NGIN Meeting April 15, 2011 Eastern Washington University 816 F Street Cheney, WA 99004 phone: (509) 359-7048 Contact: Justin Otto Registration Form (link removed) Teleconferencing site available at the Washington State Library in Tumwater, WA Conference Room 221 Parking Information at the Washington State Library
Map of Cheney .pdf version Visiting Cheney Directions to the Digital Archives at Eastern Washington University (via Mapquest) (be sure to add your home address under GET DIRECTIONS above the map itself so you can get directions from your home to WSL) Restaurants near the Digital Archives @ EWU(via Mapquest) (Some of the restaurants listed include links to their website)	City of Cheney Closest Lodging Near Eastern Washington University Events in Cheney Easterner, The (Eastern Washington University's newspaper) Events Calendar (Cheney Free Press)

Minutes:

Present: Attendees: Jean Hartman (Spokane Public Library), Carlos Diaz (The Evergreen State College), Rami Attebury (University of Idaho), Marilyn Von Seggern (Washington State University), Justin Otto (Eastern Washington University), Judy Solomon (Seattle Public Library), Cass Hartnett (University of Washington), Laurie Fortier (Washington State Library), Terence Tada (Washington State Library), Pamela Bell (Washington State Library), Lori Thornton (Washington State Library), Larisa John (Washington State Law Library), Jason Anderson (Pierce County Library), Peggy Jarrett (University of Washington Law Library), Alita Pierson (St Martin’s University), Lisa Euster (Central Washington University), Dan Waters (Washington State Law Library) and Robin Clausen (Pierce County Library).

Washington State Digital Archives, Lead Archivist Debbie Bahn

Debbie Bahn shared her professional background and work experiences including her position in the California State Archives prior to becoming the Electronic Records Archivist for Washington State Archives in 2008.

The Washington State Digital Archives is the nation’s first archives dedicated specifically to the preservation of electronic records from both state and local agencies. Having archives and records management in the same agency is a huge benefit to this state. The Washington State Archives is a branch repository system with the Eastern regional facility located on the campus of Eastern Washington University.

Opening in 2004, the facility was placed in Cheney because of the low environmental risks (i.e., not subject to flooding or earthquakes). They had no model to follow so they based everything on best practices. The initial Digital Archives took a genealogical approach with marriage, census and naturalization records. In the first year, they input 3.5 million records using student workers and volunteers. Today, the Digital Archives is closing in on 100 million records preserved with 28 million accessible online including the popular Washington deaths. Seven people are specifically dedicated to the digital archives. They have several sophisticated tools including software that allows back door access for agencies to their own agency records, a web indexing portal which provides for more efficiency in indexing, and ‘archive this’ where record creators create the item records and submit them to the archives. They currently use an audio search tool developed by Microsoft and their collections include House audio files where there is no written record of the meetings. They utilize voice recognition software and are currently experimenting with video and using optical character recognition for the minutes, ordinates, and resolutions which works pretty well with machine-created records.

In addition, they are using HERT (Holding Electronic Records Tank). For records located in HERT there is no item level retrievability but they are browsable. There is no Internet access but agencies can use the back door access to locate items. The agency newsletters, for example, are included in HERT.

The Archives is also utilizing Web 2.0 which comes with its own set of challenges and genealogists are the biggest users. Comments can be posted but they do not have enough staff or time to monitor. Like everyone, they continue on with an operating budget that allows for fewer and fewer resources and more and more workload. A new website will be launched later this year with hopefully a better user interface and features. Currently in the collections, the arrangement is by record type and not by provenance. E-publications is a records series for government records and a suggestion was made to change the name to ‘state government’ to make it more intuitive for users. The State Library developed the search fields for searching. Debbie would like the records to have date range search capabilities as they currently do not and they are hoping to have this auto-generated through the ‘archive this’ software. The three most important fields are the creator, record type, and date range. No Boolean operators or wild card searching are available but they would like to offer them along with OCR capabilities.

For intellectual access they use the DAX standard from the model developed in 2004. They are looking at lots of clean-up work and Debbie is excited because she just hired a librarian who is now working on a second masters in public history who will be able to handle the reference questions and do indexing. Their patrons include genealogists, scholars, legal professionals, information providers, and agency partners. There are no full court case files online but they do have city and county minutes, resolutions and ordinances back to the 19th century. With regards to future growth, the archives will be looking at expanding collections, more sophisticated searching capabilities, description metadata, records management training for records creators, developing online tutorials, and more external access. Their current challenges are email, html and how they can serve the government information profession. Debbie is hoping to discover what holdings access and accessing capabilities are needed and the best way to provide notification of new records and holdings. Debbie will welcome any suggestions or recommendations and feel free to send them to her at Debbie.Bahn@wa.sos.gov.

Cass thanked her for her presentation and commented on the fact that the web site navigation is clean and the coordination of the minutes, ordinances and resolutions is impressive. Washington State has been successful because it has teamed information technology professionals and archivists to produce the product and services where other states are struggling in not having full-time access to IT systems professionals. The Archives is interested in only collecting and archiving the executive level email correspondence. However, the Lottery has recently sent them their emails and they will soon be receiving some from the Deputy Secretary of State offices. There are no plans currently for putting them online. With public disclosure requests, the digital archives staff will refer requestors to the agencies and they have created a redaction tool that the agencies can use.

A question was asked on map preservation. They do have some maps and are currently using Déjà Vu but are looking at Deep Zoom for presentation to provide for seamless zoom and it is also less resource intensive.

Going Digital and Getting the Facts (Part 1): Working with Digital Documents (NGIN Discussion Forum)

Carlos A. Diaz announced that the microfiche collection from The Evergreen State College will be incorporated into the Internet Archives collection. They will be digitizing the Federal Register from1972-1994 which will fill in the current holdings gap. Justin Otto noted that one of the major issues is preservation standards but no one is providing this information. The HathiTrust wants to do ‘workable copies’ and has just put the digitized copies up for accessing. People have commented that GPO should be doing this and GPO says that is really is not their mandate and not something they would do. However, they might facilitate it.

Peggy Jarrett shared that it was her understanding that Google and the HathiTrust are not incorporating preservation standards into their work and are using destructive digitization. The issue from the legal perspective is that these items are not authenticated. GPO is now willing to take preservation copies and put items into FDSys but they are not going to digitize them.

Judy Solomon asked if access would be free. Lisa Euster reported on her access experiences of viewing one page at a time and not getting the full pdf. CWU will not be linking cataloging records as full access requires membership. Cass Hartnett shared that UW recently joined the HathiTrust. Her working understanding of it is that the content was digitized by Google books and its contributing members were promised original digitized files. UW is looking into contributing some of its materials but all plans are still in the very early initial stages. Member institutions are to do the actual digitizing.

Sometime this month or next, the textbook, Fundamentals of Government Information , by author Cass Hartnett will be available. Cass shared that it was a very interesting process and learning experience. The book will be a very introductory text to get people excited about government and give them the basics of government information.

With regards to LOCKSS, Carlos shared that he has been able to retain items of particular interest to the Evergreen community such as anything to do with Mount Rainier. TESC has linked the online catalog records and also linked digital maps online.

Marilyn shared that TRAIL (Technical Reports Archives and Image Library) is digitizing technical reports from copies that libraries no longer want to retain and it, too, is destructive digitalization. The Forest Service documents from TESC were sent for input into TRAIL. Cass commented that UW will be taking a more active role as their Engineering Librarian is now the head of TRAIL.

Going Digital and Getting the Facts (Part II): The 2010 Census and the New American Fact Finder

For the 2010 Census online, Quick Facts is going away which was a concern for almost all NGIN members. The comments included: it is cumbersome to use, a challenge to use and frustrating. The 1990 statistics are now located in another area. Too much information is being presented which will stop a lot of naive users. The software will need to be improved. It has to get better but we must be very specific about what is not working. The compendia branch is now gone from the Census Bureau so the paper Statistical Abstracts will be no longer published. Everyone was encouraged to use the feedback button on the Census site and share or discuss the issues and challenges on govdoc-l. And, as always, customers are asking for paper copies.

Business Meeting

Call to Order and Regular Business

President Marilyn Von Seggern called the meeting to order at 1:14 p.m. Due to the two sites for meeting attendance at this meeting, the paper minutes were unable to be distributed to all individuals present. Secretary Robin Clausen suggested that a ‘draft’ version of the minutes for the November 5, 2010 meeting be distributed electronically to all the NGIN membership with a two-week deadline to read and respond with any changes or corrections. Then, the revised minutes would be forwarded to Carlos for posting on the NGIN website. Everyone agreed with the idea. The November minutes will be forwarded to Carlos for membership distribution on Monday. This same process will be used for all future meeting minutes so that members will have better access to the information contained in the minutes for review and possible action prior to the next meeting.

Robin received the following thank you via email from Eleanor Chase: "Thank you to NGIN for the lovely framed copy of the resolution in my honor that I received. I was surprised and very pleased to be so honored and I have fond memories of working with all of the government information librarians in Washington."

Treasurer Jean Hartman shared that the balance in the checking account is $944.72 including expenses since the fall meeting of $54.24. Eight new members and five student members have joined in the past few months. The annual membership dues of ten dollars each are now due for this year. Jean collected the dues from all members at the Cheney site and the members at the Olympia site were going to collect their dues and forward them to Jean. Carlos shared that the NGIN domain name is available for purchase and Carlos was given permission to inquire about the cost and get back to the membership.

Marilyn thanked Dan for his work on the program this morning.

Washington Library Association Conference – NGIN participation

Justin provided an overview of the recent NGIN program at the Washington Library Association Conference in Yakima. Developments and Advancements in Electronic Government Information: Bringing the Documents of Our Democracy to Everyone was presented by NGIN members Justin Otto, Judy Solomon, Marilyn Von Seggern and Sue Anderson along with Emily Keller, UW Political Science and Public Affairs Librarian. The panel focused on how all kinds of libraries can use new services from the government to access electronic government information. Their topics included: the Federal Digital System, an online gateway and digital repository for accessing Congressional information, Federal Regulations, etc; Digitally authenticated PDFs that verify your information is from the government; Libraries don’t have to be a Depository to have links to government information in their OPAC or website. All evaluations from the thirty-five attendees were positive. Judy commented that she felt the session attendance was very good considering the program was scheduled against several other strong programs. Justin agreed to work on submitting the paperwork work for another NGIN program in the 2012 WLA Conference. Ideas for programs included: an FDSys preconference (the GPO session on FDSys has been archived), additional training on government documents, the basics of where people should go for government information or where they can access electronic information.

Regional Depository Update

Lori Thornton shared that the Washington State Library is still waiting for the budget update from the legislature and the current session is scheduled to end on Easter Sunday. It is unknown if a special session will be needed. She held two virtual meetings with the Alaska depositories to find out how they were doing. She felt that both discussions were good and productive. Lori acknowledged that Alaska was totally left out of the State Plan but she has now included their information in the current plan. They are working on memorandums of agreement. Currently, GPO is now assessing all of the Alaska depositories and expects to finish work by the end of the month. For the most part, everyone is passing their assessments. There are items that need to be addressed but the outcome is expected to be ok.

Lori began updating the housing agreements earlier this year and the ones for Washington State University and Western Washington University are underway and most of the work with the law libraries has been completed. One sad note was learned in the process of getting our Washington State Plan out to all depositories. It was discovered that the North Olympic Library System is withdrawing. This now makes two Washington State federal depositories, The Evergreen State College and the North Olympic Library System, that are relinquishing depository status.

On another but related topic, the Michigan State Library which was the regional depository for Michigan was dismantled about a year. Lori shared that she had recently received an email from Nancy Robertson, Michigan, and Nancy Walton, Minnesota, requesting a letter of support to the idea of one regional depository for both Michigan and Minnesota. They are looking to submit a request to their Senators and petition for a designation change to the University of Minnesota to act as regional depository for the State of Michigan. The University of Minnesota is already the regional depository for the State of South Dakota. The question for Washington State depositories is should we make a plan. It was suggested that Lori talk with other regional depositories to get additional information. It is well-known that the regional depository system does not work. As there are brand new individuals in the positions of Superintendent of Documents and Public Printer, it would also be helpful to know their thoughts on this issue.

Spring Depository Library Council Meeting – San Antonio, Texas

Peggy Jarrett reported on the spring DLC meeting that was held in San Antonio, Texas. There were only 165 attendees including thirteen GPO staff members, eight vendors and fourteen council members. The big announcement was that there will no longer be a spring council meeting. The council will meet in Washington, DC during odd years and move around the country in the even years. Bill Borman is the new Public printer and Mary Alice Baisch is the new Superintendent of Documents. This conference also occurred just days before the government was looking at a potential shutting down. Mr. Borman appeared committed and has made several positive organizational changes. The Ithaca report was not released and the contract was extended. The final report is 175 pages and GPO wanted to review the report in more detail before releasing the document.

It was restated that GPO’s interpretation is that we will follow the regulations with regards to the disposal of documents. If no one wants the documents, they can be recycled, and they can be given away. If they are ‘sold’ the proceeds are to be returned to GPO.

The biennial survey is this year. Draft questions were available to council members, and it should be an improvement over prior years and a more pleasant experience

Justin shared that the sessions at this council meeting were just informational meetings. Peggy commented that the council information can be difficult to find on the FDL Desktop and recommended that we look at the Library Services and Content Management Update and FDSys documents. There is a pilot project to supply training dollars ($50 per quarter) to train the public. There were discussions on providing enhanced access to Pacer.

Elections

The following slate of officers was presented: President Elect (Program Chair) – Justin Otto, Web Master – Carlos Diaz, Secretary – Cass Hartnett, and Treasurer – Jean Hartman. Peggy moved and Judy seconded the motion to accept the slate of officers as presented. The motion passed and a round of applause was extended to everyone who volunteered to fill these positions.

Around the Table

• Carlos: TESC is giving their microforms to the Internet Archives. He was told that his position might be cut so he is job hunting. He is still working on the discard lists and any that go unclaimed will be given to faculty members before recycling them. He is working hard to find homes for the foreign relations, treaties and some of the other older materials.
• Jean: Announced that she is thinking of retiring and is currently working with Janet Hacker-Brumley on creating a wiki to train other staff.
• Justin: Shared that he enjoyed his involvement in the WLA presentation and is willing to give a tour of the EWU library to anyone interested after the meeting is adjourned.
• Lisa: Commented that they are in the process of filling the staff vacancy that occurred in January and working on records in OCLC.
• Marilyn: Stated that the new reorganization is going pretty well and believes that it has brought the staff closer on functional lines. WSU has a really good government information working group doing a NASA exhibit.
• Robin: Reported on the popularity of downloadable books and freegal.
• Peggy: Appreciated the work of a temporary technician who has accomplished a lot of clean-up work. This year’s class of law librarianship has two individuals who are very interested in being government documents librarians. The UW Law Library handles a lot of Question Point questions from public patrons. She recommended that we encourage people to use this service as they have developed huge resources of support for them in areas such as landlord tenant and family law.
• Judy: Stated that the budget is still the main focus as the mayor wants another three percent cut. SPL has lost their long-time processing and cataloging person and is moving more toward electronic formats which require less work on the technical services side.
• Laurie: Shared that she has been mostly working with state documents but as of Monday will be focusing more on the Federal documents collections, processes and procedures.
• Dan: Announced that he has been working with his new supervisor. They are focusing on the collections and working on offers lists. He shared that customers do not want to use the Federal Register on microfiche.
• Lori: Passed off to Crystal and commented that her staff members are power houses and really getting stuff done.
• Crystal: Noted that she has been working with Laurie on the federal collections and trying to mirror the federal with the state.
• Cass: UW Libraries in August merged their service desks. While possibly losing their unique identity, it has been good as they do not feel quite so isolated. With Janice’s retirement in February, the documents librarians now number only three individuals. Cass now serves the data services committee.
• Larisa: Shared that she is new to her position, learning how the collections are organized, what they are getting, doing some assessments, and looking at how accessible things are.

Next Meeting

It was suggested that this video/audio teleconferencing format (Polycom or Whetts or something similar) might be the way we conduct our meetings in the future. Peggy volunteered to host the next meeting. Another one of the State Archives facilities was also suggested. Justin and Cass will identify the next meeting site and let everyone know. The proposed topics for the next meeting: Tips and Tricks for the New Age (from the Census 2010 discussion). The next NGIN meeting date is tentatively scheduled for November 4, 2011. Marilyn thanked everyone for coming. The meeting adjourned at 3:17 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Robin Clausen Secretary

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