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---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Thursday, September 12, 2002 2:45 PM -0500
From: Valerie Glenn
To: GOVDOC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU
Subject: summary of responses: Benefits of the FDLP

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond to my query about the benefits of being a federal depository library. If you can think of any more, I'd love to hear them. Valerie

Summary of Responses:

The majority of responses were from academic libraries, with two public libraries & 1 state library chiming in. Nearly everyone commented on the wealth & breadth of information received through the program. Several added that it was a great boost to their library's collections in these times of shrinking budgets. Other benefits:
-- training for librarians, such as through the Interagency Seminar.
-- a wonderful public relations tool for the institution
-- the centralized system of locating, acquring, cataloging, and disseminating government information -- the Library's service levels are raised by being required to follow the FDLP policies -- Not having to dismantle our Federal depository collection (which those libraries leaving the program are required to do) -- Receiving regular updates of government information issues from the GPO, other government agencies, and other entities -- Retaining the ability to have input in the policies and procedures of the Federal Depository Library Program -- Being in a community of government information professionals who share their troubles and triumphs with the CSM staff -- Raising the level of visibility and status of the entire Library locally, regionally, and nationally -- The Recommended Specifications for Public Access Workstations are EXTREMELY useful in persuading university personnel outside of the library of our needs for up-to-date equipment.
I've included some of the comments below:

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To me, it is an honor to be a federal depository library. The institution benefits by housing govt. information in exchange for the publicity, the political good will of the Congressional delegation (can't really put a cost on that), ability to offer a service to the community, and is at the forefront of technology. For the past decade, it is the U.S. government pushing the publishing industries to keep up with technology.

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It's always good to remind administrators and ourselves that we provide a huge benefit to the surrounding community by having trained depository librarians and a public collection of govt information. I know here at UCSD, the Administration likes to be able to tick off a list of ways that the community benefits from the university, and this is a very good PR thing to be able to say. Not only to meet the immediate information needs of citizens, small business and sometimes even local government folks, but also because the body of depository librarians is an alert watchdog over the right of citizens to have our government issue a comprehensive and easily accessible record of official activities and policies. As depository libraries, we make up part of the fabric of all social institutions defending our democracy by holding it accountable.

Whenever possible, I like to remind Administration that running a university is a higher social mission than running a business, and we can and should look at more than just "the bottom line."

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There are a number of benefits to being in the FDLP. Public relations is one. Any time that you can provide your patrons/ constituency with the information they want or need, it can only be a PR boost. There is much in the Program which is not readily available in commercial form or would be expensive for an individual (or Library) to purchase from a commercial source. By providing access to these materials, it enhances your standing with your patrons.

Another benefit is pure economics. I know at my library, we would not be able to afford the time, money, staff, etc. to track down, acquire and process the same resources. If we had to pay for the various materials, they would go into the same competitive process as the other resources and I know that we would not be able to purchase even half as much as we receive through the Program. There have been a couple of inquiries in GovDoc-L in the last few years asking for some way of calculating the value of an FDLP collection. In my opinion, the actual dollar cost of the physical items might be important, but the real "value" of the materials is not something that can be measured. To paraphrase a current TV commercial where they compare the cost of certain items, the value of a good documents collection and the information contained therein is "priceless."

Having a centralized process for acquiring, disseminating and providing technical support for the materials is also beneficial. We do not have sufficient staff and could not hire additional staff to be able to dedicate time for soliciting agencies for their materials. If we had to figure out our own call numbers or class them in LC because FDLP wasn't there to provide SuDocs, whatever we might be able to acquire would likely end up being backlogged in our Technical Processing area, waiting to be cataloged and shelved. We currently use one of the tapeload services, which includes brief shipping list records, so the information is in the Library Catalog in a timely basis, and the items are shelved and available to the public in short order.

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I think for medium and large academic libraries, one of the greatest benefit is the free receipt of high quality research grade reports from agencies like the USGS, NASA, NOAA, Smithsonian, Bureaus of Census, Justice Statistics, Labor Statistics, etc.

Another benefit to libraries of all sizes and natures is the free receipt of high quality but non technical items such as national park brochures, social security administration phamplets, etc.

To be fair this is balanced off against a rather large negative: Depository status is somewhat of a Faustian bargin for libraries. No matter how careful they are with item number selections, they get large volumes of junk which nobody uses or wants. This is frankly a burden to libraries of all sizes. Keeping this garbage under control in my opinion is one of the biggest problems of depository management.

For our library the positives far outweigh the negatives, but I think for non research institutions more and more places are deciding the reverse is true.

To make the depository program more appealing some reforms may help:

Some suggestions:

Better descriptions of what item number consist of

Better delination between similar items.

Allow libraries to send back at least some material they do not want unprocessed.

Relax the five year retention rule or at least say that GPO will turn their back on violations of the five year rule. That would allow libraries to garbage materials unprocessed on the spot.

Partnership with private sector indexers of government materials. For example give depositories free or partially paid subscriptions to Lexis Nexis or OCLC FirstSearch indexing.

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We are doing a continuing study and my strongest argument is the problem of knowing what's available. Without the FDLP, how do we track publications? We can still subscribe to Marcive even without being a depository and continue getting the records we get now but what about new items? Marcive doesn't provide us the info to update our profile. Even if we know about something, that doesn't make it available. Many of the titles we find useful are not for sale.

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The staff in my library finds the Recommended Specifications for Public Access Workstations to be EXTREMELY useful in persuading university personnel outside of the library of our needs for up-to-date equipment. The automation librarian always uses this standard when making request for new equipment and software for ALL public workstations. And just yesterday the library's director was able to get money for assistive technology software for disabled patrons based on 2002 standard.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Valerie D. Glenn
Documents Librarian: Electronic Resources Coordinator
University of North Texas Libraries
P.O. Box 305190
Denton, TX 76203-5190
vglenn@library.unt.edu
940-565-2868
Fax: 940-565-2599
Government Information Connection Web Site
http://www.library.unt.edu/govinfo/