NGIN Meeting Friday, October 26, 2007 Highline Community College Building 25, Room 411 Registration Form (link removed)

Highline Community College 2400 S. 240th Street Des Moines, WA 98198 Jack Harton: (206) 878-3710, ext. 3806 or 3232 Campus & Parking Map, Directions (.pdf) Mapquest Directions to Highline Community College Parking Information | Visitor Information (link removed) Restaurants Nearby: Des Moines Creek Restaurant (archived webpage from Internet Archive--August 2006) Lago Azul Mexican Restuarant (review & description) Red Robin (link removed) Wally's Chowder House Lodging Suggestions: Lodging choices in Des Moines (via Mapquest) Lodging Information from Hotels.com (link removed)

Present: Sue Anderson (Eastern Washington University), Robin Clausen (Tacoma Public Library), Carlos Diaz (The Evergreen State College), Sandy Dyer (Washington State Law Library), Cass Hartnett (University of Washington), Jack Harton (Highline Community College). Herrick Heitman (Washington State Library), Peggy Jarrett (University of Washington Law Library), Jan Jorgensen (Central Washington University), Rob Lopresti (Western Washington University), Judy Solomon (Seattle Public Library), Janice Thomas (University of Washington), Marilyn Von Seggern (Washington State University), Marlene West (University of Puget Sound).

Host Jack Harton, Collection Development Librarian, Highline Community College Library provided a tour of his facility for all attendees. The first floor of the library contains Campus Warehouse/Receiving and the Campus Mailroom. The second floor is the actual main floor of the library and contains the Circulation Services, Information Commons, Reference Services, and the Media Collection and Commons. The third floor has the Non-Fiction Book Collection (call numbers 000-699), Group Study Rooms, Drama Files, Maps, the Career Collection and Pamphlet Files. The fourth floor of the library contains the Non-Fiction Book Collection (call numbers 700-999), the Exhibit Gallery, Genealogy Collection, Government Documents, New Readers Room, and offices. The fifth floor of the library contains the Campus Boardroom, the Periodical Collection, Library Technical Services as well as the Kaplan International English Program. The sixth floor of the library contains the Legal Collection, Faculty Resource Center, Instructional Design, and classrooms for multimedia instruction and development.

Earlier this year, the institution was designated a Center of Excellence in International Trade, Transportation and Logistics. As such, the library received $20,000, a portion of which was utilized to enrich its map collection including the addition of several large and colorful wall maps currently on display. With regards to Federal documents, the library, for the most part, maintains the five-year retention rule due to space and the needs of the students.

Following a break, the morning programming, began with a presentation by Marilyn Von Seggern and the efforts at Washington State University with the Congressional Serial Set. Marilyn accurately acknowledged that "none of us are experts" with regards to preservation. The work on their preservation efforts with the Congressional Serial Set began at WSU when the Government Information Working Group was formed as a committee and established preservation as one of its goals. The members evaluated and assessed each volume in their entire 9,843 volume collection and moved all of the volumes which had previously been in both locked storage and open stacks into one closed stack area. Patrons still have access to the information contained in the Serial Set volumes as the institution pays for access to the Readex product online. For ease of reference and assessment, an inventory evaluation sheet was utilized noting the volume number, size, and condition including special features such as pockets and maps of each volume. It was established that rebinding of these sheepskin volumes was not an option as they wanted to retain the original volume to the best of their abilities. As such, they were able to secure funding for supplies and student workers to make archival boxes for storing the more fragile volumes. Marilyn shared samples of some of the boxes created.

A brief question and answer period followed. The committee anticipates that they will need to continue to request funding for supplies for years to come. They made the decision not to oil the volumes as this process is no longer recommended. In addition, the utilization of leather dressing should be performed by trained conservators and is still controversial. One area that the committee will need to evaluate in the future is the performance of the archival boxes. There is concern about the handling of these volumes and a tip sheet is being developed to teach individuals the proper handling techniques.

They traced the recent history of the institution, through its downsizing efforts, reorganization and priorities. It was stated that there is currently more focus on buying rare materials, within their scope, and taking care of them. As their rare and historically important collections are retrospectively converted, the emphasis now is on working directly with the Technical Services staff to evaluate these items for encapsulation, boxing, binding, etc. Numerous examples of the types of both commercial and in-house binding, boxing and encapsulation utilized at the Washington State Library were presented.

Their funding over the last several years has allowed them to dramatically increase their preservation efforts which started with lots of enthusiasm and interest but only a few simple book binding supplies. To date they have been able to add to their operating supplies and equipment: Mylar jackets, book binding presses and weights, box making machine and most recently a $17,000 microfiche scanner. In addition, Marcia Horst was sent to numerous conservator training workshops and worked on the Washington State Library's disaster plan which was highly recommended to all attendees. Additional information on this subject may be found from the Northeast Document Conservation Center and the Online Disaster Planning Tool . Another recommendation was the purchase of large bookends available from Brodart and other library supply vendors to provide shelf support for larger books and items. These individuals have been diligent in working with other staff to instruct them on the proper techniques for removing books from shelves as opposed to pulling down on the top end caps when books are retrieved from shelves.

Lunch at the college cafeteria.

Business Meeting:

Herrick Heitman provided a Depository Library Council Meeting report. At the October meeting in Arlington, Virginia, Robert Tapella was introduced to the federal depository library community as the 25th Public Printer of the United States. A vacancy still remains in the Superintendent of Documents position. Rick Davis, the Acting Superintendent of Documents, has been offered the position twice but has declined the offer each time. Herrick spoke about several presentations from the conference including the Future Digital System (FDSys), Federal Distribution System (FedSys), the nagging and perpetual problems with the legacy systems, the redesign of the FDLP homepage, Web 2.0 and its social networking aspects, WebJunction which provides training opportunities for non-depository librarians, and the Public Access Assessment program which is a rework of the old inspection program. He stated that GPO will be looking at the responses to the biennial survey and at institutional web pages to gauge the institution's government services to its community. It is important to stress that it will not be used as an adversarial or confrontational process but only to point out ways to improve service to the public at each depository.

Other NGIN members who were also in attendance at the Fall Depository Library Conference and Council Meeting shared some of the information and insights they gathered. Cass Hartnett commented on an advocacy workshop she attended with a presentation by Stephanie Vance who has more than fifteen years experience as both a lobbyist and a congressional aide. Ms. Vance has been a legislative assistant, legislative director and staff director for various members of Congress. Cass recommended Vance's book, Government by the People: How to Communicate with Congress. The strategic tips Cass took away from Ms. Vance's presentation included: (1) an individual only has three minutes to make their point with a congressional member; (2) tell the congressional member that you have a ton of information but do not give it to them all at once; and, (3) make an impression and leave a personal comment so that the congressional member will remember you.

Carlos A. Diaz spoke about NGIN's participation in the upcoming joint Oregon Library Association/Washington Library Association conference to be held in Vancouver. Thanks to assistance from Arlene Weible, NGIN and the Documents Interest Group of Oregon (DIGOR) will co-sponsor two programs, Welcoming Those That Cross the Borders and Thinking Locally, Acting Jointly. It was stressed that we need to be thinking about the 2009 WLA Conference and identifying topics or programs that we are interested in presenting or sponsoring.

The draft of the State Plan was discussed and Herrick agreed to make the necessary changes and have the final draft send to all federal depositories in Washington State by November 2. Each depository would have until November 16 to send any comments back to Herrick. The plan would then be forwarded to all depository libraries by November 22 with a cover letter from Herrick. Depository libraries would need to gather their director's signature and return the signed documents back to Herrick by the end of the year, December 31, 2007. It was agreed that the plan would be dated as the 2007 Washington State Plan for Federal Depository Libraries.

Sue Anderson announced that Justin Otto, the current coordinator of the ALA-GODORT Federal Documents Task Force was recently hired by Eastern Washington University. He was a former student of Cass Hartnett at the University of Washington. In addition, it was reported that the college-age children of both Jan Jorgensen and Marilyn Von Seggern are both working in local depositories.

Comments were made regarding the recent legislation in HB2545: Congressional Research Accessibility Act which would make available on the Internet, for purposes of access and retrieval by the public, certain information available through the Congressional Research Service web site; open access legislation, e-government and the work of expanding the role of front line service providers.

A word of appreciation was extended to Highline Community College Library and, in particular, Jack Harton (who had excused himself earlier in the day due to scheduling needs on the reference desk) for hosting the event.

The next meeting to be held in 2008 was briefly discussed. Spokane was mentioned as a potential city and both the Gonzaga University Law School Library and Spokane Public Library were mentioned as possible hosts. Peggy Jarrett will contact her colleague and friend Linda McLane to determine if the law school is interested in hosting the spring meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:17 p.m.

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