Present: Sue Anderson (Eastern Washington University), Brian Bach (Central Washington University), Joanna Bailey (Western Washington University), Robin Clausen (Pierce County Library System), Jillian Coats (MLIS, Everett, Washington), Carlos Diaz (The Evergreen State College), Julie Fitzgerald (Western Washington University), Cass Hartnett (University of Washington), Herrick Heitman (Washington State Library), Peggy Jarrett (University of Washington Law Library), Rob Lopresti (Western Washington University), Talia Mathews (MLIS student, Bellingham), Jan McConnel (Whatcom Community College), Justin Otto (Eastern Washington University), Judy Solomon (Seattle Public Library), and Sharon Wilson (King County Library System).

The fall meeting of the Northwest Government Information Network was held on Friday, November 7, 2008 on the campus of Western Washington University.

The meeting began at 9:29 a.m. Host Rob Lopresti introduced Chris Cox, Dean, Western Washington University who welcomed all in attendance to Bellingham and WWU. Rob then also welcomed everyone and introduced several members of the Technical Services staff at WWU who were part of the morning program, To Catch a Map Thief: The WWU Story of Purloined Maps . Rob distributed a handout which provided the following information.

To avoid confusion:

• Most of the material was stolen from the Government Information collection in Wilson Library at Western Washington University, in Bellingham, WA. A small amount was stolen from the main circulating (LC) collection. NOTHING was taken from the Northwest Archives or the Huxley College Map Library.
• WWU has been a federal documents depository since 1963. However, all the Federal documents that were damaged were published before that date, and none are Federal property. Since WWU is a state school, all the books are state property.
• None of this is archival material, meaning the original or only copy of something.

February 17, 2006. Library staff member Julie Fitzgerald notices someone using the Serial Set volumes and behaving suspiciously. She later identifies the suspect from a photo array.

February 18-20, 2006. The weekend of the President's Day holiday. During three-day holidays the library is open fewer hours. Also during this weekend, a car with Montana plates registered to the suspect received a parking ticket on the WWU campus.

February 21, 2006. The morning after the three-day weekend Julie Fitzgerald looks for the volumes the suspect was using. She finds them shelved out of order, with pages sliced out. More books are found on the shelves upside down, out of order, etc. She notices government information librarian Rob Lopresti.

The University police are notified. Map dealers and map librarian lists are sent lists of the missing material. In the next week WWU library personnel launch permanent searches on eBay for 40 of the missing pages.

Several months of study determine that at least 102 books were damaged and at least 648 pages are missing. 75% of them are maps. Most of the rest are lithographs, charts, and illustrations.

March 21, 2006. By now it is clear that publications resembling the missing pages are being offered most often by an eBay store owned by the suspect.

May-June 2006. Rob Lopresti arranges to purchase two maps from the suspect through intermediaries. The maps are sent to the Crime Lab for comparison to Western's damaged books.

September 2006. The Crime Lab confirms that the maps did come from Western's books.

During the rest of 2006-2007 several things happen:

• Western Libraries improve security.
• Library personnel continue to track sales of suspicious material through the suspect's eBay store.
• Western University personnel look for a way to prosecute the suspect, including consulting with the local office of the FBI and the Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney. Eventually University Police Sergeant Bianca Smith contacted the Great Falls, MT Police Department which agreed to review the investigative reports. The Great Falls Police consulted with the Department of Homeland Security.

December 12, 2007. The Department of Homeland Security (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the Great Falls Police Department serve a search warrant on the suspect's property. Initial estimates are that they seize:

• 20,000+ maps, lithographs, and prints
• 800+ books with identification from 100+ libraries
• 1000+ Indian artifacts

March 27, 2008. The suspect is arrested and makes his first appearance in federal court.

September 2008. Rob Lopresti with the help of librarians and FBI personnel, identify 192 pages from the suspect's collection that match missing pages from Western's books.

September 15, 2008. Having pled guilty, the suspect is sentenced to thirty months in federal prison, and ordered to pay $23,000 in restitution, most of it to WWU.

As of November 5, Western has not received any restitution, and the stolen books and pages have not been returned.

Julie Fitzgerald shared her insightful account and Rob relayed the course of events over the past two years, their actions and involvement and frustration at times with the slow progress toward justice. He summarized what they did and what they learned from this event and what the university put into its best practices and methods. These include:

• Look at valuable materials on a regular basis
• All illustrated Serial Set volumes (pre-1970s) are now in closed stacks
• Install motion detectors - to be included in university policies
• Install door alarms -to be included in university policies
• Install key pads for staff use
• Locate materials in areas where others can watch their use
• Conduct a library security audit with local police
• Use micro-stamps - they are too small to be seen with naked eye
• Develop 'what-if' procedures and policies
• Conduct random walkthroughs

Rob also recommended a useful website: tinyurl.com/maptheft that lists stolen properties and noted that members should seriously consider reviewing the site for helpful tips.

Following a short break, Rob gave a brief history of the library, its additions, and then provided a guided tour of library. The tour included numerous floors in the Wilson Library, the Haggard Wing, the reference area, circulation/reserve desk, the administration offices, media, microforms, and book stacks. Samples of historic documents were on display in the Special Collections room which also housed the Elizabeth Rider Montgomery collection, the Paul and Mary Ann Ford fly-fishing collection and the Whitson Collection of pop-up books. Since Rob has been with WWU, the government documents collection has been moved five times.

Lunch was held in the Viking Student Union Building where Rob had reserved a special room which accommodated the general discussion on regional depository libraries in the twentieth-first century and networking among members.

The NGIN business meeting was called to order at 1:23 p.m. Each individual present briefly shared points of interest or updates from their respective institutions.

• Judy Solomon: continues to significantly reduce the size of the Seattle Public Library's documents collections that have been in storage since the beginning of the Central Library's construction project. Approximately seventy percent of the over eleven thousand linear feet of materials have been accepted through needs and offers
  
  
• Cass Hartnett: noted that the University of Washington has been working with SPL to take as many items as they can but space is a problem for them. They will be working over the next several years to sort and match items with the ultimate goal of retaining the best copy or copies for their collections. UW was a beta site for OCLC's WorldCat. They will continue to have two interfaces to their catalog and as such they have noticed a sizable increase in document delivery and interlibrary loan. All of the large public academic libraries in Washington will be transitioning to the OCLC products. Upcoming retirements may be an issue for UW as Eleanor Chase has now passed forty-one years of employment and two other colleagues are talking about retiring in the next several years. Cass commented about the 'public reading of the constitution' event on October 10 at UW outside the reading room where one hundred volunteers read five sentences. She also noted that she routinely gives out pocket-size copies of the Constitution which are purchased from the Constitution Center. The UW was visited by the FBI for the same theft incident that occurred at WWU.
  
  
• Brian Bach: Central Washington University, commented that CWU is in pretty good shape as the documents department has become its own operation. There has been a reassignment of the Dean of Libraries. They have four vacant librarian positions and are moving some of their rare works to storage.
  
  
• Sue Anderson: announced that Eastern Washington University's government documents staff have been conducting a systematic weeding of the entire collection and that they are cataloging everything that they are retaining. Within this project they will be cleaning-up the print and microfiche records and adding electronic records to their catalog. Sue commented on the success of their now annual fund raising event, a dinner/auction held in the library itself, where the proceeds ($35,000 this year) go into a library endowment fund. Jillian Coats, Sue's daughter, indicated that she is looking for work hopefully in the Puget Sound area.
  
  
• Sharon Wilson: King County Library System, introduced herself to the membership noting that she is still learning her new position. Last month was her first FDLP conference. The KCLS collection basically follows the five-year retention rule, is heavily weeded, and has no historical or archival items as their collection focus is popular items. She was very appreciative of the assistance received from Carlos Diaz and Herrick Heitman. Sharon commented that both Cheryl and Linda are doing well and are on the KCLS substitute list.
  
  
• Peggy Jarrett: UW Law Library, stated that documents are fine. They are looking at Search360, Serials Solutions, WorldCat Local, Digital Commons, and DSpace. The old Summit will be going away on November 30 and then on December 4 the new Summit will go live. They have eleven JD Law Librarianship students this year which is an amazing number.
  
  
• Robin Clausen: noted that she left Tacoma Public Library in February and now works for the Pierce County Library System, a non-depository institution, but hopes to remain active and involved in NGIN. She indicated that Judy Wilkins would be the best direct contact for TPL documents information as she has worked with the collection for years.
  
  
• Herrick Heitman: commented briefly on the majority of the questions recently being genealogy-related, the proposed Heritage building, the boxes of discards received from SPL, the integration of the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library into the WSL and that the State Library will probably be facing budget cuts. The letters on the state plan seeking approval from each depository library director will be out by December 15.
  
  
• Rob Lopresti: noted again that WWU has a new dean of libraries, Chris Cox. The Department of Reference and Instruction has now become the new Information and Research Service (IRS) which is looking for a new department head and that they are very excited about the new Summit. Marketing to new students, the library continues to host an annual 'themed' open house on the sky bridge. Last year it was an Oktoberfest with a German 'oom-pah' band and this year it was a Hawaiian luau. Each quarter the library holds a study night and the documents staff is trying, again, to weed the collection.
  
  
• Talia Mathews: intern, Whatcom County Library, introduced herself to the membership and noted that she is taking classes through Clarion University of Pennsylvania and hopes to work in special libraries or information centers when she graduates.
  
  
• Carlos A. Diaz: announced that he now has a large flat screen television near the government documents desk at The Evergreen State College. He has removed access to all channels excluding the news channel such as CNN which is routinely broadcasting for all visitors to view. He commented that he has become the civics educator on campus through his promotion of government documents. Over the past few months he organized a voter registration drive with lots of assistance from campus staff and students which registered 570 new voters; televised the vice presidential and presidential debates; was asked to conduct a workshop on the electoral college; and, wants to be the site of an election ballot box drop site.

Treasurer's Report:
In the absence of Treasurer Jean Hartman, Sue Anderson gave the financial report. Robin moved to accept the treasurer's report as presented; Rob seconded the motion and the motion passed. The minutes of the last meeting were distributed to all individuals in attendance. There was one correction to the minutes. Cass moved to accept the minutes as revised; Carlos seconded the motion and the motion passed.

NGIN Brochure and Business Cards:
Carlos distributed samples of a NGIN brochure and business card that he has been working on. He suggested putting the items up on the NGIN web site for easy access by all members. Rob moved and Herrick seconded the motion to give Carlos permission to purchase business cards and to keep the supply of cards for any member who made need them to distribute at conferences or workshops. The motion passed. Carlos will be drafting two different versions of the brochure from suggestions offered. Members were asked to review the drafts and send any changes to Carlos by November 26. The brochures will be going on up on the web site on December 1.

Justin Otto Recognized:
A round of applause was made for Justin Otto who is one of the youngest individuals of all time to be on the Depository Library Council. Justin noted that the current focus of council's attention is on the strategic planning and the future of the FDLP. There were no recommendations from council at the last meeting but they are hoping to have something tangible to present at the conference in Tampa.

WLA 2009 Report:
Due to several factors, the deadline for program submissions for WLA 2009 was missed. Carlos asked for program ideas for 2010 as it is not too early to begin planning. The 2010 Census was mentioned as one possibility. It was decided that the focus of the spring meeting would be on training workshops and program opportunities. The spring meeting will be held at Central Washington University.

Word of Appreciation:
A word of appreciation was extended to Rob Lopresti, Dean Chris Cox and the entire staff of the Wilson Library for their part in today's meeting.

The business meeting adjourned at 3:20 p.m.

Next meeting:
Central Washington University
Ellensburg, Washington
Spring 2009

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