F e d e r a l    D e p o s i t o r y    L i b r a r y    P r o g r a m

Remarks by Francis J. Buckley, Jr.
Superintendent of Documents

Good morning. It certainly is a pleasure to be here in beautiful Newport and have this opportunity to speak to you at the first Depository Library Council meeting in the new millennium (depending on how one counts).

Since this meeting coincides with National Library Week, it gives me the opportunity once more to recognize the importance of the partnership between libraries and the government in the provision of access to government information to the public. The responsibilities assumed by depository libraries are especially important as a safety net for public access. But all types of libraries are supplying government information whether obtained through purchase or from the Web.

Since 1958, National Library Week has been a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries - school, public, academic and special - participate. I personally liked the National Library Week theme of a few years ago: Libraries Change Lives. We asked people for testimonials for how libraries had impacted their lives and we received wonderful heart-warming stories. But those of you on the front lines of documents reference probably could write such stories every day about the information you’ve provided to satisfy patron inquiries.

This meeting here in Newport is certainly an excellent opportunity for all of us in the depository community to discuss and recognize the accomplishments, contributions and future of the FDLP during National Library Week.

Today I have a number of topics I’d like to cover: first, a success story, Ben’s Guide. Then I’ll talk about permanent public access (PPA), a research project on government websites in which we have been participating, our online transition and some comments about our Sales Program.

Gil Baldwin, T.C.Evans and other staff will be presenting many of our operational developments and I don’t want to steal their thunder.

I hope that by now you are all aware that GPO released Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids in December 1999. With Benjamin Franklin as a guide, this powerful resource for students, parents, and teachers provides a fun and educational introduction to how the U.S. Government works based on information resources available through GPO Access.

In its first month, the site received just over 100,000 retrievals. By February 2000, this number jumped to approximately 350,000. This marks a 197 percent increase.

Since its release, Ben’s Guide has received excellent feedback and many forms of recognition, including the ALA’s 2000 Notable Children's Web Sites Award, USA Today’s Hot Site of the Week, and Pacific Bell’s Blue Web ‘n.

Each day, our virtual Ben receives e-mail from individuals (especially children) all over the world such as Julian, age four, asking if Ben could come to his birthday party to Candice, eighth grade, asking, "Does a person running for president have to have lived in the U.S. for 14 consecutive years?"

That first question was easier than the second to answer. Staff responded that Ben was flattered about the party invitation, but he was not able to attend the party. He did wish the young writer a happy birthday.

Now the second question was quite a stumper. The Constitution states that a person must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. There is no mention if these have to be 14 consecutive years.

Schools in this country are fostering the Internet as a learning tool. So, as we improve and enhance the capabilities of the site, we hope Ben’s Guide will continue to be utilized. Recently, an elementary school teacher in Illinois wrote that she used Ben’s Guide, "not only to increase [the student’s] knowledge of U.S. History but also to use this site to teach Internet navigation skills and to reinforce reading and writing skills."

We rely heavily on user feedback to improve Ben’s Guide. Please send any comments and suggestions to <askben@gpo.gov>.

I have mentioned previously that GPO has been hosting meetings of participants representing U.S. Federal agencies, the national libraries, Congressional committees, public interest groups, and other organizations interested in issues regarding the preservation of, and access to, Government information published electronically.

We held our third meeting just a few weeks ago. Staff from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) gave a presentation about their Electronic Records Archives Program–Building the Archives of the Future, and George Barnum and Steve Kerchoff from Library Programs Service provided an update on the implementation of GPO’s Electronic Collection Plan and our nascent digital archive. Gil will be describing this in more detail, and both George and Steve are here to explain the program as well as discuss partnership possibilities.

In the coming months, members of the PPA Working Group will be formulating goals. Some draft goals include:

• Facilitating discussion among stakeholders engaged in digital archiving research or applications.

• Providing a forum for sharing information among the participants, and informing a wider audience about U.S. Government PPA activities.

• Identifying a set of core values regarding current and future public access to U.S. Government electronic information.

• Developing and publicizing a set of "best practices" for digital archiving that will facilitate cooperation among agencies and organizations.

• Identifying "at risk" electronic information and developing collaborative solutions or partnerships to ensure its permanent public accessibility.

• Creating an environment to foster the development of collaborative PPA projects.

• Formulating policies and programs to assure ongoing access to Federal government information.

Staff from the Library Programs Service and the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS) in conjunction with our Production staff are working on a public website on GPO Access that will include information about the group and its members, its goals, and links to resources relevant to the topic. The concept for such a website was broached only a few months ago and I am pleased that it will be a reality very soon.

I believe that the activities related to these permanent public access meetings and the creation of the website will put GPO on the map as a leader in this area.

The rapidly changing Federal information arena poses a myriad of challenges to Government managers striving to keep pace. With increasing frequency, these challenges revolve around the publication and dissemination of Federal information on the Internet. As Government managers work through these challenges, they seek information on policy and best practices to aid them in the process. As you know, we commissioned the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) to perform an assessment of agency plans for producing electronic government information products. It did not give us exact data but it validated our perceptions of a rapidly evolving, somewhat chaotic environment. We are now participating along with several other agencies in a new study being undertaken by the Information Use Management and Policy Institute, in the School of Information Studies at Florida State University. This effort, headed by Dr. Charles McClure, is designed to explore appropriate performance measures for Federal agency websites.

The project began with Dr. McClure and his associates conducting separate meetings with each of the participating agencies to gather information to measure the performance of their websites. Among the topics GPO sees as important for Federal websites are depository library access, Permanent Public Access, how agency pages are located and retrieved on commonly used search engines, no fees or copyright-like restrictions, customer satisfaction ratings, user support, and training. Dr. McClure’s team will analyze what has been learned in these meetings and through follow-up information and develop a recommended set of criteria for agencies to use in evaluating website performance. These will be tested on participating agency sites and the results included in the project’s final report, scheduled for release in September of this year.

The digital revolution and the facilitation of new products and services produced by Federal agencies and GPO for public use is having many impacts. You all are seeing it in the transition of the FDLP and Federal agency publishing to electronic formats, which has increased so dramatically in just several years. We do not see an end in sight. We are committed to providing access to Government information products in print or electronic formats as produced by the agencies or by GPO in cooperation with agencies for free FDLP public access. Resource constraints and legislative direction dictate that increasingly we will move to electronic versions and that we will not be able to continue simultaneous distribution of titles in two or even three formats.

One of the side-effects of this publishing transition are concerns raised by publishers about GPO and indeed, other government agencies, making new electronic products available for free. We have certainly heard these arguments before about "value-added" government products and whether we should be involved in such ventures, dating back to the inclusion of microfiche in the FDLP.

As we continue our electronic transition, we are all faced with the challenges of the constantly evolving technology to access and use the government information being released in new formats. In our recent Biennial Survey, over 95% of the libraries reported meeting the 1996 standard of providing, at a minimum, a low-end Pentium for public access. We presume most of the remaining libraries either provide mediated access to electronic government information or have older equipment. It is time now to raise the bar for both service provided and equipment used in depositories. We need to look at new standards for technology requirements for depository libraries currently to access the range of electronic government information. This is part and parcel of the proposals staff will be presenting to the Council here.

Proposal #3 would revise the "Depository Library Service Guidelines for Government Information in Electronic Formats" to establish a service requirement for tangible electronic products. Gil will be discussing the proposals more fully, but this one represents an important step in order for the FDLP to move forward.

Another proposal that LPS staff has put forth has to do with the Recommended Specifications for Public Access to Workstations in Federal Depository Libraries for 2000. As noted in the handout, these recommended specifications are intended to assist depository librarians in making informed purchases which will best achieve the goal of providing public access to Federal government information in a variety of electronic formats.

We want to work with you on this transition. As new standards or guidelines are developed or other significant changes occur in the FDLP, we plan to communicate with depository library directors as well as the documents librarians to gain support for whatever needs to be done to move the FDLP forward.

For some time now, our Sales Program has been feeling the impact of the revolutionary changes in Government information dissemination. As agencies increasingly resort to the Internet and other non-print methods of publishing, the Sales Program has seen both a decline in sales volume and in the number of salable titles available. For example, sales of the Federal Register declined by $1.2 million, or 20.9 percent, between FY 1998 and FY 1999, and the Code of Federal Regulations declined by $3.9 million, or 63.9 percent. As a result, the Sales Program is losing money. We are working on short- and long-term strategies to deal with this situation, including price increases, cost-cutting measures, new methods of increasing public awareness of the products we sell, and an analysis of where a predominantly print sales operation will fit into the increasingly electronic future of Government publishing.

As part of our strategic planning, we are also re-examining the role of our bookstores, as well as our reimbursable services activities in the Washington area and at our Distribution Center in Pueblo, Colorado. We have just completed a study of the Pueblo operation's future workload potential at the request of the House Appropriations Committee, since the overall declining workload in print publications distribution is a factor there too.

We continue to move forward into the electronic future. But sometimes it is interesting to take a look back. This is quite a week in history, as staff discovered. On this very day, April 10^th (1912) the R.M.S. Titanic, one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners ever built, departed Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The Titanic, thought to be the world's fastest ship afloat and almost unsinkable, spanned 883 feet from stern to bow. It carried some twenty-two hundred passengers and crew. I assume you know the rest of the story and I certainly wouldn’t want to spoil it, in case you haven’t seen the movie.

On a more contemporary note that directly affected many of us, thirty years ago today Paul McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles to go solo.

April 12^{th is} quite a milestone--the bloodiest four years in American history began when Confederate shore batteries opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Bay. We know where that led.

These might not be the most uplifting events to report on. However, on April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born. He said in a letter to John Adams in 1816 that "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past…" I am always pleased to have the opportunity to tell you about where we have been, but more about where we hope to go. I look forward to working with members of the Council over the next three days as we plot our future course in this ICE Age–Internet Changes Everything.

Thank you.

Remarks by Gil Baldwin
Director, Library Programs Service

Good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to be here in the Ocean State where, according to Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government, the state motto is "Hope." And we all hope that you’ll find this a useful and interesting meeting. As part of our changes to the Council meeting format, we’re having fewer speakers this morning, with more time allotted to questions and answers. What I will do this morning is give you a topical overview of Library Programs Service (LPS) activities, with a preview of related programs and discussions for the rest of the meeting.

It probably comes as no surprise that one of my themes will be to report on the transition to a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program. Although it feels like we’ve been transitioning forever, we are really just four years into the five-to-seven year transition we outlined in the strategic plan in our 1996 study. Last April we presented to Council a report on the progress of the electronic transition, and asked Council for some feedback on how we are doing. Council’s Electronic Transition Committee reviewed our April 1999 paper on Completing the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP, Council Discussion Draft 4/21/99, and the ET Committee report is available here for you. In our 1999 paper we asked, what would the FDLP look like in 3 years?

The ET Committee is made up of some very smart people and they, probably wisely, did not attempt a prognostication. Nevertheless, let me take out my crystal ball. Perhaps the short answer is that, absent a legislative change, when the transition is over the FDLP will look pretty much as it does in 2000, only more so.

• More information will be provided solely electronically;
• More users will download more content;
• There will be more emphasis on cataloging and locator services;
• There will be more electronic acquisition and archiving;
• There will be more partnerships for a greater variety of purposes.
• There will also be expectations for more services, not just from GPO, but also more services from libraries to users.

Naturally, our ability to move forward on these issues is dependent upon the availability of resources. The continued pattern of level funding is a real concern for us, and we may find that constrained funding prevents us from undertaking everything that you or we would like to do. We are also likely to find it necessary to curtail some traditional products or services.

Following up on these ideas we have made some proposals to Council that will be discussed at subsequent sessions. Copies of these are available at the registration desk. There are two in particular I want to call to your attention:

Our proposal number 2 is to "Increase the Minimum Technical Requirements for Public Access Workstations in Federal Depository Libraries at Regular Intervals." We’ve been inspecting based on the 1996 technical requirements of a low-end Pentium-chip workstation, and its past time to ratchet these up. The "Recommended Technical Specifications" for new public access workstations coexisted in a confusing way with the technical requirements used for inspections. We want to get these working together in a way that clears up the confusion, and results in better service to the public. We propose to establish a rolling schedule of announcing new specifications, giving you about 15 months of lead time, and then begin to use them as the requirements for inspections. You really want to look at the table of how this timeline will work. It’s hard to explain in words, but easy to visualize. [See Council recommendation 5, p. 55.]

These technical upgrades are linked to a service proposal as well. Our Proposal number 3 is to "Revise the "Depository Library Public Service Guidelines for Government Information in Electronic Formats" to establish a service requirement for tangible electronic products. What this would mean is that all depository libraries must make tangible electronic products and services (CD-ROMs, DVDs, floppy diskettes) which they select available to the general public in a timely manner. While circulation of CDs and DVDs is encouraged, this alone does not relieve the depository of its duty to assist patrons in accessing the information. The depository must demonstrate a "good faith" effort in providing in-house assistance to patrons wishing to use CDs and DVDs. [See Council recommendation 1, p. 52.]

These proposals are essential steps to move the program forward. It has proven an effective strategy for change to incorporate electronic dissemination into the FDLP in tandem with the publishing agencies’ adoption of new technologies. But it is also essential for depository libraries to improve and expand their own capabilities to deliver electronic content to end users.

We have done a preliminary analysis of the responses to the 1999 Biennial Survey of Depository Libraries. Over 95% of the responding libraries meet the minimum requirements for public access to electronic information provided through the FDLP. The 1999 survey responses show continued improvement compared to the results of the 1995 and 1997 Biennial Surveys. Over the corresponding time period the FDLP has evolved to the point at which the majority of new products disseminated to depositories are in online electronic format. We are very concerned that 61 libraries (4.6%) still do not offer even a minimal level of public access to FDLP electronic content. Of even greater concern is that 22 of the 268 (8.2%) public libraries do not meet this expectation. Over the coming year we will be considering various ways to close this digital divide within the FDLP.

Let’s take a moment here to recognize the Library Programs Service staff here today. Would you please stand up and wave.

• You already know Sheila McGarr, Chief of the Library Division.
• Also here are Robin Haun-Mohamed, Chief of the Depository Administration Branch, and
• Tad Downing, Chief of the Cataloging Branch.
• George Barnum is LPS’ first Electronic Collection Manager.
• Vicki Barber is Chief of the Depository Distribution Division.
• Sandy Schwalb, one of our Program Analysts, is here.
• Steve Kerchoff, an Electronic Transition Specialist, is on loan to us from the Library of Congress, and
• Willie Thompson, without whom we just couldn’t come to great places like Newport, and
• Finally, there’s Laurie Beyer Hall, LPS’ Supervisory Program Analyst.

While she’s here, I want to say that we all owe Laurie a big thank you for helping make Y2K a major non-event for the Federal Depository Library Program. Laurie and her team developed some of the strongest contingency plans in GPO, and she did everything possible to make sure that our legacy automated systems weathered the millennium change. Thank goodness we didn’t have to use her plans, so you’ll never know how good they were, but Laurie and her staff were really on top of things. Thank you!

Online electronic U.S. Government information is the most prevalent dissemination medium in the FDLP, amounting to about 52% of new titles added this year. At the same time, the distribution of tangible products continues to decline compared to FY 1999. Paper is holding steady at about 20% of the program titles, while microfiche has declined to 27%. Tangible electronics, now almost all CD-ROM, have almost dropped off the charts, down to about 1/10 of 1%.

Since the beginning of the electronic transition, the LPS has concentrated on increasing the electronic content in the program. For the most part these increases have been funded from program savings resulting from agencies reducing the numbers of titles published in print media. Due to continuing funding constraints, our efforts are focusing more on reducing duplication of formats and media and on containing costs. We are taking a hard look at titles that are distributed in both tangible and online electronic formats.

LPS is phasing out the physical distribution of certain FDLP microfiche titles and migrating to the online version, when an official, reliable electronic version is available. As part of this migration process, LPS is identifying groups of titles that agencies issue in both print and online versions. When LPS determines that the content of the online version is substantially equivalent or superior to the print version, LPS selects the online version for the FDLP.

LPS staff met with personnel from the General Accounting Office (GAO) and determined that nearly all GAO publications are available online, either from the GAO web site or from GPO Access. Therefore, except for unusual cases, LPS will discontinue distributing GAO publications in microfiche as of September 30, 2000.

LPS will also discontinue distribution of the Congressional Bills on microfiche effective with the last of the 106th Congress Bills. Bills are permanently accessible on GPO Access beginning with the 103rd Congress. [See Council recommendation 9, p. 55.]

George Barnum and I have briefed you many times on the four components of the FDLP/EC, and how the assurance of permanent public access is an essential element as we migrate away from tangible products to solely online dissemination. During our Permanent Public Access Working Group meetings, we have identified another condition under which products become eligible for the FDLP/EC. This condition occurs when the issuing agency itself has made a commitment to keeping its electronic publications permanently accessible. An example is the National Library of Medicine, and we are just beginning to consider the ramifications of this commitment on FDLP product selection and library retention decisions.

The archive component of the FDLP/EC is now in operation. It’s not a prototype any more. Issues of two publications in the FDLP/EC recently became unavailable from their agency source and users are being redirected, via the PURL, to archived copies on GPO servers. Except for the intermediary access screen that explains the status of the publication and the date of its capture, the process is seamless and invisible to the user. This is the process that George Barnum and Steve Kerchoff demonstrated at the recent ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Electronic publications acquired for the FDLP/EC in online form only (with no tangible equivalent in the FDLP) are being captured, documented, and stored. GPO staff are still learning to effectively manage a multiplicity of file types, formats, and web design issues, but are actively transferring earlier experimental captures to the archive server, and are adding newly acquired publications regularly.

However, we are still pursuing the vision of a distributed electronic archive, as we described in our 1998 plan for Managing the FDLP Electronic Collection. Electronic content may be stored on GPO servers, at the originating agency, at partner sites, or at other external sites, or at combinations of these. To this end, we continue to meet and work with OCLC to develop the requirements, technical infrastructure, and the business model for digital archiving from OCLC. We are very encouraged by the attention that OCLC is paying to this matter, and we hope that our efforts will lead to a service that benefits many different libraries. One of the ideas that we are discussing with OCLC is how to incorporate the archival resource harvest, transfer, storage, retrieval, and maintenance functions into a consolidated software "toolbox."

In January 2000, GPO joined OCLC’s CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog) project. From 1999 through the present, OCLC has extracted data from more than 4,000 GPO produced OCLC records with PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) for inclusion in the CORC database. Membership in CORC entitles GPO to contribute to OCLC’s development of CORC’s data extraction software and other software features and to evaluate CORC for potential LPS applications. Tad Downing and Laurie Hall will provide more information on CORC and other cataloging and locator services issues during their Tuesday morning session.

You all know the litany of shipping problems that began last August. These involved our distribution contractor, Potomac Business Center (PBC), and their subcontactor, United Parcel Service.

In light of problems with batching, misdirected shipments, delayed receipts and resulting processing problems for depository libraries, LPS elected not to exercise its contract option year with Potomac Business Center (PBC). Previous mail contracts have covered all GPO mailers and were not specific to the needs of the Federal Depository Library Program. Unfortunately, this resulted in more generic contractual language with insufficient safeguards for quality service to libraries. However, because of the many inconsistencies in the performance of this past contract, LPS is now able to segregate its pick up and delivery requirements and has completed a much-strengthened Statement of Work to begin the procurement process for an upcoming mailing contract. GPO’s Procurement Office announced the requirement for pick up and delivery services in the Commerce Business Daily on March 2, 2000. In addition, LPS began date stamping all outgoing boxes in early March, and is also upgrading its TanData system to increase the ability to track depository materials from the time shipments leave GPO to the time shipments arrive at depository libraries. All changes should be in place by mid-June, 2000.

I hope that most of you are regular users of the FDLP Administration Web pages on GPO Access. As you know there’s a lot of content there, in fact there are about 700 pages worth. And sometimes it’s not so easy to find the article, product, or service that you want. Since the fall Council meeting we’ve had a team going over these pages and trying out different ways of organizing the content. We’ve come up with a prototype design for a new set of pages that we’re calling the FDLP Desktop. Steve Kerchoff will be presenting the FDLP Desktop on Wednesday morning, and you are welcome to give us some feedback there. We also encourage you to take the URL home and check out the test site, and tell us what you think. We hope to finalize our new design and put it in place later this spring, once we’ve gotten feedback and had a chance to work with it.

So that’s a very selective overview of what the Library Programs Service has been doing. For more details, relevant Web addresses, and more, I call your attention to the various handouts, reports, and proposals available at the registration table. Thank you all for coming today, and we look forward to a great week.

GPO Access Update

Remarks by T.C. Evans
Assistant Director, Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services

It is always nice to have the opportunity to update you on the ever-changing state of GPO Access. Those who know me would probably say that I am rarely at a loss for words anyway, but with GPO Access as a subject I am never short of material. As always, I want to publicly thank all of the hardworking people at GPO whose efforts to expand and improve our service provide me with this material. The challenges of developing and maintaining our ever-expanding electronic collection keep these hardworking individuals fully occupied and they deserve our thanks.

I also like to express our thanks to the users who participate in this development process by letting us know what works and what could use a little work. The value of their feedback cannot be overstated. In fact there will be several good opportunities during this conference to share your insights with us. On Tuesday afternoon, at 2:00 there will be an open forum on GPO Access and on Wednesday morning at 10:30 we will have an open discussion on evaluating our success in getting the pages of GPO Access indexed properly by major search engines. In addition, please feel free to discuss your ideas for improving GPO Access with me at anytime during the conference.

As part of our feedback process we conduct an online survey of GPO Access users on a regular basis. Our most recent survey concluded on January 3, 2000. Only 281 responses were received, 19% of which were from users who identified themselves as representing depositories. Some of the survey’s key findings were:

• When asked how they learned of GPO Access, 31% of the respondents indicated that they had found us through an Internet search, 25% by exploring links from other sites, 11% through a class, 9% through a Federal depository library, 7% through word of mouth, 6% through articles or notices, 4% through a GPO Access gateway library, 3% at a conference, and 4% gave other answers. The class answers were significant in that they were all write-in responses.

• In terms of frequency of use, 44% of respondents indicated that they use GPO Access at least once per week, 24% use it a few times per year, 20% use it every few weeks, and 12% use it once a year or less. Responses from depositories showed higher use, with 39% using GPO Access daily, 38% at least once per week, and 17% every few weeks.

• When asked what they use GPO Access for, 27% checked tracking legislation, 26% legal research, 26% patron assistance, 26% for academic research of various types, 21% business decisions, 21% homework, 19% checked public policy, and 11% teaching. There were also some interesting write-in responses, including 9% personal use (one indicating it was research for a science fiction novel), 2% library administration, 1% buying GPO stuff.

• The use of finding aids results were interesting in that there was a great deal of differentiation between depository and non-depository respondents. For instance 74% of depository respondents indicated they use the online version of MOCAT, while 45% of non-depository respondents checked it. It was still the most used at 51% overall, with the LSU Agency Internet Sites coming in a close second at 49%. This order was reversed for non-depository users. Some complaints were included for the online catalog relating to dissatisfaction with how it works and how far back it goes. On the humorous side, one respondent took the time to complain about FedWorld.

• High marks were received on users finding the information they need, the timeliness of the information, and user support.

• Also of note was the shifting technology of respondents. More seem to have better systems with larger monitors and are using faster connections that in any of the previous surveys.

Moving on to system performance, our efforts to provide the fastest possible response times continue. Data indicates that the BigIP server controller array has definitely provided a superior balancing of our user load and effectively distributed the workload throughout our resources. We have encountered some delays in upgrading our bandwidth and this continues to pose problems during the busiest hours of the day. A moratorium on projects that require work under the streets is causing the latest delay, but we continue to work closely with our ISP to maximize performance through the existing circuitry. We anticipate completion of the bandwidth upgrade in the next few weeks and will continue to monitor utilization and load distribution to ensure the best possible system response based on the factors we can control.

Our efforts to better quantify GPO Access use has also proceeded. February was the busiest month ever on GPO Access, with almost 23.3 million downloads recorded. Usage of the recently added Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government continues to grow quickly. In its first three months 750,000 retrievals have been recorded for Ben, with more than 340,000 in February alone. Based on our monitoring of the bandwidth utilization reports, it is reasonable to assume that GPO Access retrievals would have been even higher if more bandwidth had been available.

It should also be noted that there is some unknown amount of additional usage that is unmeasurable. Aside from individuals sharing files they have downloaded from GPO Access, there is an increasing amount of institutional caching that cannot be measured. For example, America Online frequently caches popular items to speed access for their users. Even though we have discussed the possibility of gaining some usage numbers with them, it remains unlikely that any useful measurements will be gained in this area.

GPO Access now contains more than 106,000 electronic titles and points to over 68,000 others. This represents a growth rate of almost 6% for the fiscal year-to-date. There are almost 1,500 databases available on GPO Access, which is also a significant increase over the same time last year.

Little has changed in terms of the popularity of individual GPO Access pages. Many users appear to be bookmarking pages for specific applications and returning directly to those pages in the future. The Federal Register application is the most popular starting point, followed by the page that allows multiple databases to be searched at the same time. In third place we find the page that allows users to browse that day’s table of contents for the Federal Register. For the month of February, the release of the Budget by OMB raised two of those pages into the top-ten, pushing traditional top-ten pages out.

Since the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is far and away the numerical leader in documents downloaded, it is somewhat surprising that none of the CFR pages show up in the top-ten entry pages. Further examination revealed some reasons why this is the case. Browsing appears to be much more popular than searching and many browsers are interested in only a specific area of the CFR. Each of these separate areas can be individually bookmarked so that the user can immediately go to the section that interests them most. This spreading of entries into the CFR application prevents it from showing up in the reports, but it is still clearly the most popular application on GPO Access.

The GPO Access User Support Team handled almost 7,000 inquiries in February, the most since last April. Of these approximately 4,500 were telephone calls and over 2,400 were e-mails. I have already mentioned that our redesigned Online Bookstore was receiving more traffic. This rising traffic is translating into increasing electronic sales. New data indicates that more users are starting to submit their orders electronically, rather than printing them out and sending them in. We continue to learn as much from our users about creating the electronic ordering environment that is right for them and to translate what we have learned into improved customer service on our secure site.

One part of the GPO Access mission is to improve access to official Federal government information. One important aspect of this is facilitating the ability of potential users to find our electronic information resources through major search engines. As a result, we have undertaken an ongoing project to evaluate how our resources are presented by these search engines and to work towards improving this performance. We recently completed the third evaluation and the results indicate that our efforts are bearing fruit. More detail will be provided in the Wednesday morning discussion and we hope you will help us in this effort by helping us refine the tags we imbed in our Web pages and improving the searches that we used to evaluate search engine performance.

In this latest evaluation, the most effective search engines at returning GPO Access resources in their results were:

1. The Open Directory Project at 58%
2. Google-Uncle Sam at 54%
3. IWon at 51%
4. Snap at 51%
5. HotBot at 49%
6. Northern Lights (fee-based) USGovsearch at 43%
7. Google at 40%
8. Go.com at 37%
9. GoTo at 37%
10. Webcrawler at 33%

The other engines evaluated, presented alphabetically were About, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, AOL.com, DirectHit, Excite, Governmentguide (AOL), LookSmart, Lycos, Magellan, MSN Search, Northern Light (free), Yahoo, and Yep.

My organization recently took over responsibility for managing the operation of the U.S. Fax Watch system. The service is still available at (202) 512-1716. We recently sent out some updated instructions on using this system to the various listserves, including GOVDOC-L. We suggest that you obtain the latest copy of the Index of Available Shipping Lists prior to requesting any individual list. The index is updated every Friday. In the future, we also expect to add the capabilities for you to receive documents via e-mail and the Web, in addition to fax. If you have specific questions about your fax requests or are having trouble with your transmissions, please contact the Fax Watch Manager at <eidsnetfax@gpo.gov>, ATTN: Faxwatch Manager or by fax at (202) 312-0114.

At this point I would like to spend a few moments describing some of the recent changes to GPO Access. Of special note are:

• On April 3, 2000 – Conclusions of Law and Order: In State of New York, ex. rel. Eliot Spitzer, et al., v Microsoft Corporation <http://usvms.gpo.gov/> became available.

• The second volume of the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States for 1997, covering July-December was added this past Friday. Additional volumes will be included as they become available.

• Supplement 3 to the U.S. Code is now complete (titles 1-50) for laws in effect as of January 28, 1998. Supplement 4 has been added and contains titles 1-41 for laws in effect as of January 5, 1999.

• The Economic Report of the President, 2000 was made available in February.

• The FY 2001 Federal Budget Documents are also available.

• Deschler’s Precedents of the Unites States House of Representatives was released in January and secure order links have since been added to the page for anyone wishing to purchase a paper copy.

• The GPO Access Online Bookstore has a new and easier to remember URL. The address is now simply <http://bookstore.gpo.gov>.

In addition to the improvements already described, there are some upcoming changes to GPO Access that bear mention. They are:

• New, easy to remember URLs are also being prepared for the main GPO Access page and for the library services page.

• A Statutes at Large application is under development.

• Development of a website for the U.S. Supreme Court is nearing completion. The final changes requested by the Court are being processed so that a release can be made in the near future.

• Work on the daily updated electronic version of the Code of Federal Regulations, known as the e-CFR is progressing in conjunction with the quarterly update cycle. The current target for release is around the first of the year.

• The Internet bandwidth available to service GPO Access customers will be increased by 150% in the near future. Part of the reason this effort has taken this long is that the project includes the installation of the infrastructure necessary to quickly provide additional bandwidth increases in the future. With this new circuitry, we will be able to incrementally add bandwidth as necessary when demand climbs beyond acceptable ranges on the currently used circuits.

• A number of enhancements to the GPO Access Online Bookstore are underway. Each is designed to improve a potential customer’s ability to locate and purchase the products they need from our Sales Program.

As you can tell, GPO Access is continuing its rapid evolution. I remind you how important your feedback is to this process and I hope you will continue to take the time share your ideas for making GPO Access better.

Disposition of Depository Collection to the National Archives and Records Administration

Remarks by George Barnum
Electronic Collection Manager

and Robin Haun-Mohamed
Chief, Depository Administration Branch

[George]

It's been something of my role since arriving at GPO to be the official teacher of "Archives as a Second Language" for librarians and "Library as a Second Language" for archivists. This is in part because I have some archives training, and because that fits with an ever-increasing need for our work in the FDLP to dovetail with work going on at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Last fall Council made a recommendation asking us to report on the status of deposit of non-print tangible materials with the National Archives. Robin and I will to describe for you what procedures we have in place for all tangible items in the FDLP, and we’ll give you a small taste of what we've heard from our friends at NARA about what the future holds.

First, let's talk about what the law requires, and what that means. The Federal Records Act requires that all government agencies take a variety of steps to ensure that the essential evidence of the functions of government are appropriately preserved. NARA and agencies work together to develop record retention schedules which guide the lifecycle of records and the process of selecting which records have ongoing value and are thus to be retained, and which are to be destroyed. Bear in mind that we're talking about a staggering mass of material to be considered here, everything from interoffice memoranda to fair copies of treaties.

A revised GPO records schedule appeared in 1996. Under that schedule, it is a requirement that publications cataloged in the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications are to be retained permanently and transferred for that retention to the National Archives. In this sense, the "residue" of the cataloging process, these copies, with the various marginalia and notes added as part of the cataloging process, are evidence of the carrying out of a statutory function, namely the cataloging and indexing function specified in 44 USC 1701. It needs to be emphasized that, although these are Federal agency publications, the evidence they provide is not of the operation of the creating agencies, but rather of the cataloging and indexing function at GPO. In other words, these publications do not meet individual agencies' records retention requirements, only GPO's.

[Robin]

What is a Federal record? This can vary from agency to agency. NARA and agencies decide which Federal records will be accessioned and archived. It is important to remember that not all records are kept for permanent retention. Records management in the Federal government is a statutory responsibility of the Archivist of the United States and the heads of Federal agencies, as defined in 44 USC, Chapters 29 and 33.

The Federal Records Act, 44 USC, Chapter 33, defines Federal records as "all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, and other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successors . . ."

For GPO, all tangible government information products in all formats that have been cataloged by the Library Programs Service are subject to the regulations as essential evidence of GPO's statutory function of cataloging and indexing.

In GPO, the Support Services office is responsible for meeting GPO's requirements for record retention and scheduling with the Federal Records Center and the National Archives. LPS works with this office to ensure the records are sent to the Federal Records Center as scheduled, in a timely manner.

A records center is a storage area for records no longer needed for everyday use. Records in a records center may be either temporary records (those waiting for their destruction date) or permanent (those waiting to be transferred to the Archives.) The material while at the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland technically remains under the control and authority of the GPO until the material is then transferred to the National Archives for accession. The depository material is kept as a collection and the finding aid used by Federal Records staff and archiving staff for this collection is the Monthly Catalog.

The physical products (paper, microfiche, maps and posters) are sent to the Federal Records Center every four years, coinciding with the Presidential terms. To prepare the material for the Federal Records Center, LPS boxes the material in acid free containers, which must be labeled according to specific instructions. Paper documents are placed in SuDocs order and each box is labeled with box number and accession number. Oversized maps and posters must be packed and wrapped individually. All cataloged products are sent to the Federal Records Center, with the exception of the tangible electronic products, and as I said earlier, George is going to handle that discussion. The material is kept for eight years at the Federal Records Center before it is transferred to the Archives.

For publications converted from paper to microfiche format, there are three categories of microfiche produced. The first generation silver halide master copies are sent to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) every four years according to the established schedule for depository records. The second generation silver reproducible microfiche are used for reprints for depository claims as needed until these copies are transferred to the Library of Congress every two years. The diazo copies, sent to the Federal depository libraries, are the copies the catalogers use for producing the cataloging record. These are also sent to the Federal Records Center on the same schedule as the rest of the cataloged material.

Material that is sent to the Federal Records Center and then NARA is not always easily accessible. For depository material, NARA is a collection of last resort. For missing microfiche, you will want to contact the Library of Congress if the regional library cannot locate the required material. GPO and LC have an Interagency Agreement to send all second generation silver microfiche to LC for the collection. LC has agreed under the Interagency Agreement to provide copies of the microfiche material for libraries according to their established prices.

In a nutshell, this is the process GPO follows for sending records to NARA.

For additional information on the Federal Records and Retention process, please see Agency Recordkeeping Requirements: A Management Guide, National Archives and Records Administration Management Guide Series 1995. It is available online at the NARA site at <www.nara.gov/records/pubs/adequacy.html>.

[George]

The records schedule for GPO from 1996 deals only with traditional paper and microform materials. In 1997, the records management officials in GPO (in the Office of Support Services) initiated a request to NARA for additional scheduling of tangible electronic products from the FDLP.

In order for electronic products to be eligible for transfer to NARA, the products must be in a format independent of any software (such as retrieval software). The most common manifestation is ascii text. NARA has maintained that it can only assure preservation if the material is in a readily preserveable format. Obviously, most depository CD/ROMs do not meet this requirement.

During the review process, GPO officials withdrew the request, and it has not, to date, been reinstated. We can easily predict that the outcome of such a request would be that the products are ineligible for transfer. In the absence of any schedule providing otherwise, such records are considered permanent and must be retained by the agency. The very good news is that we have retained all the depository CD-ROMs, as well as other tangible electronic products.

The further good news is that, in the course of their development of new systems that we all hope will handle the mass of electronic Federal records, NARA, in cooperation with the San Diego Supercomputing Center, has unveiled plans for an electronic archival system that may potentially address the issue of format dependence or independence.

To describe NARA's concept in broadest terms, they are specifying requirements for a system that will receive electronic records without regard to medium, store the information independently of software used to create or retrieve it, and deliver the information based on a sophisticated electronic interpretation of what the particular records need in order to be presented to a user. This system will be developed over the next five years.

This closes the circle for us, and it's very encouraging news, since it provides not only a possible solution for the dilemma about what’s to become of all manner of electronic records, but will fit in with the efforts we have undertaken already to preserve access to agency publications in electronic form. For now, the tangible electronic products are appropriately retained, and will be able to be scheduled at some time in the not-impossibly distant future for transfer to the electronic system.

Cataloging and Indexing Program Update

Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you this morning to provide a summary of cataloging services and to present some news concerning the Cataloging and Indexing Program. This background will set the stage for the discussion of our "Cataloging and Locator Services Report" and related proposals.

As many of you know, the Library Programs Service has for many years been a member of CONSER (Cooperative Online Serials), NACO (Name Authority Cooperative), and SACO (the Subject Authority Cooperative). These are national cataloging cooperative programs that do much to assure the acceptance of quality cataloging records within your respective institutions. Several years ago, these cooperative programs and the recently formed BIBliographic COoperative program, or BIBCO, became part of the national Program for Cooperative Cataloging, or PCC. Are you with me so far? Be assured, no acronyms testing will be conducted during the course of Council.

Well, it is a pleasure to announce that PCC program managers at the Library of Congress recently invited us to join the BIBCO program. We are pleased that this invitation was extended to us, have already completed BIBCO training, and have issued guidelines for catalogers.

I would also like to announce that OCLC has recently granted our catalogers National Enhanced Status. National Enhanced Status means that our catalogers are authorized to modify all OCLC records, including those produced by the Library of Congress and other national libraries. Catalogers recognize that some of the meanings and distinctions associated with these memberships or authorizations may not be obvious to everyone. However, it is important to note that our efforts take place in the context of national programs and that our national Cataloging and Indexing Program has made steady progress to achieve full membership in all components of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging and in producing records for the national databases.

Many people have contributed to our efforts to produce quality cataloging records and it is gratifying to see that the Library of Congress, OCLC, and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging recognize the success of these efforts. I would like to take this opportunity to thank current and past members of Council, current and past members of the ALA GODORT Cataloging Committee and the many librarians within the depository community who, over the years, have been generous in their advice and their support of our efforts.

During the past two years many of us have heard increasingly more about OCLC’s CORC, or Cooperative Online Resource Catalog Project. CORC is a project that has the backing of OCLC’s considerable resources and is here to stay. OCLC’s development of CORC software is a creative and ongoing effort to make effective use of meta-data tagging to support harvesting of data that may be used in cataloging online resources.

Cataloging Branch personnel are evaluating CORC for its potential use in cataloging online resources. Most recently, two of our Cataloging Branch catalogers have been trained in the use of CORC and are engaged in a review of the potential that CORC applications may have for GPO cataloging operations.

And speaking of operations, you may wish to jot down the following production and backlog statistics. During the first six months of FY 2000, from October 1999 through March 2000, we received a total of 11,558 pieces and were notified of 310 online titles on Browse Electronic Titles (BET) that required cataloging. Cataloging Branch personnel processed 14,010 pieces. Included in this processing is the cataloging of 363 electronic titles. As you can tell, thus far this fiscal year, production exceeds receipts.

The backlog of physical work to be processed consists of approximately 9,300 pieces, as of March 31^st. Most of this work consists of serials in microfiche from prior years. This figure represents an increase of only some 400 additional pieces since the end of FY 1999. Considering that one cataloger left early in FY 2000, this increase is by no means unreasonable. This vacancy has been posted and we hope to make a selection soon and train a new cataloger within the next eight to nine months.

Looking to the future and anticipating efforts to add an increasing number of online resources to the electronic collection, we have also asked Congress for FY 2001 appropriations to fund the addition of three full time catalogers. We also expect that, as catalogers retire, we will replace them as soon as possible.

Most current works identified by BET are cataloged before posting. Recently published online works are a cataloging priority and represent some of the more prominent publications that are published by agencies. Given this situation, we make concerted efforts to catalog electronic titles before or within one week of posting on BET. Many of the 98 titles in the BET backlog are serials from Fiscal Year 1999.

One increasingly important element of operations concerns our efforts to maintain PURLs for providing continued access to an increasing number of online resources. At present, we estimate that approximately 4,300 PURLs provide access to online titles. We estimate that a combination of PURLs and active URLs that have not yet been converted to PURLs may provide access to approximately 10,000 works.

PURLs provide an essential function that supports the human decision-making that is an important component of identifying, choosing, and maintaining links to online resources. We do not have sufficient personnel resources to maintain online access by continually changing URL data in bibliographic records. At present, PURLs remain the best and most efficient available resource for re-directing users to active links. PURLS software, despite some false reporting of broken links, makes it possible for us, through human efforts, to maintain access to works that remain available via the Internet. Were it not for PURLs, it would not be possible for us to maintain access to most of the approximately 4,300 more recent online works that form an important component of GPO Access. As links are broken and restored, access to older works is provided via PURLs in the 856 field. The most recently active URL is then recorded, for information,not access, in the 530 field for works also available via the Internet, or in the 538 field for works available only via the Internet.

And on this note of converting old URLs to PURLs, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tim Byrne and his colleagues on the Government Documents Round Table Cataloging Committee for development of the "PURL Alert Service" on GOVDOC-L. This announcement service informs people of titles that have recently been converted from URL access to access via PURLs and meets a need that has been expressed for some time. We appreciate this initiative and the effort that was required to establish this service and know that it is appreciated by many readers of GOVDOC-L.

In recent months we have had discussions with senior OCLC personnel concerning PURLs. As a result of these discussions, OCLC has asked us to provide them with suggestions for improving PURLs software. Several years ago OCLC personnel upgraded PURLs software, per our request, to make a new release available that would check and report broken links. We look forward to working with OCLC on improving PURLs software.

Much of our PURLs related effort depends, in part, on the many of you who report broken or inappropriate links to us. In recent months, a number of people have notified us that better links are now available to resources. The issue here is not that links are inactive, or that they lead to the wrong resource, rather that "better," more direct links have become available since the publication was cataloged.

In some instances, when we cataloged a resource, the best, most stable link at the time of cataloging was through a search screen or clickable index. After works are cataloged, better, more suitable direct and stable links may become available. If you know of a better, more direct link to a title, please let us know about it. We are as eager to make these corrections as we are to restore broken links.

Our staff are now making corrections to records, eliminating duplicate records, and updating records in the Catalog of United States Government Publications on the web. Working with GPO production personnel, we have developed effective procedures that result in appropriate de-duplication and improvement of records. At present two people spend approximately two hours each day in maintaining the website.

We are able to identify most of the records that need to be corrected or that need to be eliminated because they are duplicates. However, as with PURLs, we would appreciate hearing from you if you have identified records that require correction or if you have discovered duplicate records for the same title. As time permits, we will improve the Catalog on a daily basis and, as with PURLs, we expect this effort to be an ongoing task.

And, speaking of the Catalog I would like to take a moment to provide some statistical information concerning this resource. At the present time, the web edition of the Monthly Catalog contains 142,210 records produced since 1994. Approximately 10,000 records provide online access via PURLs or URLs.

I would like to provide information concerning the distribution status of Monthly Catalog related products. First, the good news is that Monthly Catalog records are consistently available for the use of the Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, and other institutions, in accordance with monthly schedules. The availability of these records at the Federal Bulletin Board application means that most libraries with commercial tape services are receiving records in a timely manner.

The less positive news relates to the distribution of the Monthly Catalog and its related products. We estimate that the Year 2000 paper edition of the Periodicals Supplement should be distributed to depository libraries late this month. We estimate that the Congressional Serial Set Catalog for the 103^rd Congress also should be distributed to depository libraries by the end of April.

The January 2000 CD-ROM issue of the Monthly Catalog is expected to be distributed late this month. This issue, and all subsequent monthly issues, will contain the Periodicals Supplement for 2000. The delay in distribution is due, in part, to the recent award of a contract to L&M Optical of Brooklyn, New York.

Please be advised that Monthly Catalog CD-ROM editions for 2000 are a new cumulation. Consequently, please retain the January 1998 through December 1999 CD-ROM edition of the Monthly Catalog. The December 1999 issue of the Monthly Catalog in paper was distributed in March. The CD-ROM edition of the December 1999 issue should be distributed to depositories later this month. Those who receive the December 1999 CD-ROM edition of the Monthly Catalog should retain this issue because it includes both the 1998 and 1999 Periodicals Supplements as well as two years of Monthly Catalog issues for 1998 and 1999.

In concluding this presentation I would like to note that we have achieved much in terms of membership in national cooperative cataloging programs and that we meet or exceed national cataloging standards. We also work as productively as possible to provide timely cataloging of recently published online and paper publications. We are consistently making cataloging data available on a timely basis from the Federal Bulletin Board application and are now able to maintain the Catalog of Government Publications application on the web. We are not dependent upon an integrated library system and are maintaining our own catalog, which is current to within 24 hours of producing records in OCLC.

However, the paper and CD-ROM editions of the Monthly Catalog are consistently late and the software limitations on publishing the CD-ROM edition make it impossible for us to publish a disc that contains more than twenty-four months of data. Although libraries select both products, the actual frequency of using these products is not clear. We are also concerned about the costs and utility of the continued publication of a new Serials Supplement and the current Congressional Serials Set Catalog in paper editions.

Laurie, who is next on this morning’s program, will present some ideas and proposals concerning the future scope of products and services. I believe that Laurie’s presentation will stimulate some thinking and discussion and look forward to hearing your thoughts on these matters. I thank you for your time and look forward to meeting with you today and tomorrow.

Thank you.

Cataloging and Locator Tools Proposals

Remarks by Laurie Beyer Hall
Supervisory Program Analyst

Good morning! I’m Laurie Hall, Supervisory Program Analyst in the Library Programs Service (LPS). For those of you who are somewhat unfamiliar with job titles in the Federal government, I head up the team of systems and project analysts responsible for developing new LPS products and services and maintaining many of the existing ones. That’s why I have been asked to brief you on the report "GPO’s Cataloging and Locator Services: Action in Progress and Proposals for Change" [see report, p. 41 and Council recommendation 7, p. 54].

In October 1999, the Depository Library Council recommended that GPO and LPS conduct a review of our online locator tools and services to "evaluate the need, redundancy and the organization of current tools." The discussion of this issue began in the 1999 Spring Council meeting and was continued by a number of LPS staff, including former Electronic Transition Specialist Judy Andrews and members of the Electronic Collections Team.

The current offering of tools and services evolved since the beginning of the electronic transition in the mid-1990’s, and some originated during the tenure of the first Electronic Transition Specialists. Products were enhanced when modifications were feasible and staff was available. Each tool was usually maintained by one staff member, independently from the other locator tools and services.

With the Council recommendation in hand and a deadline looming, staff got down to the business of gathering and analyzing data and crafting specific proposals.

For the purposes of this review, we focused our analysis on the six specific locator products that are primarily created and maintained by staff of the Library Programs Service. These are:

1. The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) also known as MOCAT online
2. Browse Electronic Titles
3. Browse Topics
4. GILS applications
5. Federal Agency Internet Sites – the partnership with Louisiana State University
6. Pathway Indexer

Knowing that our users are from the library community and the general public, we didn’t want to eliminate any tools because we felt there was utility in all of the services and tools we were offering. The browse tools served the users who like to browse and the search tools filled the need for those users who were more comfortable and experienced with searching. We also knew that the applications we created 3 years ago needed technological fixes. There was some redundancy among tools as well. When deciding what kind of changes we would propose, we identified several objectives that we hoped to meet: For the USER, these were to:

1. Eliminate redundancy
2. Make the services easier to use
3. Provide more comprehensive coverage of electronic resources
4. Continue to ensure that electronic resources in the FDLP/EC are authoritative.

Given our previous experience in maintaining the current tools, our goals for LPS were to:

1. Create tools that incorporate electronic resources
2. Better integrate electronic resources in the LPS workflow
3. Simplify maintenance
4. Make more effective use of staff resources
5. Find better technological solutions to support LPS operations

Before we came up with specific proposals, we gathered statistical data from various sources to assist in the analysis. We looked at 6 months worth of data that was gathered from GPO Access logs and data from Question 43 of the 1999 Biennial Survey. Question 43 asks "If you use the cataloging and locator tools and services and which ones." We also relied on feedback we received from the community via askLPS and input you have given us directly. (Some of the data are available in attachment 1 of the handout). These data helped us identify the tools and services that were used heavily and those that were used less frequently. The Catalog of Government Publications was the most heavily used. That was not a surprise to most of us. We were a little puzzled by what we thought were low hit counts for the Browsable services. After checking with a few libraries which maintain similar browsable services, we felt that our hit counts for Browse Topics and Titles were pretty consistent.

Based on this analysis, LPS crafted 6 proposals for your consideration. These are:

1. Find a partner for Browse Topics
2. GILS browse page consolidation
3. Find a Pathway Indexer partner
4. Refocus Browse Electronic Titles
5. Phase out publication of the CD-ROM MOCAT
6. Reconfigure the paper MOCAT

The first four proposals make changes and/or modifications to 4 of the existing Locator Tools and Services.

A partnership to maintain the Browse Topics seems to us to be a great fit. Topics is by its nature user-driven, and you know what subjects and topics your patrons are asking for and can keep the existing topics more current. Currently, individual topics are created and maintained by volunteer librarian partners, with assistance of an LPS staff person. Based on the success of that model, we would like to have a partner assume overall coordination of the entire Topics resource. GPO would still have an oversight role, as we do with all of our partnerships. Many of you have expressed an interest in partnership opportunities and Steve and George may be contacting you in the near future.

Our second proposal is to simplify the GILS applications. The usage data indicates that the GILS applications are used heavily. We have heard from many of you who were confused by the three choices of types of GILS records and didn’t understand the subtle differences in record sets. We are proposing to combine the Browse GILS Records by Agency and the Browse GILS pointer records into a single browsable tool. The Browse Pathway GILS Records will be eliminated. These records were created by LPS staff and are not recognized as official and authoritative by publishing agencies according to the GILS mandate. This process will eliminate redundant records and the additional maintenance burden associated with offering similar sets of records.

According to the statistical data that we analyzed, use of the Pathway Indexer was very low. The application has always been high-maintenance, and the technology is based on the Harvest freeware that is no longer supported. In cooperation with Office of Electronic Information Dissemination (EIDS), LPS is investigating newer technology solutions provided by an external partner like Google or GovBot.

Our next proposal is to redesign the Browse Electronic Titles to improve the current awareness value of this tool. Over the years, as the list of titles continues to expand, the BET began to lose its browsability. With over 3000 entries, the current BET is very maintenance intensive. We are proposing that the BET organized by agency as it currently exists be eliminated. We will continue to offer the New Additions, now called the NET (New Electronic Titles) every week for four weeks, which is approximately 100 new titles offered per month. Our goal is to catalog all new electronic titles in NET before the weekly list is posted each Friday.

These are the 4 major proposals that directly impact the locator tools and services we provide. Two specific proposals in the report impact the publication of two tangible cataloging products. I’ll just go over what is being proposed.

1. LPS is proposing to phase out the production of the CD-ROM version of the Monthly Catalog after all of the issues for the year 2000 are completed. It is expensive to produce and the publishing schedule is very slow. The cataloging records in the CD-ROM are more readily available in the CGP. An annual cumulation on CD may be an alternative.
2. The 2^nd proposal is to make the print Monthly Catalog and Periodicals Supplement current awareness lists of products arranged by classification number. The current MOCAT process, as many of you know, is based on early 1970’s technology that is very expensive and very difficult to maintain. By reconfiguring the paper MOCAT, we can migrate the publication to a desktop application that can be produced in LPS. This process will shorten the production time, increase accuracy and timeliness of the product and reduce costs while still meeting our statutory obligations. [See Council recommendation 7, p. 54.]

By adopting these 6 product proposals, LPS can shift staff resources to work on projects that will enhance the complete suite of locator tools and services. As you consider these proposals, I would just like to highlight some projects that are currently underway in LPS that help us gather information to meet the goals and objectives that we have identified earlier.

1. CGP maintenance – Staff has begun a project to clean up many of the records in the CGP. Our proposal to reconfigure the BET will help us focus on the new additions while encouraging users to search the CGP as the most comprehensive resource for identifying, locating and accessing both tangible and online products.
2. LPS/CORC Participation – To gain experience with alternative bibliographic description methods, and to provide access to a more comprehensive range of electronic resources, we are currently exploring OCLC’s Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) project as the first tentative steps to integrating "cataloging" with "metadata." We are negotiating with the United States Institute of Peace to attempt a small pilot that will bring previously inaccessible resources with high research value created by the Institute into the FDLP/EC, with MARC records that derive from metadata tags. This will involve not just examination of our own cataloging processes, but close collaboration with United States Institute of Peace to provide useful metadata.
3. CORC/OCLC archiving project – As Gil Baldwin mentioned in his presentation yesterday, LPS continues to meet and work with OCLC to develop a business model for digital archiving, including defining the requirements and technical infrastructure for this potential joint project.
4. The BET Retro Project project is being coordinated by members of the Electronic Collection Team to ensure that all resources previously posted to the BET receive cataloging records in the CGP and if necessary, are archived.
5. GILS work- Staff in Office of Electronic Information Dissemination (EIDS) continues to perform on-going maintenance activities for existing GILS records.
6. Technology Planning –LPS staff are in the planning phase of a project to replace key systems in LPS to create better technological solutions that support LPS operations.

I want to thank you for allowing me to brief you on these proposals. We will take questions now and for those who haven’t had an opportunity to digest these proposals and need a good night’s sleep to think about it all, Tad and I will be available tomorrow morning for additional questions.

The Electronic Transition Committee has analyzed the following GPO reports:

• Completing the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP, Council Discussion Draft, 4/21/99 [see p. 36]
• Progress Report on the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP, 1996-1999 [see Administrative Notes, v. 20, # 8, 5/1/99)

The Committee looked at the following issues:

• Are the assumptions stated valid?
• Are there additional assumptions which should be considered?
• What actions should GPO take to strengthen the FDLP in light of these assumptions?
• Are the current activities of GPO appropriate?
• What other activities should GPO undertake?
• Has GPO effectively met the milestones in the Progress Report?
• Are the reasons for activities deferred valid?
• What are the next steps of the transition and how should GPO be positioning itself for a more electronic FDLP?

The Committee is pleased with the progress of the electronic transition and encourages GPO to continue its development of the electronic program. The Committee is concerned that outside influences may restrict GPO’s ability to accomplish all of its goals. For instance, GPO is dependent upon Congress for funding and if Congress does not approve additional funding, then certain projects may not be undertaken or some "traditional" services, including dissemination in multiple formats, may have to be curtailed. Also, the Committee understands that GPO is only one piece of the government information environment and while GPO may be successful in its transition, the entire Federal government may not. Developments in technology and librarianship/archives make it difficult to plan for the future. We do not know what standards will exist for tomorrow’s access.

Libraries are also struggling with managing all types of electronic information and lack a clear vision as to how information will be located and managed in the near future. Technology and Congressional politics will continue to shape GPO’s ability to make a successful transition to a more electronic FDLP. GPO must operate within its Congressional authority and funding. Within these restrictions it is critical that GPO adapt to the changing technical and political environment.

The Electronic Transition Committee agrees with the assumptions as stated and that they are valid.

The Committee has the following comments and observations:

#3 The trend toward decentralized Federal printing, publishing, and dissemination will continue.

1. The Committee suspects Federal agencies will not consider permanent public access (PPA) of much importance unless prodded by regulations, policies, and/or public demand. Many Federal agencies do not understand the concept of PPA and its relationship to NARA activities. PPA and archival activities should not be viewed as competitive but rather complementary practices to ensure access to government information.
2. There is also a role for education, raising the level of awareness among agencies about PPA issues. Agencies will need to be educated as to the role of PPA in the life cycle of information. This education needs to be targeted to various levels of responsibility within an agency. GPO can provide leadership in PPA by providing information and/or demonstrations on best practices.
3. Dissemination will vary from agency to agency dependent upon their philosophy of public access to Federal information and their statutory and regulatory requirements. Dissemination of information has always varied but many within government equate Internet publishing to dissemination. GPO assisted in the dissemination of tangible products by including publications within the Monthly Catalog and promoting access through depository libraries. Agencies who rely on the Internet for dissemination may miss the opportunity to promote their publications through the FDLP. GPO is trying to continue cataloging and locating services in an unstructured environment and faces unique challenges.
4. Internet technology facilitates wide exposure to Federal information with the ultimate goal of providing access for many Americans without geographical restrictions. Not all Americans are connected to the Internet and those that are connected have varying levels of ability to access the information found there. Libraries play a critical role in providing equipment and networking to enable those without Internet capabilities to access government information. Decentralized agency Internet publishing will require new skills for librarians who must have in-depth knowledge of Internet sites and locating resources found there.
5. Decentralization is not new to the Federal government, but Internet publishing, as compared with GPO publishing, compounds the problem of locating government information. Finding aids are more critical in the Internet environment, but they need to be easy to use and standardized across government Internet sites when possible. GPO, with other Federal agencies, needs to employ a distributed search technology that searches across a variety of sites, metadata and content resources. The search tools need to be integrated with each other. Technology should not be used to mimic the paper tools but rather to enhance access to information. The web makes it possible to merge resources and to make references to related databases or to search a variety of databases with one interface. GPO had a good start with the Pathway Indexer. However, this needs to be further developed, merged with existing government search engines such as GovBot, or eliminated, with GPO partnering with another entity to provide similar services.

#5 The number of depository libraries will stabilize around 1300 libraries; most of the losses will be among small public and Federal agency libraries; there will be limited offsetting new designations from the Congressional redistricting following the 2000 census.

The Committee sees implications to this assumption. The number of libraries will probably decrease, but the number of libraries who access Federal Internet sites will increase. Libraries will not need to be a depository library in order to locate and use Federal information. Some may view this development as negative but the implication that all libraries can benefit from the FDLP is significant and should be viewed as a positive development. GPO needs to develop resources with the idea that every library provides the public with government information.

1. The trend to shift costs from agencies to the user or to libraries will continue to occur. While this may be the unintended consequence of technology, it is important to realize that libraries will struggle with different issues such as printing, formatting, archiving, and instruction on technology in addition to the required knowledge of the government information environment.
2. Depository libraries will not be able to individually preserve (refresh and migrate, download from websites, etc.) electronic publications for PPA in the way that they have for print-based publications. GPO’s electronic archive, although valuable, falls short of capturing all of the publications that would have been preserved in the print environment. Likewise, NARA will continue to suffer from inadequate resources to keep up with the flow of publications in need of processing for PPA.
3. Government agencies and the private sector will continue to independently develop tools and resources to locate government information. These development efforts will take different tacks, requiring knowledge of the methods employed by the most used tools if GPO Access is to be aligned to provide the most authoritative results for those users.
4. Partnerships between the government and the private sector will continue to develop and increase. The partnership between NTIS and NorthernLights serves as an example. Internet competition is intense and government budgets are tight. When agencies and private companies have an opportunity to develop services that are beneficial to both, they will create partnerships. While partnerships may be beneficial in providing increased access to government information, they can be viewed negatively if restricted to a certain segment of the population or if citizens are charged twice - first for the creation and second for the access to government information. For partnerships to be successful, they must improve services or access, and must maintain free and unobstructed public access to government information.
5. Intellectual property law will continue to be murky and unsettled and will complicate access to government information disseminated through public/private partnerships.
6. GPO may at times compete with other government agencies for funding and authority yet also collaborate with other government agencies for the greater good of increased access to government information.
7. GPO needs to promote its resources and tools outside of the FDLP. GPO should market itself to all libraries in order to build a broader base of support for its mission. Particularly, GPO should market electronic publications that are available on their server to libraries. Typically, librarians do not consider GPO as a key access point to Federal information. Librarians will use the White House or the Library of Congress web sites first. Building on the slogan "Official Federal Government Information At Your Fingertips," GPO should undertake a marketing project in order to sell itself to librarians as one of the first sites to consider when searching for government information.

3. What actions should GPO take to strengthen the FDLP in light of these assumptions?

1. GPO needs to further develop marketing efforts. This may require additional travel and conference funding as well as increasing marketing skills of GPO staff. Marketing initiatives must be directed to the wider library community, not primarily to depository librarians. For instance, GPO should consider advertising in library journals.
2. GPO and Congress should consider revising the definition of a depository library or perhaps adopt new language that includes all libraries. The definition is tied to Congressional directives and it may not be possible to expand Title 44. However, the opportunity for outreach may be possible.
3. GPO needs to develop tools and resources with the needs of all libraries in mind. The current resources are developed specifically for FDLP or they assume a working knowledge of the depository library system and the Federal government. Libraries with new staff, and non-depository libraries, may not be familiar with such resources as BET or even the Monthly Catalog. Clearly, many of the resources on GPO Access and in the FDLP Electronic Collection benefit all types of libraries and enable disintermediated use by a growing segment of the public. The Committee recommends that GPO build upon the success of their relationship with depository libraries and expand their relationship to the greater library community.
4. GPO needs to develop services which are beneficial for all citizens; not just depository librarians. Current finding aids and resources assume knowledge of the depository program and structure of the Federal government. A layperson accessing online services may not understand the legislative process, the Monthly Catalog, or BET, nor why they are organizationally separate pages and not easily found on GPO Access. Resources need to be clear as to their purpose and integrated into the GPO Access web pages. Involving citizens in the advisory process of development or in feedback groups may provide some insights into how tools are used.
5. GPO needs to develop training activities that reach a wider audience than depository librarians. Training modules may include the fundamentals of government publishing, governmental and commercial finding aids, and how to use GPO online services. The training modules should be created so that they may be used at many points: training for depository librarians, training by depository librarians, and "point-of-need" instruction for the public or librarians. Modules and tutorials could be either interactive or easily downloadable so they could be integrated into local training programs or used for self-teaching. Depository librarians would likely serve as a resource for GPO in providing input to assist in developing resources for all libraries.
6. To increase training opportunities for all libraries, the role of the inspectors could evolve to include that of trainers. Or, GPO may develop trainers specifically assigned with responsibilities to conduct training beyond GPO Access. Training which is now conducted for GPO Access could be integrated into a seminar for locating and using government information. Inspectors could provide training for the trainer for depository librarians that would assist depository librarians in their outreach efforts. GPO would need to develop a comprehensive plan to use GPO staff and depository librarians to conduct training throughout the U.S. The Depository Library Conference is an excellent example of GPO coordination and depository librarian expertise in providing training and examples of best practices.
7. GPO needs to make PPA a constant drumbeat in their communication with, and education of, Federal agency publishers.
8. GPO needs to be active in standards development in areas such as cataloging and digitizing in order to keep pace with technology and to have an influence over the development of those standards.
9. GPO needs to develop a workforce that is technologically savvy and can adapt procedures as the environment changes. To accomplish this effort, recruitment standards may be altered to include technology skills. Some existing GPO staff may need retraining or additional training to enhance their existing skills.
10. GPO needs to conduct a comprehensive review of their current finding aids/tools to see if they are relevant and meet the needs of the users. (Recommended by Council, fall 1999)
11. GPO needs to develop finding tools including a search engine that will simultaneously search databases and websites. A comprehensive and easy to use search engine is critical in promoting access to government information and to the marketing efforts of GPO. Excellent and easy finding aids will promote GPO’s services and enhance GPO’s visibility.
12. GPO’s internal structure is organized around the production of print. Providing printing and dissemination services to Congress and Federal agencies is still a fundamental mission of GPO. However, it is clear that new information dissemination patterns would benefit from new models of organization. The Committee recommends that GPO broaden its sights and begin to explore ways to focus the agency on managing the information product through its entire life cycle, whether it be in print or electronically disseminated.

4. Are the current activities of GPO appropriate?

1. The Committee recommends that GPO define "superseded" under the scope of archiving.
2. The Committee commends GPO for the positive development of GPO Access. However, it is not clear even to depository librarians the relationship between the GPO web site, GPO Access, and GPO LPS web pages. The Committee views the GPO page and the GPO Access/SuDocs pages as separate pages. The Committee recommends that GPO re-evaluate its website and try to simplify the organization and the language of the site.

The Committee recommends that GPO take a strong training role. It is likely that there will be fewer depository libraries but an increased usage of government information. GPO needs to expand its focus beyond depository libraries to all librarians.

The Committee agrees that GPO has met the milestones.

#8 Continue to monitor the technological capabilities...

GPO needs to evaluate the readiness of depository libraries and continue to advise librarians on the appropriate equipment necessary for a depository library. (Council recommendation, fall 1999)

The Committee agrees that deferred activities are appropriate.

1. The Committee recommends that GPO continue to press for appropriations to complete the electronic transition. Specifically, the Committee recommends that additional funding be secured for technology grants. The grants may be the initial step in developing partnerships for PPA activities.
2. The Committee concurs with GPO to not monitor costs for online services. Most libraries assume these costs for all online services and it is recognized as overhead costs or costs paid for by the user.
3. The Committee acknowledges scanning activities as cost prohibitive. However, this is an option which may be considered in the future. The Committee recommends that GPO continue to monitor this possibility.

The Committee has addressed this question under #3.

The Committee appreciates GPO’s commitment to an electronic transition. The dynamic, highly competitive nature of the electronic information environment will continue to challenge GPO and FDLP activities. Budget restraints, Congressional directives, and internal philosophical differences may prevent GPO from achieving all of desired results of the FDLP community. The Committee realizes that GPO is not able to undertake all the initiatives and suggestions stated in this report. GPO is not entirely in control of its own destiny. GPO must depend upon Congress for funding and legislative direction, and on agencies for cooperation. The Committee is willing to work with GPO in identifying the most critical needs and assisting in articulating these needs to Congress. The Committee believes that GPO has achieved significant results and is on the correct path to continued success. The Committee recommends that GPO continue to build upon its traditional roles and emerge in the electronic environment as a more proactive and technologically savvy information provider. The Committee is confident GPO will play a vital role in the dissemination of government information in the electronic information environment.

Completing the Transition to a More Electronic FDLP

NOTE: This is a longer version of the discussion paper dated 3/24/99 that was given to Council at the Spring 1999 meeting. Each of the action areas has been expanded with potential action items or considerations. Council is invited to review and comment on this paper to facilitate the development of goals and milestones for the transition to a more electronic FDLP. Any actions and milestones developed should fit into a timeframe from now through the end of FY 2001.

According to the strategic plan in GPO’s 1996 Study, the FDLP electronic transition will be complete at the end of FY 2001. What should the FDLP look like in 3 years? What actions are necessary to attain this outcome?

1) By FY 2002 we will have completed the major portion of the transition. After that the FDLP will continue to evolve in response to developments in information technology, agency publishing practices, and the legislative and information policy environment.

2) Continuing technological developments will drive publishing, information dissemination, and library services.

3) The trend toward decentralized Federal printing, publishing, and dissemination will continue.

4) The statutory basis for the program will not significantly change; there will still be unresolved issues of overall Government information policy.

5) The number of depository libraries will stabilize around 1300 libraries; most of the losses will be among small public and Federal agency libraries; there will be limited offsetting new designations from the Congressional redistricting following the 2000 census.

6) The allocation of GPO program resources will continue to shift from acquiring and disseminating tangible products to managing the FDLP electronic collection. There will be a parallel trend in depository library operations.

7) The mix of depository products will change in tandem with agency publishing practices. When agencies publish both print and electronic versions of a product GPO’s general approach will be to select the electronic version for the FDLP, especially for titles currently considered appropriate for conversion to microfiche. However, the FDLP will include paper for core products as long as agencies publish in paper.

8) Providing cataloging and locator services for Government information products will remain a critical and growing GPO role.

9) Demographic changes, advancing technology, and a population more comfortable with computer use will change the perception and expectations of the FDLP among both depository librarians and public users.

10) There will be increased demands upon the Government to provide training and user support for electronic products and services.

Discussion:

• Are these assumptions valid?
• Are there other relevant assumptions?
• What actions should GPO take to strengthen the FDLP in light of these assumptions?

The above assumptions will lead us to define management direction and major activity areas for GPO and other FDLP stakeholders. Most of these may impact GPO, depository libraries, and/or Federal publishing agencies. In your comments, please specify who the affected or responsible party might be and when, in your view, the action should happen.

Develop a working prototype electronic archive and related procedures (GPO, 1999).

Archiving ("storage") - obtain publicly accessible server space for our experimental archives.

Examine and obtain appropriate hardware and software. Most immediate need is "grabbing" software. Potential copyright/intellectual property issues of web caching.

Establish the storage sites mix between:

• In-house
• Remote, but still GPO
• Partner sites

Define scope of archiving.

• Should "superseded" versions be retained?
• Which products or collections are already archived and which are endangered?
• Should databases be archived at specific intervals?
• Should only the latest version of a database be retained?

Migration/Transformations: We should guarantee authentic nature of the "data" not necessarily the search & retrieval software.

Significant steps toward permanent access:

(a) Dedicating sufficient resources (financial and staff) to archiving.
(b) Authentication. Evaluate options and implement a solution that will verify that documents are authentic, and will aid in persistence.
(c) Archiving (Establish criteria for inclusion, test, implement technology)
(d) Establish policies and procedures.
(e) Develop a model system for agency notification of changes and new products.
(f) Study + define a strategy for migration/refreshment of data.

All tangible products down by 10% compared to last year.

Online delivery mechanism – need to establish a migration path from WAIS to ?

Determine, on an annual or semiannual basis, a mix of formats based on user need, product availability, and GPO resources. This suggests a more active management approach toward a specific target.

Fully implement the "electronic only where appropriate" goal, defining the core more carefully and developing a mechanism for instituting permanent access.

Gather up-to-date cost information and establish a role for scanning in the Collection generally. Determine if there is justification for format conversion for retrospective materials.

Determine the role and implications of scanning to take the place of MF conversion for limited application for retrospective conversions. Look at contracting for scanning to use instead of MF conversion. Need to develop model contract specifications.

Should a goal be to use scanning for the print to electronic "conversion," replacing the current print to microfiche conversion?

Continued responsibility for cataloging both print and electronic products; value to users to identify and locate all types of products from a combined tool.

Investigate potential of/participate in OCLC’s CORC research project.

Investigate possible use of non-MARC records for Internet resources; e.g. Dublin Core.

Need for integrated systems and processes – reduce use of legacy systems.

Need to define future of the indexer. Refer users to a non-Governmental search engine or site? Advanced Search Facility (ASF)?

Develop a model system for agency notification of significant changes and/or new products.

We need to notify agencies when we "grab" their content for archiving, and initiate a dialog to help us manage the products.

Investigate/search for partner agency to develop notification methods that don’t burden the agency.

Establish authentication routines that will identify changes.

Come up with single easy way for agencies to notify us of new electronic products. At front end – automated?

Possible to use Pathway Indexer, ASF, or other indexer or robot in the discovery process?

Most vital element for agencies is to notify us of significant changes.

Depository library community, news media, etc., needs to advise GPO of new products. GPO will probably not have staff to do intensive "site mining."

Need to monitor, investigate, learn more about.

Issues: What about authentic nature of information on sites other than the .mil or .gov domains.

Short-term goal: Need a disclaimer on SuDocs site about sites were pointing to.

What are the technology solutions? Example: Authentication through watermark.

How do we incorporate authentication routines in our archives?

What is the role of non-Governmental entities in developing an authentication solution?

New model for partnerships based on view that GPO will take a more active role and that the agencies’ role will be reduced, at least at the point of initiating the partnership. State Dept. level of participation is atypical.

Develop a comprehensive approach to engage agencies; get a partnership "package" together to help potential partners understand roles and responsibilities (GPO, 1999-2000).

General arenas:

• Publishing agencies.
• Within GPO, to improve coordination and consistency of message.
• To the depository library community.
• To the general public.

Expand efforts to learn about archiving policies, practices, costs, etc., at domestic non-Governmental and international sites.

GPO – Need to develop a cross-organizational team to do outreach to agencies. Should include LPS, EIDS, Sales, Customer Service, Procurement, Production.

Are there other possible cross-organizational teams?

Personnel allocations/staff makeup in LPS and GPO shifting incrementally. Do we need a reorganization? What would it look like?

Training for new depository librarians.

Increased expectation that GPO be knowledgeable about both the content and the operation of FDLP electronic products.

"Virtual reference desk."

Need to develop easier-to-use, more effective Web presence.

Encourage depositories to undertake user surveys or other data gathering and analysis to measure user satisfaction and ultimately improve services to the public. Emphasize services based on electronic information.

GPO’s Cataloging and Locator Services:
Actions in Progress and Proposals for Change

[See related Council recommendation 7, p. 54.]

In October 1999 the Depository Library Council recommended "that GPO conduct a comprehensive review of online locator and finding aid tools to evaluate the need, redundancy, and organization of current tools. The report should also address possible development of new tools. The review process will require Council and depository library input as well as an analysis of available statistics."

This review is taking place in the context of the transition to a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Many of the transition activities to date have emphasized changes in the formats and media in which FDLP information is published, disseminated, and kept permanently accessible. It is now appropriate to reexamine the cataloging and locator services and related outputs provided by the Library Programs Service (LPS) in order to develop plans for future development and improvement.

This paper describes actions already in progress to improve these online cataloging and locator services. It presents, for Council’s consideration, four Government Printing Office (GPO) proposals relating to these online services, along with two additional proposals pertaining to the tangible cataloging output products derived from GPO’s cataloging records.

GPO’s objectives are to:

• Improve the users’ ability to identify, locate, or link to relevant content, by reducing the potential confusion to users of GPO’s cataloging and locator services and providing more comprehensive coverage to the print and electronic publications in the FDLP, especially of products in the FDLP Electronic Collection (FDLP/EC).

• Assure that cataloging and locator service records created by GPO for an electronic resource link to an official and authoritative copy of the resource, whether the content is on GPO Access, in the FDLP/EC archive, at the originating agency site, or at an FDLP partner site.

• Evolve LPS’ processes and organization to better manage an environment in which online electronic information is the predominant dissemination format for the FDLP. Operationally this requires integrating the acquisition and bibliographic control of electronic resources into the regular LPS workflow.

• Maximize productivity, simplify maintenance of the cataloging and locator services, accept more metadata from external sources, and more effectively utilize the data LPS creates.

• Modernize the mix of cataloging output products to maximize their utility, simplify production, and reduce resource requirements.

The discussion of cataloging and locator services in this paper applies to the services that are maintained by GPO and/or a partner and are used to identify and locate products in the FDLP tangible and electronic collections. In describing an existing or proposed service, this paper will focus on the end product used by an external constituency rather than on the internal processes necessary to support the product.

GPO is working to enhance the design, scope, and operation of some of the cataloging and locator services now offered by GPO and its partners. Six products1 were considered in this review. LPS staff considered usage data compiled from the 1999 Biennial Survey, the GPO Access Web logs, Council and user input, as well as some four years’ experience with these services. Based on these factors, LPS intends to move toward the following mix of GPO services and partner services.

• Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP; "Monthly Catalog on the Web")
• Current awareness service for new additions to the FDLP/EC, replacing today’s Browse Electronic Titles (BET)
• Simplified browsable GILS application

2) Partner Services:

• Federal Agency Internet Sites (maintained by Louisiana State University)
• Browse Topics
• Pathway Indexer replacement

Within GPO actions are already underway to:

2) Participate in OCLC’s CORC project to gain experience with alternative means to describe and link to content in the FDLP/EC. Investigate incorporating CORC and/or Dublin Core records into the CGP.

3) Work with OCLC to develop an integrated, CORC-based software module that incorporates cataloging in a variety of metadata schemes, PURL assignment, Web resource capture, and archiving.

_________________________________________
[ footnote from paper version of Administrative Notes, bottom of p. 43 ( return to TEXT ) ]
¹ The six products reviewed (in order of usage, from greatest to least) are:

- Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP)
< www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/adpos400.html >
- Browsable GILS applications < www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/gils/gils.html .
- Browse Topics <www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/pathbrws.html>
- Browse Electronic Titles <www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/btitles.html>
- Federal Agency Internet Sites (LSU) <www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/agencies.html>
- Government Information on Selected Internet Sites (Pathway Indexer) <www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/searche.html>>

_________________________________________________________

4) Conduct the initial requirements analysis and other planning directed toward the acquisition and implementation of a commercial, off-the-shelf replacement for the legacy mainframe systems that support essential LPS operations.

Online Cataloging and Locator Services: Proposals for Council Consideration

GPO proposes to:

1) Develop a depository library community partnership to assume administrative responsibility for the Browse Topics application. GPO will continue its oversight and policy direction role.

2) Simplify the browsable GILS applications. Two current pages, Browse GILS Records by Agency and Browse GILS Pointer Records, will be combined into a single browsable tool. The Browse Pathway GILS Records will be eliminated. Pathway GILS Records are created by LPS staff based primarily on information from the U.S. Government Manual, and are not recognized as official and authoritative by the agencies. GPO will continue to partner with publishing agencies to facilitate those agencies’ fulfilling their mandated GILS responsibilities.

3) Replace the Harvest shareware-based Pathway Indexer by identifying an external partner to provide this type of service. The Pathway Indexer is the least-used current service.

4) Improve the current awareness value of Browse Electronic Titles (BET) by posting weekly lists of online resources added to the FDLP/EC. The service will be renamed New Electronic Titles (NET). NET entries will appear in a true title arrangement, instead of the BET’s current arrangement by agency. After four weeks, the oldest NET list will be moved to an NET archive. LPS will prioritize cataloging all products listed on NET so they will appear in the searchable CGP as soon as possible. These steps should improve the focus of the BET while encouraging users to search the CGP as the prime resource for identifying, locating, and accessing both tangible and online products.

GPO currently publishes the Monthly Catalog in three formats: paper, CD-ROM, and online. The data are also provided to the Library of Congress for redissemination to subscribers. The proposed changes will reduce the resources required to produce the tangible products and will allow greater dedication of resources to the online cataloging and locator services.

Specifically, GPO proposes to:

2) Change the print Monthly Catalog to a browsable current awareness list of products arranged in classification number sequence. This will speed up the announcement of new FDLP products by allowing LPS to produce the print edition via desktop publishing. This will shorten production cycles, reduce costs, and will still meet the monthly "pamphlet" format requirements of 44 USC 1711.

Attachment 1: GPO Cataloging and Locator Services Usage Data from GPO Access Web Logs, 1999

Attachment 2: Depository Library Usage: Biennial Survey Data
Question 43: Do you use the following?

Proposal 1: Redefine Depository Library Size Categories

[See Council recommendation 3, p. 53.]

• Revise the volume counts used to define small, medium, and large depository libraries. LPS proposes the following: