Fifty-eight librarians and other staff from 45 depository libraries in 23 states attended the week-long Interagency Depository Seminar which concluded August 1. Twenty GPO staff covered the history, operations, and new initiatives of the U.S. Government Printing Office, as well as technical services procedures and requirements of the Federal Depository Library Program. The majority of the information-dense week was devoted to presentations on Federal information products by 17 representatives from 9 other Federal agencies, including:

• Defense Technical Information Center
• Library of Congress
• Office of the Federal Register
• Consumer Product Safety Commission
• Office of Head Start
• STAT-USA (Dept. of Commerce)
• U.S. Bureau of the Census
• U.S. Copyright Office
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Participants overwhelmingly rated the seminar as good to excellent (4.5 out of 5) in their evaluations. One enthusiastic librarian commented: "I feel honored to be at this seminar - even though some sessions were more interesting to me, all the sessions were exceptionally well taught. As a new government documents librarian, these sessions are a key component in jumpstarting my thought processes to provide informative and innovative services to students, faculty, and the public. It is important to be aware of what the GPO & FDLP partnership is and how depository libraries and librarians are part of this partnership. One of the important aspects of this seminar is meeting and forming bonds with other depository librarians. I was fortunate in finding several other librarians with whom I will continue to form dynamic relationships."

If you or other staff in your library would benefit from this experience, mark your calendar: the 2009 seminar will be held in Washington, DC on July 27-31. Look for announcements and the registration form on the FDLP Desktop early in 2009. We look forward to seeing you!

Presentations that were captured can be found here.