO staffers and librarians lament, since the new service is aimed at ALL of GPO's customers. But they advise giving it some time to see if it can perform AskLPS' functions. There is a category for "Federal Depository Libraries" which includes a lot of sub-categories that seem, at first glance, to cover most of the operational issues we usually need to ask about.
For example, under "Cataloging" there is a "PURL issues" sub-sub-category. If you want to report an inaccurate PURL, do it through this category and it will get sent directly to the PURL folks. (On this subject, if you find an electronic version of a distributed document, and the document doesn't already have a PURL associated with it, notify GPO via this service, not by emailing "lostdocs," as you would for a completely fugitive publication; likewise, if you discover a web page with many publications linked from it, and you suspect they haven't been cataloged by GPO, send them the URL and they'll do the rest.)
GPO news. They are filling the top managerial positions in the new structure that Bruce James has developed. There will be a Chief Information Officer for the first time. They are waiting until this person is hired to move forward on the acquisition of an integrated library system for GPO, something they've been working on for what seems like forever. They keep coming up with new things they want it to do, which is one of the reasons it's been delayed. When it's in place, it will be searchable by the public, and they hope to even have piece level records for serials in it, even for digital-only serials.
The Biennial Survey will be coming up this November. There is an information page here.
All the GPO bookstores except the DC branch have been closed; they were losing a lot of money. They are in the process of consolidating the remaining inventory and plan to move to a print-on-demand model for sales.
There is a 500 title backlog of reported "lostdocs" that they hope to have cleared up soon.
The inspectors are currently working on clearing libraries that were on probation. I don' think we'll have to deal with inspections any time soon, possibly not ever again. One way they plan to replace the old inspection process is by having "consultants," people paid by GPO but stationed in libraries around the country, regularly keep in touch with the libraries in their areas, providing training as well as checking up on things. They currently have proposals for consultant arrangements from 3 or 4 libraries (and I heard Arlene Weible from North Texas talking to Sue Troyan in the airport about submitting a proposal up there) around the country, and there are currently two GPO-paid interns, library school students, who are working with the "all-electronic depository" at the University of Arizona.
Best news from GPO is that their full budget request was granted and has already been signed into law. Also, James was able to get the outgoing OMB director to sign a new agreement with GPO on his last day in office. This agreement acknowledges GPO's role as primary gatherer, organizer and disseminator of government information and will hopefully head off any future attempts to encourage agencies to bypass GPO, as OMB tried to do earlier this year. No matter what other problems one might have with how James is handling things at GPO, this is a great accomplishment.
We should be looking soon for GPO's new screensaver to become available for depository promotion. They previewed it for us at one of the meetings and it was very cool.
The first Depository Library of the Year was announced and feted at a VERY nice reception (with lots of cake). The winning library was the Tulsa City/County Library, a small selective with a very enthusiastic librarian. (She also presented a program on depository promotion.)
Marcive news. Jim Noel sent out an email right after the conference listing those "problem" item numbers that got temporarily dropped from the Item Lister. If you are asking Marcive to use the Item Lister for your profile, and you're worried about those items, contact Jim.
There has been a slow drop in the numbers of items shipped over the past few months, but an increase in the full cataloging records going out (2000+ per month) due to GPO's new catalogers coming on board. (More interesting stats on the program were in the Documents Data Miner presentation).
Marcive is cautiously pursuing it's pre-76 cataloging project. Right now they are keying in information from the big green LC volumes, a very laborious process that they do not have too many people working on. Let Jim know if you are interested in updates on this project, or their other big one, the DOE technical reports. (Jim's email: jnoel@marcive.com)
