Attendance: Dorothy Blow, Camille Fiorillo, Amory Irby, Tina Petimezas, Azucena Rodriguez-Guerra, Rita Wilson, and Kathy Amen.

We spent a good bit of our meeting time discussing the Biennial Survey, which is due at the end of October. We discussed the fact that the Survey is an information-gathering tool and we should answer questions honestly, even if our answers to some questions might be that we are not in compliance with a standard. The likelihood of inspections on the basis of Survey responses is very slight, in the opinion of old docs hands in the group, and GPO allows us a great deal of latitude in interpreting regulations to suit our own special situations.

First of all, in response to questions 33 and 33a: we do have a state plan and it was revised within the last 5 years. We also interpreted the questions about various policies (such as those dealing with preservation) to mean that as long as documents are treated the same as other library materials then they don't necessarily need to be specifically mentioned in the policies. Access policies might need to mention government information if computer access is restricted, but for most of us that is not a concern.

We also shared ideas for how to respond to question 28 and its subsequent parts, dealing with public service strategies, which are new questions and require responses unique in Biennial Survey history. Here are ideas that we came up with that, for the most part, we believe we could all honestly use to respond to these questions (although some of the blatantly academic-library responses would need to be edited by SAPL):

28. List and briefly describe primary strategies to learn government information needs of your community:

• analysis of reference questions/familiarity with reference questions asked in person, by phone, or by email
• familiarity/analysis of tangible documents used
• consultation with faculty/students/patrons
• consultation with fellow librarians at my and other institutions
• regular perusal of local and campus media for topics of current interest
• regular reading of govdoc-l for ideas from other institutions

28a. List the primary ways in which your library provides public access: (the explanatory sentence in the survey essentially provides most of these answers)

• bibliographic access through a catalog which is freely available on the Web
• onsite use of tangible documents
• links in the catalog and on the Library's website to online government resources
• on-site computer access to students, faculty, staff, and community members not affiliated with our institution
• email messages concerning releases of important information and other topics of interest
• library blogs highlighting government information of interest

28b. List the primary ways your library provides public services for depository resources, other than routine processing.

• in-library displays
• Library website
• email notices
• reference service
• classroom instruction
• Library blogs
• GPO handouts and those from other governmental entities

We also shared news items that had come up since our last meeting.

Dorothy reported that their assistant, Jose Perez, passed away last spring after a recurring illness. We expressed our sympathy to the SAPL staff. They have recently hired a replacement for him.

Palo Alto has hired a couple of new adjunct librarians, a welcome addition to their staff. Camille is now officially Director of Access Services (Circulation) but is still interested in documents! Camille also wanted to call our attention to a website that provides Census data by zipcode quickly and painlessly: Zipskinny.com. It really is pretty neat—check it out!

UTSA has made some new hires as well: a new Assistant Dean for Public Services and a new engineering librarian.

Kathy's big announcement is that she will be spending the fall, 2008, semester in London, teaching with St. Mary's Study Abroad program. We might want to look into starting a blog, or using Googlegroups, or some other way of doing minutes for our group while she's gone.

In elections for the upcoming school year, Camille was named our new President by acclamation.

Our next meeting will be held on November 2, 9 a.m. at Palo Alto. Our Christmas lunch meeting will be at Trinity on December 7. Ruby will be sending out an email with more information and a request for RSVPs.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathy Amen, Secretary/Treasurer

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