Qualities of a successful federal depository library

1) Strong Customer Focus  
Open to serve community and meet their needs.  Strives for excellent customer service.

2) Community profile  
Has identified focus community, the local user community, and then broadened its scope to include the rest of the Congressional district and any unserved or under-served areas of the state which are adjacent to their district - in some cases the entire state.  

3)      	Aware of benefits of depository program to the library and the community
Leverages benefits to assist the library as a whole.  Benefits include recognition for the time and resources spent by the library to serve the community; a fostered sense of mission of service to the public; the connection of users of the library to ideas and events outside their own community.

4)      	Attentive to authoritativeness of sources
Educates staff & users to value of primary source material as basis for other things, such as commercial publications, state legislation, and other actions.

5)      	Buy-in at all levels
The education of librarians and education of library administrators on the program are important and are not a one-step process, but a constant building of knowledge. Buy-in is not necessarily equated with complete understanding of the FDLP or necessarily total, but instead is a fundamental respect for and valuing of the concepts of public access to federal government information (Title 44).

6)	Approaches selection with a fiscal responsibility
The federal depository collection involves the selection of sources already paid for with tax dollars and released by the agency responsible for gathering and publishing that information.  Particularly in difficult economic times, libraries must consider the value of using the free and readily accessible before the value-added but costly commercial alternatives created from government resources.

7)	Seeks partnerships and collaborative relationships with others to share information and obtain Continuing Education training
The documents community learns from each other:  national and statewide resources, as well as websites such as GODORT and discussion lists like GOVDOC-L.  Background support provided by GPO with the FDLP Desktop, Federal Depository Conference and FDLP-L.

8)         Lets others know about resources available
Performs outreach to the user community including co-workers, library users, other institutions (including non-depository libraries) and the entire Congressional district.

9)	Committed to Continuous Process Improvement
	Evaluates services periodically to identify activities that could be dropped, improved of used as a model for others.  Keeps up with the literature and attends professional meetings to learn new methods of service and different views on similar situations.
Janet Fisher (Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records)
Ann Marie Sanders (Library of Michigan, MI Dept. of History, Arts, & Libraries)