Present: Host, Jan Jorgensen, Brian Bach, CloAnn Ulrich, Central Washington University;
President Marilyn Von Seggern, Washington State University; Robin Clausen, Tacoma Public Library;
Sandy Dyer, Washington State Law Library; Linda Fredericks, King County Library System;
Herrick Heitman, Washington State Library; Judy Pitchford, Washington State Library;
Judy Solomon, Seattle Public Library; and Sue Anderson, Eastern Washington University.
Library Tour:
Jan Jorgensen gave a library tour of the James E. Brooks Library.
Program:
Presenter: Brian Bach, Documents Librarian
Topic: Maps
Central Washington University library has 100,000 maps, of which approximately 55,000 are
USGS 7.5 topological quadrangles, and thus the dimensions of his cataloging work ahead.
Of the 100,000 maps, about one third is currently in their catalog. Brian discussed using a template to catalog topological maps for each state. He’s finished with Alabama, continuing with Arizona, and will work on Washington maps next.
Presenter: Judy Pitchford, Washington State Library
Topic: Making Maps Accessible Through Digitization
WSL began digitizing maps for better access for patrons and because they are too fragile to handle; they select based on map condition and those of interest to Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. They try to digitize only non-copyrighted maps; if they find that they have inadvertently digitized a copyrighted map, they will remove it from their web site.
They have a jumbo scanner; use standard settings, a tiff format because it’s stable, universal, and does not compress files. They scan maps every few months at the state archives in Olympia where they straighten, crop and adjust color of each map. If a map is too large, they shoot the map in quadrants, and put it together in Photoshop.
WSL chose LizardTech’s DJVU to display map images on the web; it encodes and compresses the file, handles multi file documents and it’s affordable. The DJVU plug-in displays high resolution images and allows a viewer to pan and zoom in or out. Patrons can view a thumbnail or a large image of each map. Maps can be searched by time period or map type.
WSL has entered into several verbal or written agreements with private parties to digitize personal maps and add them to the WSL web page. WSL scans and mounts the digitized map on the web site and returns original maps to patrons.
WSL collaborated with the Museum & Arts Center in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley to digitize area maps and the Spokane Public Library to digitize the soldier cards and photos of local men in World War I.
Digitized maps are available on the WSL web site under
Historical Maps .
Business Meeting and FDLP Update
After lunch, Marilyn Von Seggern opened the business meeting and thanked Jan
for the programs and library tour. Attendees introduced themselves. Robin
moved to accept the minutes of the November 1, 2004, meeting. The motion was
seconded and carried.
Treasurer's Report
Beginning Balance:
$ 848.74
Income (dues):
$ 140.00
Expenses:
$ 34.81
Ending Balance
$ 898.74
Spring Council Meeting Update: Herrick Heitman
The main emphasis of the spring council meeting centered on what’s happening with GPO;
their ILS should be up in June; there are no New Electronic Titles after April 1-9.
In the disaster recovery presentation he learned about many good ideas for libraries;
none of the libraries liked the essential titles survey, GPO was disappointed in the
results as libraries’ selections were not consistent with any others.
There is no money to consolidate regional libraries into super-regional libraries; their
idea to move GPO to a more suburban setting to save money may not work. Will LOCKSS
(Lots of copies keep stuff safe) be a way to maintain an archive of government documents;
will future FDLP meetings use a web cam to enable documents librarians who don’t attend
the meetings to be able to view them from their libraries?
Brian pointed out that fewer topographic maps are being sent; the Forest Service received a
grant to continue to print maps. Other agencies were good about disseminating information,
but GPO can’t mandate what agencies do.
WLA 2006 Program Proposals
We decided to propose three programs for WLA 2006:
Government 102: How Do I Find State Government Information?
Legal Research 101: Researching Cases at the State and Local Level
Rebel with a cause: Government Information as a Source for Grassroots Activism
Sue will send these ideas to Carlos and ask him to find presenters via the NGIN discussion list.
She will also help write the proposals.
State Plan: Herrick Heitman
Herrick looked through the State Plan and made some changes. He will send the document
to the NGIN group for comments and suggestions. The Task Force (Cass, Carlos, Robin and
Herrick) will look at the comments, integrate any that look good, and send it out again to
the NGIN members.
Corporate Sponsorship
Carlos received an offer of $500 to NGIN if we would hand out information on the Columbia University Gazetteer online to our members at this meeting. The NGIN board decided we did not have sufficient attendance to warrant a sponsorship of this kind. We also decided not
to change our bylaws to indicate whether to receive a sponsorship of this kind in the future.
Election of Officers: Marilyn von Seggern
Sue Anderson was elected President Elect/Program Chair and Jan Jorgensen was elected Secretary.
Question About Digitization:
Marilyn asked if any library was digitizing anything in their collections. WSU is looking for grant money to digitize Palouse area and Latah county documents, such as agriculture, USGS, scientific documents, area history and genealogical information. Other libraries aren’t planning on digitization projects at this time. Perhaps we need to think about digitization; state and local documents, standards, who’s doing what, and a clearinghouse. These are ideas for another meeting.
GODORT Update:
Sue Selmer was awarded the Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award. She will receive the award at ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Jan will send her a congratulatory card from NGIN.
Next meeting:
Sue will plan the program for our fall meeting, which is scheduled for
Monday, November 7, 2005, at Seattle Public Library.
Meeting adjourned at 3:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sue Anderson
NGIN Secretary
Eastern Washington University
Cheney, WA 99004
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