NGIN
|
Friday, October 30, 1998 University of Puget Sound |
For agenda, etc., see http://www.ups.edu/library/temp/Octmtg.htm (link no longer available)
Lori Ricigliano, President-Elect/Program Chair (Univ. of Puget Sound), welcomed everyone to the NGIN meeting. Cass Hartnett, President, and Linda Fredericks, Treasurer, reported back from the Fall 1998 Depository Library Council. [Editorial note: for clarity, Cass Hartnett is including the following travel report, submitted to the UW Libraries "Weekly Online News" ... this covers most of the highlights.]
Federal documents librarians at the Fall 1998 Depository Library Council meeting in San Diego (October 19 - 22) should have been upset over the Padres World Series defeat AND the defeat of the Government Publications Reform Act of 1998, but Cass Hartnett reports that the mood was genuinely upbeat. The failed legislation would have reformed government printing practices, ensured more permanent access to publications and restructured the Government Printing Office.
Members of Congress voting against the measure were influenced by lobbyists from the photocopier manufacturing sector and other information industries. Unfortunately, the Joint Committee on Printing will be "defunded" after December 31, 1998, and all of its duties will be referred to the House Committee on House Oversight and Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. This probably won't directly affect the Federal Depository Library Program this year, but it places the "big picture" of goverment publishing on shaky ground.
Other areas of much discussion were the publishing and distribution of the Independent Counsel's reports (i.e. the Starr Reports), the plans for Census 2000, and a critical appraisal of the GPO Access (now FDSys) site. GPO Access (now FDSys), while hardly a flashy site, has been winning deserved praise for its reliable and inclusive content.
Ann Bregent (Wash. State Lib.) noted that the revised State Plan is being submitted to library directors. It should be approved within a matter of months. Bregent invited selective depositories in the state to consider entering into Selective Housing Agreements with the State Library. If there are items which particular libraries know that they will be retaining permanently, perhaps these could be designated as the "regional copies" and retained by the selective through a formal agreement with the State Library.
Ann Bregent reported on GPO's recent inspection of the Washington State Library. As with most inspections, there were both compliments and critical comments. Ann shared that the State Library wants to improve in the areas space, service, and bibliographic control. Fort Vancouver Public Library will be inspected by Gail Snider on 12/11/98, but presumably no other Washington libraries will be, since none were notified. The State Library has recently hired an individual who will have grant writing as their primary responsibility.
Ann Bregent proposed that NGIN members consider gov. docs. digitizing initiatives. We brainstormed the following topics and govt agencies with regional appeal:
Types of materials:
Topics:
Two librarians pointed out their institutions' special holdings: Rob Lopresti told about Western Washington Univ. has 450 Washington state EISs, and Sue Summers said that Everett Public has a collection of over 15,000 digitized photos of local history. It was agreed that EISs were of particular significance. A small task force formed to consider what, if any, digitizing projects NGIN could participate in.
After lunch, Lori Ricigliano spoke about the UPS Library experience using MARCIVE as a vendor for their bibliographic records for depository holdings. She said that as much as one-third of the UPS Library collection is government documents, including approx. 250,000 fiche; approx. 12,000 depository publications are added to their collection per year. They are using MARCIVE as a vendor for current monographs only -- they used OCLC for their retrospective conversion back to 1976, which involved a labor-intensive database cleanup. Serials holdings are tricky to represent in a consortial environment. The amount of student depository processing hours has dropped from forty hours/week pre-MARCIVE to twenty hours/week post-MARCIVE. Lori noted that accuracy in profiling with MARCIVE up front saves time later. Shelly Stevens is a good person to contact at UPS for further information about their work with MARCIVE.
Patrick Grace, Seattle Public Library, demonstrated a variety of Web resources in a talk titled "Finding the Needle in the Government Haystack: Other Sources for Government Information." Pat challenged us to think critically about the *types* of Web resources we choose to use (search engines, pathfinders, meta-sites, virtual libraries, etc.)
He recommended the following sites:
Lorena O'English presented an overview/demonstration of the Project Vote Smart web site (www.vote-smart.org). O'English worked for Project Vote Smart for eight years before enrolling in the University of Washington library school (she is currently a Graduate Reference Assistant in Government Publications at Suzzallo Library and has also completed field work at Seattle Public Library). She raised awareness of the wealth of information available on candidates and elected officials, the performance of Congress, and politics in general. The Project also offers a toll free number (1-888-VOTE SMART), free publications, and partnerships with libraries.
O'English also recommended the following:
Respectfully submitted,
Cassandra Hartnett
Government Publications
U.S. Documents Librarian
Suzzallo Library, Box 352900
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-2900
cass@u.washington.edu
206-685-3130, fax=206-685-8049
Return to NGIN