A Double Meeting:
NGIN and Washington-Alaska Model Meeting

Mary Alice Baish Superintendent of Documents

NGIN Meeting Monday, November 26, 2012 9 am - 3:30 pm University of Washington Libraries Suzzallo/Allen Library 4000 15th Ave. NE Seattle, WA 98195-2900 5th Floor Conference Room East Cass' phone: (206) 685-3130 Contact: Cassandra Hartnett Enter Suzzallo from any direction, go to the central bank of three elevators, and take the stairs or elevators to 5th floor. Parking in the Central Parking Garage is $15/day, less for carpools. Registration Form Instructions for those of you who are teleconferencing from an off-site.

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Present: Honored guest: U.S. Superintendent of Documents Mary Alice Baish

In Seattle (by institution):

• Highline Community College Library, David Johnson
• King County Library, Mary Jane Vinella
• Seattle Public Library, Marion Scichilone
• University of Washington Libraries, Cynthia Fugate, Cass Hartnett, Emily Keller, Nancy Huling, Matt Parsons
• University of Washington Law Library, Peggy Jarrett
• Washington State Library, Rand Simmons, Crystal Lentz, Steve Willis
• Washington State Law Library, Larisa John, Dan Waters
• Washington State University Library, Marilyn von Seggern
• Western Washington University Library, Rob Lopresti

• Alaska State Law Library, Beth Odsen
• Alaska State Library, Maeghen Kearney
• Central Washington University Library, Carlos Diaz, Lisa Euster, Patricia Cutright, Jan Jorgensen
• Eastern Washington University Library, Sue Anderson, Justin Otto
• Spokane Public Library, Jean Hartman
• University of Alaska, Rebecca Moorman

After some technical glitches with the phone conference call, the meeting was called to order by President-Elect Rob Lopresti at 10:40 a.m.

Announcement: the new Washington State Secretary of State (Kim Wyman) takes office on January 16 at noon. Will need to wait until then to know if Acting State Librarian Rand Simmons is officially appointed to that role. [Post-meeting update, Simmons was officially named State Librarian in January 2013.]

Treasurer's report: NGIN coffers are at $1214. No one has requested reimbursement for any expense since the last meeting. Treasurer Jean Hartman may retire in 2014. She will bring Janet Pecker-Brumley to next NGIN meeting to insure a smooth transition.

Peggy Jarrett reported back from the 2012 Depository Library Conference & Council. She learned about the concept of a sub-regional in St. Louis, and attended many interesting meetings. We discussed the question of allocating NGIN funds for conference attendance. WSL does provide grant $$ for LSTA funding for conference travel. Peggy plugged the annual DLC meeting as an opportunity for presenting, networking, and continuing education.

Round Robin:

• WSL will host a Poet Meets Poet event in the Columbia Room at the Capitol on November 29th featuring the poet laureate and the West Region National Student Poet. There is a new director at the Vancouver Regional Library.
  
  
• Judy Solomon had a great send-off party at the Seattle Public Library, and a new librarian will be offered the government documents position tomorrow!
  
  
• Mary Jane Vinella is the new contact at King County Library System.
  
  
• Peggy Jarrett noted that although no one has mentioned collection cuts yet, her library still has them. There are also some space changes at Gallagher: a large portion of the lower level of the stacks will now make room to house all of the law student organizations. Gallagher has been in its new building ten years.
  
  
• EWU is currently looking for a new library dean.
  
  
• The Spokane Public Library director is retiring in 2013.
  
  
• An academic research commons has been established at CWU, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a federal depository library. CWU has a much smaller reference collection since the Math & Writing tutors moved in to the library space.
  
  
• The state archives and museum in Juneau, will move in 2015.
  
  
• There is an Interim dean at WWU; their Harry Potter room is now full of WA & Canadian documents, to be replaced with other books and a learning commons.
  
  
• There is talk of shutting down the reference desks at both CWU and WWU and moving to an on-call reference model.
  
  

Motion: Cass Hartnett moved that NGIN expend $150 for James R. Jacobs, Government Information Librarian, Stanford University, to speak on Thursday, January 24 2013 at the University of Washington. The motion passed unanimously.

Presentation: Superintendent of Documents, Mary Alice Baish

She noted that 13 state libraries serving as regional depositories. New Ben's Guide will be launched in Spring 2013; GPO has been partnering with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) for content. 78% of the costs of Congressional printing are in the publishing of the first copy [of every document]. FDLP.gov's new interface now in beta. The Office of the Federal Register is considering no longer offering fiche for FR, CFR, as microfiche vendors are tripling their fees. (Jarrett noted that hearings on fiche are still more complete than those in e-format.) 800 libraries still collect the FR and CFR in tangible format.

Ms. Baish's slides are available for download -- there is no audio recording available. MAB discussed the mission and vision of the FDLP and the thinking behind the forecasting process. In Slide 9, she reiterated the Washington/Alaska response to the State Focused Action Plan (SFAP). We agreed to work on the following initiatives:

• Initiative 1: Work collaboratively to establish a new regional depository model based upon the present Oregon model. The new Washington/Alaska regional depository model will hereafter be referred to as the Washington/Alaska model (WAM).
  
  
• Initiative 2: Continue to work collaboratively, to the extent possible while completing the move to the WAM, on the existing five year plans for Federal depository library service.
  
  
• Initiative 3: After the WAM has been implemented, all Federal depository libraries in region will work collaboratively to revise five year plans for Washington and Alaska.
  
  

After the morning presentation, the group enjoyed lunch at the University of Washington Club.

Facilitated by: Acting State Librarian Rand Simmons and Regional Federal Depository Coordinator Crystal Lentz.

Simmons: The Washington State Library (WSL) is the largest consumer of state general funds within the Secretary of State's Office. Cuts to the various agencies' budgets were made according to percentages of general funds received, so WSL sustained a 47% cut, which included 52% of its staff. Every year the State Printer wants to kick WSL's holdings out of its off-site storage facility. Steve Willis was introduced as the Head of WSL's Central Library.

In the proposed Washington-Alaska Model (WAM), WSL would remain the administrator for the FDLP in both states. Maintenance of the regional FDL collection is one of the most difficult responsibilities for the WSL. The library is housed in what was meant to be an office building, and thus they have had to place the collection around the load bearing walls. The WSL would like to return to the Capitol Campus at some point. WA State Secretary of State Sam Reed succeeded in getting a bill passed to fund the Heritage Center, a facility which would also include the State Archives and the State Historical Society (including the Eastern Washington holdings). Revenue for the heritage fund is from property filing fees and other sources. However, since the legislation was passed, significant monies from the heritage fund have had to be used for the operating expenses of unrelated state agencies. WSL itself received four million dollars from the heritage fund, and is trying to get its state general funding restored.

If the economic downturn worsens, WSL's Plan B option would be to drop itself to selective depository library status. This would effectively freeze selective libraries' disposals in the two-state region.

Lentz: Neither the University of Alaska nor Eastern Washington University feels that they can participate in the shared regional collection. The general procedure for the shared regional collection would be to take the SuDocs classification system and divide it up amongst partner libraries, with each library taking collection responsibility for a part of the SuDocs alphabet, moving forward into the future. These participants at today's meeting registered their firm interest in participating in the shared regional collection:

• University of Washington Libraries1, Cynthia Fugate
• University of Washington Law Library2, Peggy Jarrett
• Washington State University Library, Marilyn von Seggern
• Western Washington University Library, Rob Lopresti

We discussed the difference between prospective and retrospective collection building, and agreed to operate on a "first pick" system for libraries claiming an agency or SuDoc stem. Libraries are not required to collect retrospectively. We discussed the records management aspect of the shared regional: how will we note a resource's status in bibliographic or holdings records? As our State Library, WSL already does lots of online training, and thus has the structure and capacity.

How big are the printed collections growing? In FY2011, by 5000 titles a year. The Alaska State Library is looking for a small, discreet collection that would be manageable. We are still determining to what extent AK libraries can participate in a shared regional collection.

• Baish: 44 USC 1912 speaks directly to this, stating that depositories designated by Senators cannot share collections across state lines (emphasis added).
  
  
• Lentz: There are currently no existing selective housing agreements (SHA's) between the WSL and Alaska libraries.
  
  The Tennessee model, developed in 1989, involves six libraries creating a regional collection via SHA's. With a tightly defined regional collection, selective libraries can "weed with a bulldozer," confident that their region is keeping at least one copy of all depository materials. There is no retention requirement for electronic materials or their associated cataloging. Participating depository libraries must InterLibrary Loan their materials by the same terms of existing ILL policies.
  
  
• Fugate: Isn't the expertise [of the librarians and staff] the most important asset? Also, is there any chance of changing the name of the FDLP?
  
  
• Lentz: The next step is to aim for Dean/Director sign-off and develop SuDoc breakdown lists. Our agreement will include an opt-out clause that would spell out specifics for dropping status as a partner or depository. WSL will take nonsexy depository collections if necessary.
  
  
• Lopresti: The partners need to take enough [of the collection responsibility] off WSL's hands to make it worth WSL's while.
  
  
• Simmons: We will need to draw up contracts with every partner, memoranda of understanding (MOU's).
  
  

Discussion: UW is interested in being one of several partners. WSU definitely wants to participate. First step is shoring up our existing SHAs, and confirming this new partnership. Institutions should sign off on partnership agreements before dividing up SuDocs pie. University of AK might look at creating a sub-regional hub, as has been created in St. Louis, MO, since it is technically not possible to share a collection across state lines. The oldest AK depository designation is 1970. Patricia Cutright attended the meeting alongside her CWU depository staff and is "not counting it out," though she has two areas of concern that she spoke of earlier. CWU would be interested in dropping some areas but may be willing to pick up others.

Marion Scichilone, Seattle Public Library: SPL is bringing a new person on board. SPL doesn't collect in any area 100%. Her library wishes to keep the door open on participating in the shared regional collection. David Johnson (Highline) is collecting at 30%. Highline would like to help out if they can, and they actually have shelf space. Mary Jane Vinella, King County, is interested in participating as well as that library can. Peggy Jarrett represents a small selective (Gallagher Law Library) with a big topic area. Peggy reiterated that Gallagher is open to the public and can help train depository librarians and staff in law resources. Summary of additional shows of interest:

• Central Washington University Library, Patricia Cutright
• Highline Community College Library, David Johnson
• King County Library, Mary Jane Vinella
• Seattle Public Library, Marion Scichilone
• Possible sub-regional hub:
  • Alaska State Library system, Maeghen Kearney, Beth Odsen
  • University of Alaska, Rebecca Moorman

1 On the condition that the UW serve as a partner, not the lead or sole participant.

2 Limited to primary legal materials.

A motion passed (Peggy Jarrett) to accept the May 7, 2012 NGIN minutes and the meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.

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