Building upon the Depository Library System Model
Remarks by Francis J. Buckley, Jr.

Superintendent of Documents

Good morning! I am pleased to be here this morning, speaking to you as the Superintendent of Documents. It is a position I never anticipated in my career, but I am grateful Mr. DiMario called on me because it certainly fulfills my longstanding professional interest to ensure effective, efficient and equitable public access to Government information. It is very interesting to be talking from "inside" GPO. I am still learning much about the agency and the U.S. Government. So far, it has been quite a fascinating journey. In my first two weeks, I have had the opportunity to sign Interagency Agreements (IAs) with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

Our agreement with the DOE will enable their technical reports to be accessed by depository libraries via GPO Access. The NTIS agreement is for the continuation of the pilot on-demand digital image distribution program.

Sandy Schwalb will discuss both of these projects in more detail, but I also wanted to mention a joint marketing pilot project that is in the works between GPO and NTIS. Each agency will supply to the other a list of 20 information products that are not available in the other’s sales program. The concept is that GPO and NTIS will take orders for these materials and then pass those orders on to the other agency for fulfillment.

As Superintendent of Documents I oversee, as you know, three main programs for public access to Government information; the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), GPO Access and the Sales Service. I want to ensure that these complementary programs are coordinated to provide effective public access to information in tangible and electronic media, to provide for permanent public access to the information, and to enable individuals to purchase popular materials for personal use at low cost. I am pleased to note that the Federal Depository Library Program is now supplying 1366 libraries across the country with nearly 13 million copies of approximately 30,000 titles per year. Those of you who know my background may remember I was the regional depository librarian at the Detroit Public Library. I am reliving those days again as I have made myself a regional depository to see all the print products we are distributing to depository libraries.

GPO Access continues to grow by leaps and bounds. T.C. Evans will provide more details about the program, but I did want to mention that in October, 1997 we saw record use of the system. Over 8 million documents were downloaded from GPO Access. Just recently, the Biennial Report to Congress on the Status of GPO Access was completed. It is a depository item and you will be receiving it in the near future.

The Sales Program is functioning well, although the volume of new titles being published is diminishing. The program includes about 10,000 titles, about half of which are individual issues of dated periodicals of some 400 subscription items. The program operated in the black in 1997.

Approximately 69% of the customers in FY 1997 were businesses, 24% were private individuals, and 9% were government and academic users [adds up to more than 100% because some customers are counted in more than one category]. The Program handled 447,000 orders and generated $70,490,000 in revenue. The order desks answered 326,000 telephone calls.

In addition to touring the telephone and mail order sections at Main GPO, I’ve toured the what seemed like miles of shelves of publications at the Laurel warehouse, attended the opening of a relocated bookstore in Denver and had the chance to visit the Pueblo bookstore and the Consumer Information Center in Pueblo that we manage for the General Services Administration.

All in all, it has been quite a learning curve. I am most pleased, however, to be able to continue being a spokesperson for comprehensive, equitable public access to Government information, something I have advocated throughout my library career. In my new role, I expect to work closely with the depository community, with which I have very strong ties, to ensure that the Federal Depository Library Program will be strong and viable into the next century.

A guiding principle in our planning for an electronic future is the assumption that partners, libraries, agencies, non-profits, and consortia will share the tasks of building, storing, disseminating and preserving the collection of FDLP electronic resources, building upon the depository library system model. Several partnerships have been forged in recent years that will help to ensure permanent online accessibility for electronic Government information products. FDLP partnerships are official agreements between GPO and one or more individuals, depository libraries and/or U.S. Government agencies in joint projects which benefit the public and the depository program.

There are three types of partnerships:

1. Content Partnerships -- In Content Partnerships a partner institution hosts part of the FDLP Electronic Collection for free use by the public. One of the first content partnerships established was between the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) and the Department of State. UIC provides permanent access for files removed from the active main web pages of the State Department.
2. Service Partnerships -- These partners offer services which assist documents librarians and GPO in the administration of the depository program. In this case, the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries are working together on the enhanced shipping list service through which one can:
• View and print shipping lists in item number, SuDocs number, or title order
• Search Shipping lists for title keywords, items and SuDocs numbers
• Automatically check the inclusion list against shipping lists and print call number labels for your library
• Obtain information and instructions pertaining to the Label service
3. GPO Access Gateways -- Gateways provide expanded accessibility to the information available in GPO with interpretive and instructional content developed by Gateway partners for their specific clienteles, a variety of alternatives for structuring searches and viewing results, and local low- or no-cost connections for dial-up users. In addition, Gateways assist GPO by providing input in development and refinement of electronic products and services.

Over the next two days, Sandy Schwalb and George Barnum of the Electronic Transition Staff will provide more details about other partnerships in which GPO has become involved.

As for that electronic future, in late November, the Public Printer sent a letter to the directors of all of the depository libraries. I was pleased that he took the opportunity, at that time, to introduce me as the new Superintendent. But what was key in the letter was that he addressed concerns that have been raised in the depository community about how fast the transition to a more electronic FDLP was taking place. Mr. DiMario made it clear that for the foreseeable future, a significant amount of print products would continue to be distributed to depositories.

When a Federal publishing agency produces a title in paper and it is available to GPO in paper, we will acquire copies for library distribution even if an alternative electronic version available. Under law, this is what GPO is authorized to do, and we plan to continue in this manner until Congress provides another direction. In most cases, we are also making the electronic version available.

We believe that the electronic transition should proceed based on:

• the actions of the publishing agency
• cost-effectiveness
• usability of the information

The entire text of the Public Printer’s letter appears in the December 15, 1997 issue of Administrative Notes (Vol. 18, no. 16).

At the Fall Depository Library Council meeting, Jay Young talked about the Integrated Processing System (IPS) that has been in the works for many years in our Sales Program. IPS will replace over 20 mainframe legacy systems, dating back to the 1970s, and put in place a state-of-the-art, customer-oriented business system. IPS should greatly improve customer service and document delivery by using one central database for transactions to streamline the ordering process. It will utilize scanning and imaging technology to record orders. It will improve research, inventory management and forecasting tools, and it will have state-of-the-art warehouse management technology. We foresee this will enhance marketing opportunities for the Sales Program. We are anxious to get it underway.

We had thought that it would go live this past November, but are now looking at implementation in late March. This will give the Sales staff adequate time for testing, training and eventually, implementation. We want to be sure that all phases of IPS are ready for use before hitting that button that says, "Go."

Although the system will initially focus on the ordering process and GPO bookstores we expect to go beyond the Sales Service to other areas. A year or so after implementation we will evaluate the possible integration of other existing legacy systems in Library Programs Service and move them off the mainframe and into an integrated client-server environment. Stay tuned!

Another project I had been watching from the sidelines is now one in which I will be closely involved. As many of you know from previous updates, the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) entered into an IA with GPO to conduct an "Assessment of Electronic Government Information Products." We are seeking information about the standards and mediums being used or which agencies plan to use for electronic dissemination. NCLIS is in the process of signing an agreement with a contractor to undertake research and data collection from Federal agencies in all three branches as well as solicit opinions from selected knowledgeable experts. The contractor will also be required to complete an analysis of the data and opinions and produce a final report. We are planning for a draft of that report to be available to the Depository Library Council in advance of the October 1998 meeting.

I am very pleased with the development of the collection management concept now underway. It is analogous to a collection development plan found in your libraries. I understand this concept originated with Duncan Aldrich while he was working at GPO. The original idea for a GPO "Collection Plan" began with a focus on the electronic products residing on GPO Access. After much internal discussion about the plan, we have expanded the idea of the "FDLP Collection" to encompass not only those products residing on GPO Access, but also those electronic products residing with partner institutions and the tangible products that are housed in depository libraries. Gil Baldwin will discuss the FDLP Electronic Collection concepts in more detail.

In the future, I would like to take this idea a step further and expand the concept to consider those titles that are selected for the sales program, but of course with permanent access to this material provided through the FDLP.

Indeed, I envision at some point collection management responsibilities will be in all areas of Documents; EIDS, LPS and the Sales Service. I would also like to look at broadening the sales collection beyond its traditional borders, but recognizing that the program must continue to be self-sustaining.

I am pleased to have had this opportunity to talk to you this morning. This is but the start of my dialog with you on how we can work together to improve our systems for public access to Government information speaking from my new position as Superintendent of Documents. I am looking forward to exciting future developments in the program.

The FDLP in Transition
Remarks by Gil Baldwin
Chief, Library Division, Library Programs Service

Before the Federal Documents Task Force
Government Documents Round Table
American Library Association
Saturday, January 10, 1998
New Orleans, LA

Good morning, everyone. On behalf of all my colleagues from the Library Programs Service (LPS), I want to tell you how much we appreciate the opportunity to bring you up to date on what’s been going on in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). There are five of us from LPS here and we look forward to talking with you. With me on the program today is Sandy Schwalb from our Electronic Transition Staff, as well as T.C. Evans from the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS). In addition, Robin Haun-Mohamed, Tad Downing and George Barnum from LPS are here in the audience, and they’ll back us up during the question and answer period later this morning. Robin and George will be updating you during tomorrow morning’s FedDocs’ working group meeting, and Tad will be at the GODORT Cataloging Committee meeting. We’ve brought a rainbow array of handouts with us, and you can pick up copies here or at the GPO Exhibit, Booth # 927. In addition to the EIDS team, one of us from LPS will also be at the booth at any time, and we welcome you to stop by and visit with us.

We are now just over two years into the electronic transition, and a lot of progress has been made. It hasn’t always been pretty or comfortable, and all of the motion may not have been forward. But that’s how it works when you’re blazing a new trail. I feel good about the ability of LPS to continue this evolutionary process. I believe that LPS is doing a responsible job of balancing the complex issues attending the transition to electronic information dissemination and our ongoing traditional services. Every area of LPS has benefited from the planning process and has made real strides toward incorporating electronic Government information products into the FDLP, bringing the results of our transition projects into the regular day-to-day life of the operation.

In recent years, while there has been increasing dissemination of information to depositories in tangible electronic formats such as CD-ROMs, print products, including paper and microfiche, still predominate. However, since 1994, there has been increased utilization of the GPO Access online service as the principal delivery vehicle for online Government information to depository libraries and the public. The FDLP is in the midst of a multi-year transition from an exclusively print environment to a mixed environment. The transition to a more electronic FDLP includes tangible Government information products disseminated to depository libraries and online databases and locator services provided via the Internet from GPO Access.

We are all working in an environment where the changes in technology and information dissemination practice have outstripped some portions of our legislative and policy foundations. You’ve already heard this morning about the prospects for Title 44 reform in the next session of Congress. But my take on it is that whether or not Title 44 is amended this year, LPS is in good shape to administer the FDLP into the next millenium.

During the coming years we will continue the transition of the FDLP from paper to electronic formats, consistent with the needs of users and the intended usage. We will further develop the suite of locator services and cataloging initiatives to enable the public to locate Government information regardless of format. And we will develop, coordinate, and implement a management plan for the FDLP Electronic Collection, in order to ensure permanent, future public access to Government information products at or through depository libraries.

First, though, some highlights of LPS activities. This past year we began what we hope will be a growing number of partnerships between GPO, other Government agencies, and depository libraries, for permanently storing and making available certain electronic Government information products. These initial projects are the foundation on which future partnerships will be based. We are indebted to our pioneering partners at the University of Illinois-Chicago and the University of North Texas, and the Departments of State, Education, and Energy, and at OCLC. We have begun building the relationships and the distributed FDLP Electronic Collection through which we will ensure permanent public access to Government information. George Barnum's remarks tomorrow will include more information on these partnerships, including the GPO Access Gateways.

Some of our other 1997 highlights include:

• Permanent access initiatives, including the "collection management" concept for GPO Access and the FDLP Electronic Collection;

• Expanded continuing education activities, including sponsoring the Regional Librarians Conference;

• Developing new GPO Access Web applications and services for depository librarians, such as:

• Adding the Council Web pages to the FDLP Administration Web page;

• Creating "Core Documents of U.S. Democracy: An Electronic Collection;"

• Using the Web to conduct the Biennial Survey and the Item Selection Update Cycle;

• Developing the Item Lister, putting up the electronic version of the Shipping List, and partnering with the creators of the Shipping List label service.

• Raising awareness of the serious issues surrounding the privatization of important Government information products, and the copyright-like restrictions that often accompany these deals.

If you would like even more detail on LPS’ activities, I invite you to check out our 1997 annual report. It’s available on the Web at the FDLP Administration page http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/97lpsar.html, and was printed in the January 15, 1998 issue of Administrative Notes (Vol. 19, no. 2).

This marks the third year of LPS’ Electronic Transition Staff, or ETS. ETS has done a tremendous amount to advance the transition of the FDLP to a more electronically based program. ETS is a four-person outfit; two permanent LPS employees – Lee Morey and Joe Paskoski, and two visiting experts on one year appointments. You all know George Barnum, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who is concentrating on the issue of permanent public access, partnerships, and Gateways. Among other things, George continues the work started by the other people from the library community who have joined us on temporary appointments. You may know that our other visiting expert, Sandy Schwalb, was reappointed for a second year, and we are very pleased that we were able to do that. We feel that bringing the library community people into LPS has been good for the program, and we know that they’ve been a lot of help to us. So we’re starting the search again, looking for two more "transition experts" who would like to work with us in LPS for a year. So if you’re ready for a challenge and a year in DC, please get in touch with us.

We are putting a great deal of emphasis on permanent public access. One of our key developments of FY 1997 is the "collection management" concept for GPO Access, which establishes that GPO will manage the various electronic Government information products made permanently accessible via GPO Access as a library-like collection. Permanent public access will be provided under the authority of the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1993 (Public Law 103-40), via "a facility for storage of electronic information made available on the system of access by the Superintendent of Documents." Once we established the GPO Access databases, we assumed practical responsibility for permanent access to those Government information products. In the traditional FDLP, tangible products world, this responsibility was shared by GPO and the regional depository libraries.

We are building the FDLP Electronic Collection using GPO resources, and coordinating permanent access through a distributed networked system of GPO and partner institution resources. Government electronic information products in the FDLP Electronic Collection will be managed using many familiar library collection management policies and techniques, such as selection, acquisition, bibliographic control, access, organization, maintenance, deselection, and preservation for access. The Collection consists of remotely accessible electronic Government information products, including core legislative and regulatory GPO Access products which will reside permanently on GPO servers, and other products either maintained by GPO or other institutions with which GPO has established formal agreements.

I hope you’ve all taken the opportunity to read our basic position paper on this which appeared in the November 25 issue of Administrative Notes (Vol. 18, no. 15), and of course is available under the Publications button on the FDLP Administration page on our Web site at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/wpaper.html.

At the October Council meeting George Barnum and I did a program on this topic, and we outlined our vision for a Collection Management Plan which is analogous to a library’s collection development plan. We had some excellent discussion of these issues, and we got some good feedback from Council and the audience which enabled us to refine our draft plan. I hope to soon put out a draft Collection Plan for public review and comment, but for now I’ll have to walk you through some of main points.

We believe the Collection Management Plan will enable GPO to accomplish the permanent access mission. The Plan provides a policy framework through which the collection of resources is developed and maintained, and defines the parameters and requirements for the electronic products and services that constitute the Collection.

Here are some of the core values which guided our development of the Plan:

• The Plan should facilitate partnerships between the Government and FDLP libraries: a system of shared responsibility for building, storing, disseminating, and preserving the Collection will produce the greatest benefit for resources invested.

• Planning and the effective use of GPO's appropriated funds, as well as the belief that the value added by depository libraries is key to the FDLP, require that Collection activities focus on depository access and depository users as a definable and known entity.

• The cost of permanent access to electronic Government information products should be borne by the Government and not by the end user.

The Collection Plan will guide GPO in executing its permanent access responsibility for Government information products such as the Federal Register and Congressional Record. For such products, GPO has assumed the role traditionally taken by regional depository libraries as provided in 44 U.S.C. §1911. A fundamental assumption outlined in GPO's 1996 "Study" is that FDLP dissemination of remotely accessible electronic information products will be through "a distributed system that provides continuous, permanent public access, involving the publishing agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and regional and other depository libraries."

The Collection Plan defines the parameters and requirements for the electronic products and services that constitute the Collection. The Collection will facilitate permanent access to Government electronic information products "except those determined by their issuing components to be required for official use only or for strictly administrative or operational purposes which have no public interest or educational value and publications classified for reasons of national security" (44 U.S.C. §1902). Such products will not be considered to be record copies, but rather as permanent access reference copies.

By sharing the burden of storage and maintenance, GPO safeguards the continuing availability and accessibility of electronic Government information products included in the Collection. In the context of this plan, storage of digital information will be accomplished through various mechanisms:

• Legislative and regulatory material that has been managed by GPO in GPO Access (e.g., Congressional Record, Bills, Federal Register) will reside on GPO servers, including the GPO Access remote site in Kentucky.

• Agency material may be resident on GPO servers, on agency servers, or be included in partnership arrangements whereby storage and access are managed cooperatively by partner institutions in the FDLP and GPO.

Although this Plan may eventually be extended to provide for the preservation of and permanent access to information dissemination via the FDLP in CD-ROM and other tangible electronic mediums, the near-term scope of the Plan is focused upon Government information disseminated via the Internet.

The primary user community for the Collection are those end users gaining access to the Collection through the facilities and resources of the FDLP. The public will routinely use the Collection directly, without the depository library as intermediary. GPO will strive to accommodate the needs of as broad a range of users as possible within the constraints of time and resources. However, the belief that the value added by depository libraries is key to the program, require that Collection activities focus on depository access and depository users.

Products in the Collection will be selected and acquired under policies and procedures that encourage and facilitate the sharing of resources. Three major questions will guide the evaluation phase of the selection process for the Collection:

• Does the product meet the criteria of 44 U.S.C. §1901-1902?

• What is the value and importance of the product to the user community (i.e., depository libraries and their clientele)?

• What priority does the product have in relation to other resources in the FDLP?

In addition to these basic questions, we are working on a checklist to assist in the evaluation of products for the Collection.

Outreach to Federal agencies concerning the issue of permanent access and the role of the Collection, including partnerships, will be integrated into a larger GPO effort now underway to increase agencies' awareness of the scope and value of GPO information replication and dissemination services. Agencies will be encouraged to participate proactively by recommending products for inclusion in the Collection, by notifying GPO about significant changes, initiation or termination of products, or by identifying possible partners for their dissemination efforts.

GPO is responsible for providing various locator services for a broad range of Government information products. Since data, text, and description are inextricably linked in the electronic world, the Collection will employ appropriate technology and practices to assure a level of control and access that meets or exceeds traditional expectations. Techniques and standards change, but we expect to use a combination of traditional cataloging records; GILS records; persistent naming using OCLC’s PURLs; indexers and robots; and Pathway Indexer browser applications.

One of GPO's primary goals is to assure that access to and retrieval of Government information products is available to a broad spectrum of users who possess a wide range of technical capabilities. GPO is committed to providing unlimited access to both high-end and low-end users interested in searching and retrieving Government information products. In the context of the FDLP, accessibility includes the degree to which Government information is accurately identified and described bibliographically, the information's availability is made known to the public, and technological, social, economic, political, and physical barriers to gaining access are minimized. Information products will be made available using the latest, most timely electronic means, but will also be available through basic modem and assistive technologies. GPO will utilize the Internet, as well as telephone and modem technology, to provide access to Government information products.

Users must also be able to access and retrieve Government information products through public access workstations available at Federal depository libraries. All depositories are expected to offer public users access to workstations with a graphical user interface, CD-ROM capability, Internet connections, and the ability to access Government information via the World Wide Web.

Government information products may be included as part of the Collection and maintained for permanent access at GPO or through FDLP partners in a variety of media and formats. Whenever possible, GPO will encourage the use of open-system standards and formats for Government information products that compose the GPO Access collection.

Whenever feasible and cost-effective, GPO will provide a text-only interface for Government information products made available through its on-site servers. This will allow GPO to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and will also ensure access to users with limited technological and communication capability. GPO will also encourage partnering institutions to comply with ADA requirements, but is not in a position to mandate this action by partners.

As an agency, GPO has already identified a limited range of product formats that are in general use in the Government. These include ASCII, PDF, SGML, and HTML for text, and TIFF for images. In order to get a better handle on where these products, standards, and formats are heading, GPO commissioned the study by the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), which you'll be hearing more about in Sandy’s remarks. This assessment will help determine the range of formats publishing agencies plan to use in the creation and dissemination of Government information products, so we can better advise you on what kind of products to expect.

The partnerships concept is one of the cornerstones of the Collection Plan. We envision partner institutions as agents that will share the tasks of building, storing, disseminating, and preserving the Collection. The partnership concept builds upon the successful model of the distributed collection of tangible FDLP products made permanently accessible through the regional depository libraries.

Most relevant to permanent access initiatives are electronic product content partnerships, in which agencies and depository libraries enter GPO-brokered agreements to provide the environment and resources for permanent access to agency products not previously managed via GPO Access. We encourage your involvement in the identification and selection process for products to be considered for inclusion in the Collection. This is an area that the agency liaison program can help with, so keep your antennas up when talking to agencies about products that might be the basis for future partnerships.

One manifestation of the collection concept is a digital collection on GPO Access known as the "Core Documents of U.S. Democracy: An Electronic Collection." This Web-based collection went live last June. As you know, we’ve been asking for suggestions for important titles to augment this Collection. Last week, based on suggestions from the library community, we added two new resources to this Collection: The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents and the Congressional Pictorial Directory.

Recently we were pleased that the Core Documents collection was chosen as a selection for the Scout Report for Social Sciences. The Scout Report for Social Sciences is a publication of the Internet Scout Project, a project of the InterNIC, based at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. It’s billed as the premier bi-weekly collection of useful Internet sites for discerning Internauts in the social sciences. Basic selection criteria for the selection of items in the Scout Report include depth of content, author, information maintenance, and presentation.

GPO is developing a searchable WAIS database for Supreme Court opinions that are part of the Project Hermes initiative. Project Hermes encompasses the time period from 1992 to present. Until now, this information has only been available through a browsable index on the Federal Bulletin Board (FBB), in either Word Perfect 5.1 or ASCII text format. Beginning in the 1997/98 term, these files will be available on the FBB in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) and tagged ASCII format.

We are also working on a WAIS application, so users will be able to perform full-text searches and retrievals of this information, including multiple field searching. GPO expects to be able to provide some specific features for this application, including a field for conducting a full-text search and the ability to search by case name, citation number, year, justice's name, and docket number.

As a future add-on application, we would like to provide users with the ability to search by court name. Search results will be displayed with an ASCII, PDF or Summary option. It is anticipated that this database will be available to users this spring.

Over the last year, our Depository Services Staff (DSS) inspected 55 depository libraries. In addition, self-studies submitted by 125 depositories were evaluated and brief reports summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of the depository operation were sent to the libraries.

Our two new inspectors, Tom Oertel and Cindy Etkin, have completed their basic training and they’re out inspecting now. The legal basis for inspections is specified in 44 U.S.C. §1909, which requires us to "make firsthand investigation of conditions [in depository libraries] for which need is indicated.…" So we will be picking up the pace of getting out to those libraries which warrant the on-site inspection. LPS will concentrate on on-site compliance inspections of those libraries which submit unsatisfactory self-studies, have major changes in staffing or facilities, have prior records of non-compliance, or if complaints are received from the public concerning depository library services. The LPS Depository Services Staff (DSS) will also be available to visit, consult with, and assist a depository library upon request. The use of the depository self-studies has allowed our Depository Services Staff to devote resources to our two major continuing education programs, the April Federal Depository Library Conference and Council meeting, and the May Interagency Seminar. We’ve published the draft agenda for the April meetings in Administrative Notes (Vol. 18, no. 16), and it’s also on the FDLP Administration page on GPO Access.

As you know, we just finished conducting the 1997 Biennial Survey of Depository Libraries via our new Web application, and we are pretty pleased with the process. We are still very early in the data analysis and review phase, but I want to call your attention to some "quick and dirty" highlights which are available on one of the handouts in the back. Overall it looks like depository libraries are making good progress to offering public Web access system-wide; over 90% of depositories offer GPO Access services to the public via the Web.

Those of you who attended the fall Council meeting heard me introduce a prototype of AskLPS, a Web application to send inquiries and get answers and news from us about the FDLP. Doing this right turns out to be a complex bundle of snakes, because it brought to light all sorts of things we can do to improve inquiry processing in general. We are developing the bits and pieces now, and Julia Wallace is giving us a hand with the testing. We expect to have this operational in February, and we hope once it’s up you will use AskLPS as your preferred channel to get in touch with us, and help to migrate some of those technical questions that only LPS can really answer off of the listservs. Robin will give you some additional details about AskLPS in her remarks at the Federal Documents Task Force work groups tomorrow morning.

Recent Activities of the Electronic Transition Staff
Remarks by Sandy Schwalb

Electronic Transition Staff, Library Programs Service

Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here in the land of etouffe and beignets. I appreciate this opportunity to report to you on the activities of the Electronic Transition Staff. As Gil has already mentioned, those of us in ETS, Lee Morey, Joe Paskoski, George Barnum and I, are involved in numerous projects and related activities that will ensure a more electronically-based Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP).

Since George came on board this past July, he has been concentrating on forging new partnerships and strengthening those already in existence between depository libraries and Federal agencies. I will briefly describe some of the recent partnerships that have been established. For more information and background on the partnership program, you will find a sheet in the back of the room detailing the different types of partnerships and requirements. [Also available in Administrative Notes, vol. 18, no. 16 (12/15/97) and on GPO Access at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/ad012598.html.]

I am pleased to report that after months of negotiations, GPO, the National Library of Education (NLE) and OCLC will be working together to make public domain reports from the Education Resources Information Clearinghouse (ERIC) available online through the FDLP. The FDLP/ERIC Digital Library Pilot Project is initially scheduled to run through 1998 and will provide the participants with valuable information on managing a large, high demand collection in electronic format. Reports from January 1997 forward will be converted to TIFF image format and stored at OCLC, with access available through OCLC ‘s First Search. Up to 250 new reports are expected to be added each month.

This project should help us to gain insights on user behavior, different interfaces, and possibly on the impact on sales of products when there is a no-fee electronic dissemination channel.

Wichita State University is partnering with LPS to make the Documents Data Miner (DDM), a collection management tool, available for use by depositories. The DDM search engine features a field searchable current List of Classes and Discontinued List, complete depository profiles and union lists, an electronic rolodex for all depository libraries, and support for creation of in-house relational databases. When the testing of this site is complete, it will be linked off the FDLP Tools page.

George Barnum is currently working with the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) on a draft memorandum of understanding on a partnership arrangement to make the electronic Government information products from the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) legacy collection permanently accessible under the auspices of the FDLP. Although the OTA files have been available from various sites, GPO and UIC will now assure permanent accessibility under this agreement.

ETS staff has other irons in the fire in the partnership arena, but at the moment most of them are in the preliminary stages. We are especially interested in one possible project in which a significant historical collection from a U.S. Government agency may be digitized and made available over the Web.

We have also started very preliminary conversations with STAT-USA about permanent accessibility issues for some of the data in their product, and have a potential university partner waiting in the wings. We will certainly keep the depository community up-to-date on these and related activities.

Joe Paskoski continues to work with other staff in LPS, including Robin Haun-Mohamed and Sheila McGarr, on a number of web-based projects, such as AskLPS, which Gil touched on briefly. Robin will be discussing AskLPS in greater detail tomorrow at the Federal Documents Task Force Work Groups meeting. The web projects, including the item selection update process, are designed to make life easier for the depository community as well as for the depository distribution and acquisitions staff at GPO.

Another project on which Joe is working is an LPS Virtual Web tour. A rough prototype of the tour is ready, and the next step will be to load photos onto the site. An announcement will be made as soon as it is ready for public viewing.

The Pathway Browse Topics service is being enhanced and expanded with the assistance of many of you. Currently, 33 topic areas have been developed and kept up-to-date by 29 volunteers. This project is being coordinated by Lee Morey. In order to keep this project viable, we ask that those individuals who adopt a topic provide quarterly reviews of that topic to Lee. If an individual is, for any reason, unable to contribute time to this effort, Lee would like to be notified. We would appreciate a long-term commitment, but understand that there are many factors that could prevent that. If you find, therefore, that you are unable to work on the project for a while, please let us know so we can make arrangements with other individuals to ensure that the topic continues to receive attention.

The main Browse Topics page is now getting about 5000 visits per month. This number does not count individual bookmarked topics. You can visit this site at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/topics/invite.html.

The U.S. Information Agency (USIA) is working with the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) to provide access and authentication to online foreign affairs documents Governmentwide; currently referred to as the Foreign Affairs Documentation Center (FADC). Lee and George have been attending planning meetings and providing input and expertise while looking at ways in which this centralized registry could benefit the FDLP.

We have been able to make some useful contributions to this discussion on the collection management and permanent public access fronts.

In December, an historic Interagency Agreement (IA) was signed between the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) and GPO’s Library Programs Service (LPS) to establish a pilot project through which NTIS will furnish U.S. Government information products in electronic image format to the FDLP.

In order to assure free public access to these products, the GPO, as the administrator of the depository program, and NTIS have agreed that products delivered under this agreement will be subject to the rules surrounding the use and accessibility of material in the depository program.

This pilot project should provide both GPO and NTIS with practical experience in the delivery of documents in electronic image format to depository libraries. Under the agreement, FDLP libraries and users will identify and request documents in image format using NTIS’ OrderNow Online and NTIS’ 10-year title file. The range of documents included in the project is expanding now that NTIS has begun to scan incoming documents or as documents in electronic image format are received by NTIS from the originating agencies. The additional products available through the project will be documents from a variety of agencies numbered in the "PB" series.

As many of you know from previous update sessions, NTIS has been working with Linda Kennedy and her staff at the University of California - Davis on the initial phase of this pilot project. Now that an agreement has been officially struck, NTIS would like to work with one additional high-end library for the short term. Duncan Aldrich of the University of Nevada-Reno has graciously agreed to be the next test site for NTIS. This next phase should begin after we return from the ALA meeting.

What we envision as the long-term pilot will eventually include up to 20 libraries, ranging from higher-end academic/research institutions to small libraries that have an interest in this material, but might not have high-tech equipment. This will help NTIS determine what technical specifications libraries should have in order to access these electronic image files.

I am working with Kristin Vajs, of NTIS, to work out a timetable for adding more institutions this coming spring. We are aware that a number of you have informally volunteered to participate in this pilot. Now that we have a signed agreement with NTIS, I am sure that we will be choosing additional participants very soon. We certainly appreciate your continued interest in this project. Should you have any questions about the project, I would be pleased to discuss it with you here at the conference and when we return to our duty stations back home (I love that government-speak!)

Last, but far from least, I am pleased to be able to announce that GPO has signed an Interagency Agreement (IA) with the Department of Energy (DOE) that will provide GPO, depository libraries and the public with access to DOE reports in electronic image format. Under this IA, FDLP libraries and users will enter the DOE electronic dissemination system, called, "Information Bridge," through GPO Access. This gateway will provide a public view to the DOE reports.

My colleagues and I in ETS and LPS are very excited about this project. It has been in the works for most of the 16 months I have been with GPO. As many of you know, the DOE microfiche program was eliminated at the end of fiscal year 1996. There was much back and forth between us at GPO and the staff of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) on how we could get the massive amount of the DOE electronic image files into the depository program as easily and cost-effectively as possible. As it turned out, the new director of OSTI, Walter Warnick, who took the helm about a year ago, wanted to forge partnerships as well, so we had much common ground.

As Fran mentioned, he had the opportunity to sign the IA with the director of OSTI about a month ago and now my colleagues in ETS and technical staff at OSTI are working together to ensure that the DOE/OSTI web site will be user-friendly for the depository community.

A number of your colleagues from institutions that have selected the DOE material in microfiche were asked to informally examine the DOE site and provide feedback, which they all did, I might add, right before the holiday rush. We really appreciate the time they took to provide meaningful comments that we can share with the OSTI staff.

We expect a roll-out of the depository library version of "Information Bridge" to occur during the April Federal Depository Library Conference to be held in Washington, DC.

Thank you for this opportunity to share some recent ETS activities with you.

Depository Administration Branch Update
Remarks by Robin Haun-Mohamed

Chief, Depository Administration Branch, Library Programs Service

Before the Federal Documents Task Force
Government Documents Round Table
American Library Association
Sunday, January 11, 1998
New Orleans, LA

Good morning! It’s nice to be here in New Orleans. I will try to keep this presentation short, as very little time has passed since the Fall Council meeting and update session and everyone has much to do in this city! But even though it has only been 11 weeks since Council, there are a number of new products available through the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), either on the horizon or just delivered.

Let me start with a new subscription service, the Environmental Health Information Service (EHIS), established by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Federal depository libraries are being provided one free subscription to this new service. Resources accessible via the EHIS include online access to Environmental Health Perspectives, Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements, National Toxicology Technical Reports, and access to the Historical Control Database.

Libraries will access the EHIS using your Library Programs Service (LPS) depository number and password. This is the same password that was recently used for the 1997 Biennial Survey and for the last Annual Selection Update Cycle. It will also be used in future new item surveys. If you do not have your password, please contact the Information Processing Unit at (202) 512-1062.

U.S. Industry and Trade Outlook, 1998

Copies of the U.S. Industry and Trade Outlook, 1998 were sent to libraries in November. This title replaces the Industrial Outlook, last published in 1994. Over 1100 libraries received copies of this title, provided to LPS by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). If your library has not received this title, please check for a separates mailing under shipping list 98-0006-S, dated Nov. 21, 1997.

North American Industry Classification System

LPS has received several inquiries concerning the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). In July, I posted a notice to GOVDOC-L advising the libraries the NAICS manual was slated to be distributed to depository libraries when it becomes available. At this time the product is not yet complete. Any commercial version advertised for sale at this time is not the complete NAICS manual. And after speaking with an agency official at OMB, I’d like to remind the libraries to retain the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification Manual. Many of the non-statistical areas--administrative, taxes, etc.--will not switch to the new system for several years. Patrons will need to use the older manual for these areas.

LPS has also received several inquiries about the status of the LandView III CD-ROMs. The Census Bureau is expecting these this month and copies will be provided for distribution to the libraries. LandView III is a desktop mapping system that includes database extracts from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of the Census, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. These databases are presented in a geographic context on maps that show jurisdictional boundaries, detailed networks of roads, rivers, and railroads, census block group and tract polygons, schools, hospitals, churches, cemeteries, airports, dams, and other landmark features. Advance information on LandView III was provided to LPS by the Census Bureau. LPS in turn shared the information with the Government Information Technology Committee (GITCO) and included it in the January 15, 1998 issue of the Administrative Notes (v. 19, no. 2). I want to thank John Kavaliunas and the folks at the Census Bureau for working with us to make this information available before the products are released.

USAMARK: Facsimile Images of Registered United States Trademarks is a new Cassis CD-ROM product with facsimile images of U.S. registered trademarks from 1884 to the present. It will be distributed in multiple discs as a back file with monthly updates. Retrieval is by document number only from a cumulative index that covers all issued discs. A survey will be done in early February via GPO’s Web site, but if the products begin coming in before the survey is completed, they will be sent to all libraries currently selecting any of the Cassis products. Once the survey has been completed, this title will only be distributed to those libraries responding to the survey. Remember, all libraries must complete all surveys, including the regional libraries. And all surveys are now done on GPO’s Web site.

The Daily Treasury Statements (DTS) are now being uploaded by the printing contractor on a daily basis to the Federal Bulletin Board (FBB). This is an important step in electronic conversion, as GPO has the responsibility for determining what will happen to current electronic files under a contract arrangement with another agency. It shows what can be done to ensure future access commitments for electronic products for executive agency products produced under a GPO contract.

Please take a look at the Daily Treasury Statements on the FBB. The address is http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/libs/tres_rpt.htm. As this is a new resource and we are still learning about how the files are used, we recently modified the postings to include a monthly breakout of all DTS beginning with January 1998. Although the electronic files first became available in late October 1997, we will not be going back to have the other 1997 issues scanned. At this time, libraries will continue to receive the Daily Treasury Statements in paper format.

In the October 15 , 1997 issue of the Administrative Notes (v. 18, no. 13), libraries were advised of some microfiche titles that were to be distributed to libraries only via an online web site. Thanks to all who took the time to respond to this listing. After discussion at the October Council meeting, LPS has postponed the discontinuation of any microfiche products pending further development of guidelines for such action. A set of guidelines utilized in identifying candidates for electronic only dissemination was described in Administrative Notes, (v.18, no. 10, 7/15/97, p. 22). Anyone wishing to assist in the further development of these guidelines please contact me at (202) 512-1071.

It seems as if we are focusing on electronic applications via GPO Access for the FDLP. I think it is exciting, intimidating, and impressive-- all at the same time. When I address Mr. Joe Paskoski, a most diligent member of the Electronic Transition Service (ETS), I have to frame my questions in terms of "WEB APPLICATIONS." Despite this enthusiasm I have to temper suggestions with reality, as you do in the libraries. We all have to deal with staffing levels, programming support, and new technology changes each time we approach a change in administrative service. We want to be sure that when we begin a new service that we can sustain it. So today, I am excited to announce a new service product that we have placed on the FBB, the Union List of Item Selections.

In the past, the Union List was produced in microfiche format and distributed to all libraries annually. The December 1997 issue will be the last one produced in this format. It is now available for download in an ASCII comma delimited form and the location is http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/libs/unionl.htm. It will be uploaded to the FBB on a monthly basis on the same time frame as the List of Classes and Item Lister, the first Friday of each month.

Other products we hope to have available on the FBB in the near future include the Alphabetic Listing of Government Authors (Appendix I of the List of Classes) and the Inactive or Discontinued Items From the 1950 Revision of the Classified List. We have also submitted requests to load both on an annual basis (in May), to coordinate with the Annual Selection Update Cycle. I will update the depository community on availability when I have more information.

Another exciting electronic service is the developing partnership with Wichita State University for the Documents Data Miner (DDM). The Data Miner is a collection management tool which features a field searchable current List of Classes, a field searchable Discontinued List, complete depository profiles and union lists, an electronic rolodex for all depository libraries, and support for creation of in-house relational databases. DDM will be linked off the FDLP Tools page when the testing is complete.

DDM is a very sophisticated tool. For example, users will be able to do a Union List search for libraries selecting a specific item number within a 50 mile radius of a particular library. This partnership will be similar to our service partnership for the enhanced shipping list service we have in place with the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the University of Texas at Arlington. We are very excited about the prospect of having similar enhanced services associated with the List of Classes, the Union List of Item Numbers, and the Discontinued List.

At the October Council meeting in Florida, Gil Baldwin announced the development of AskLPS, an automated inquiry service to make filing of inquiries and directing of e-mail to the appropriate LPS contact easier for those in the depository community. Several people in LPS have been working to make this new service a reality. There are five components to AskLPS:

1. the electronic inquiry form
2. WEBTech Notes, a searchable database for postings made in the Administrative Notes and Administrative Notes Technical Supplement, dating back to 1991.
3. FAQs and News
4. the FDLP Contacts Page and
5. the Federal Depository Library Directory.

WEBTech Notes is searchable via GPO’s Web site and available for download from the FBB. The data is from the four major categories of Administrative Notes and Administrative Notes Technical Supplement. These categories are: Classification/Cataloging Update; Update to the List of Classes, Miscellaneous; Update to the List of Classes, New Item Numbers; and Whatever Happened To...? The FBB version will be available in dBase format for those libraries wishing to import the information into their own databases. Both formats will be updated on a weekly basis.

The exact date AskLPS will be ready is not known as we are still in a testing phase, but it should be ready in the very near future. Once AskLPS is ready for use, we will ask you to send your depository inquires to LPS via AskLPS, and to not send duplicate inquiries to individual LPS staff members. This should help to minimize the duplication of effort by staff throughout LPS.

Bound U.S. Congressional Serial Set

In September 1997, Congress directed GPO to discontinue distribution of the bound U.S. Congressional Serial Set to all depositories, except the regional libraries, and one library in each state without a regional library. This reduces the distribution counts for the bound Serial Set from over 400 libraries to only 62 libraries, plus the State Libraries, and 14 International Exchange Service (IES) Libraries. I have had many questions from libraries asking when this change will take effect. It will begin with the House and Senate Documents and Reports from the 105th Congress. We are still distributing copies of the bound Serial Set to all libraries profiled to receive them through the 104th Congress. And please remember, all libraries profiled to receive the slip distribution of House and Senate Documents and Reports will continue to receive them as they are produced.

LPS was also directed by Congress to distribute the Serial Set Title Pages and/or Table of Contents pages to those libraries wishing to bind their own Serial Set volumes. In coordination with GPO’s Congressional Printing Management Division, LPS will conduct a survey to determine which libraries need the Title Pages. Look for this survey to be done in coordination with the Patent and Trademark Office CD-ROM in February. Libraries will then be supplied with the Title Pages and/or Table of Contents on acid free paper as soon as possible after the completion of that Congress. There is often a lag time between the end of the Congress and preparation of the Title Pages, because GPO does not always receive the material from the Congressional committees in a timely manner. Incidentally, for the past four years, the Documents and Reports have been printed on acid-free paper.

Libraries that submitted a letter of intent to the GPO Sales Program to purchase the Serial Set for $15,400 for the 105th Congress will be receiving a follow-up letter and an order form to confirm the purchase of the Serial Set. If there are any additional parties interested in purchasing the bound Serial Set, please contact Alan Ptak, Chief, Sales Management Division, at (202) 512-1709 as soon as possible.

In late November, the U.S. Fax Watch system developed major hardware problems and crashed. The hardware has been repaired, but the information on the system has been lost. Staff are working on rebuilding the system and we hope to have it available again soon.

In October, 1997, LPS, in coordination with our partners at UTA and SUNY--Buffalo, took steps to develop an archive for the shipping list files loaded onto the FBB for all formats of publications. Current listings for the paper, electronic, microfiche, and separates shipments have been loaded on a regular basis. And we will soon be adding the USGS Sending Lists to the files posted to the FBB.

The Digital Raster Graphics (DRGs) maps on CD-ROM are no longer being produced and replicated through a GPO contract; therefore GPO is not able to ride a replication contract for distribution to the depository libraries. The DRGs are digital files of the 7.5’ topographic maps already received by depository libraries. The USGS does not have plans at this time to update the DRGs.

There are still some Digital Orthophotoquad (DOQ) maps being sent to the libraries, as USGS is still producing and replicating some DOQs under a GPO contract. But the number of titles has decreased dramatically in the last year for the DOQs. And as Hedy Rossmeissl, Senior Program Administrator for the U.S. Geological Survey indicated at the FedDocs Update Session, USGS is working with Microsoft to make geospatial data available to the general public through the Internet. Under a CRADA (Cooperative Research and Development Agreement), Microsoft plans to make compressed, browsable images of USGS DOQs available on the Internet as JPEG image files. The site is not yet available, but we will notify the depository community of the location when we are advised by USGS.

We will not be including the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) shipping list information on the FBB as a separate listing because we are working with NIMA to bring the products back into GPO for distribution to the libraries via the lighted bin system. Thus, they will be listed on the regular paper and separates shipping lists and placed on the FBB under the appropriate designation. We are still working with NIMA to obtain sufficient copies of the Vector Map Level 0 CD-ROMs to fill the outstanding rain checks.

Over 90% of the microfiche distributed to the depository libraries is done via one of the 15 full-service microfiche contracts. And while it generally works pretty well, we continue to have problems with specific contractors. LPS continues to work with the Term Contracts and Contract Compliance sections of GPO in association with the conversion of material from paper to microfiche format for distribution to the libraries. Please advise Michele Harris at (202) 512-1060 when you are experiencing problems with microfiche deliveries. At the present time, we have one contractor, Wilkins Systems, who continues to have complaints associated with their shipments and shipping lists.

LPS has also been experiencing problems with the contractor supplied shipping list information that is loaded to the FBB. We do postings on almost a daily basis, but when the diskettes are sent in and are not correct, we must send them to Contract Compliance section for action. We realize the inconvenience caused by this delay, but we have to follow the procedures under the terms of the contract.

One further issue with micrographics, LPS has a new microfiche contractor, Lake George Industries, Ltd. of Bohemia, New York, that will be doing the conversion for the Official Gazettes, the Tax Court Memoranda and the SEC News Digest. We will be reviewing their submissions quite carefully, but again, please let us know if you see a problem begin to surface.

And they say confession is good for the soul, so here goes. The 1996 World Factbook was supposed to be ordered for the Federal depository libraries in paper format; it was not. Both the paper and CD-ROM versions of the 1997 World Factbook have been ordered for distribution to the libraries and they are expected in late January. As the libraries have the 1996 Factbook in CD-ROM format, and there are not sufficient copies of the 1996 Factbook still available in paper format that we could purchase from the Sales Program, LPS will not distribute the 1996 World Factbook in paper format to the depository libraries.

LPS has been looking at establishing a PURL server for some time. PURL stands for Persistent Uniform Resource Locator. A PURL is essentially a URL that is maintained in a directory structure and when a URL changes, and GPO has noted the change, the user is directed to the new URL in an essentially seamless transaction by the server. Tad Downing is the project manager for this new service, and he will be covering it in more detail at the Cataloging Committee. But I bring up the PURL server because of DAB’s role in searching and researching URLs for inclusion of online products in the FDLP.

DAB runs a link checker on the Browse Electronic Titles (BET) pages on a weekly basis. It takes several hours to run all the pages, usually between 4-5 hours and we generally find between 200-300 bad URLs. Not all the findings are truly bad links. Many of the returns are associated with time-outs, some are changes with referrals to the new sites, but many are changes in directory structure at the agency or Government administered site. There are some products we are not able to locate again--these are the most worrisome--but for most resources, we are able to identify the new site. The information is then updated on the BET pages and sent to cataloging for updating of the cataloging records.

My most recent concern is the URL checking of the changes we have already identified. On a recent check, with 367 links checked, 213 were invalid links. This indicates that often when a URL is changed, it is not necessarily a final change.

There has been one highlight dealing with URLs and Internet sites: LPS has had its first electronic notification of a new electronic product available on the Internet. We developed an Internet Notification form over a year ago, and until December, had seen only general questions posed from other agency web masters and project directors. But the National Institutes of Health sent us notification with a product name, location, and contact name. This is truly exciting and the reason why PURLS will be of use throughout the information community.

And as I always like to leave on a positive note, I saved one of the best for last. In the summer of 1996, the contractor doing the EEOC Decisions in microfiche format, on a non-GPO contract, stopped sending the decisions to GPO in any format. In April 1997, I was advised the decisions were no longer being sent, and we began at that time to work with staff at the EEOC and the contractor to obtain EEOC decisions in a format suitable to develop a web accessible database of EEOC decisions. With many thanks to the EEOC, GPO Production, and the contractor, the decisions should be available soon, via a no-charge database, utilizing the new Open Text, SGML software. Future decisions may have to be placed into a WAIS database, but we hope to see this as a transition product.

As always, I thank you for your time. If you need to contact me, or anyone in the Depository Administration Branch, until AskLPS is available, please use the addresses in the Administrative Notes, or if you are online, go to the FDLP Administration page and use addresses on the Contacts page. Thank you again.

Current and Future State of GPO Access
Remarks by T.C. Evans

Assistant Director, Office of Electronic Information Dissemination, GPO

It is a pleasure to have another opportunity to update the library community on the current and future state of GPO Access. As always, I want to thank you for the quality feedback that plays a vital role in the continuing development of GPO Access. I also want to express my appreciation to our Production Department for their hard work in implementing these improvements.

As required in the GPO Access legislation, we recently completed and sent the Biennial Report to Congress on the Status of GPO Access. Copies are being printed for distribution to all Federal depository libraries and it will be mounted electronically on our Web site in the near future. It will be available in ASCII, WordPerfect 5.2, and PDF. The report emphasizes the growth in the amount of content available on GPO Access, the improved access to this content, and the dramatic increase in usage over the past two years.

Over the 22-month period from January 1996 through October 1997, searches on GPO Access have increased by almost 1,200 percent, and document retrievals have grown by more than 300 percent. I proudly reported in San Francisco that monthly retrievals had just gone over 4 million. In October 1997, more than 8 million documents were downloaded from GPO Access. As a result of the beginning of the holiday season, retrievals in November, dropped to 7.3 million and to just over 7 million in December. While I would not characterize 7 million as a low number, traffic on the system increased dramatically on January 5, 1998, so we fully expect our numbers for January to increase. Planning efforts are well underway to continue increasing system capacity to provide proper response times to users as this growth continues.

The Code of Federal Regulations has now become our most popular database, averaging approximately 3 million retrievals per month. Work is nearing completion to make the full set of 1996 editions available and we have begun adding the 1997 versions that have been updated through the normal cycle.

Usage of the Federal Register remains strong as our second most popular database, averaging approximately 2.5 million retrievals. Commerce Business Daily (CBDNet) continues as a strong third at about 750,000 retrievals per month.

A survey of Federal depository libraries was conducted recently to gather information about several critical areas of the GPO Access service, including functionality and user support. The results of this survey reflected positively on the progress that we are making and provided insight into areas that deserve increased attention.

The results revealed strong positive ratings in several areas. Approximately 87 percent of the respondents indicated that GPO Access provided users with the information that they were looking for. Over 98 percent indicated satisfaction with the timeliness of the information they were seeking from GPO Access.

Ratings for GPO Access user support were also encouraging. Decidedly favorable results were obtained in the areas of the product knowledge of the GPO Access User Support Team, the timeliness and accuracy of their responses to user inquiries, and their ability to resolve complaints.

A similar survey is now underway for all users. This survey is accessible on the GPO Access home page and will continue through the end of January. We plan to continue conducting these surveys on a regular basis.

There are a number of recent changes to GPO Access that should be noted. The most important are:

• The 1997 Statistical Abstract is now available online through GPO Access. Each section is available as a separate PDF file.

• An online edition of the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents is now available through GPO Access. In addition to the current documents, several prior years are being added to the database. These additional years should be available in a few weeks.

• Browseable indexes have been added for a number of important databases on GPO Access. Additional indexes will be provided in the future. One such index that has received substantial use is provided in the GILS application. Agency GILS records can be located and retrieved by browsing the index for each of the agency GILS databases maintained by GPO.

• Several new brochures have been prepared to highlight specific areas of GPO Access. These include the important databases published by the Office of the Federal Register and another focusing on the congressional materials available through GPO Access.

• Two new agency Web pages are hosted by GPO Access. They are for the National Bankruptcy Review Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

As always, work is under way to add more content to GPO Access and to refine access to the materials already provided. Some key examples of current efforts are:

• An increasing number of congressional committees are requesting that their hearings be posted on GPO Access. A study is underway to determine the best user interface to provide a central means of accessing these important documents.

• Work is proceeding on creating a site search application for the GPO Access Web site. When ready, it will be prominently displayed on the GPO Access home page.

• Development is ongoing to utilize OpenText for GPO Access. The first application to make use of this will be a new database of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decisions. This new application should be released sometime in the spring.

I would like to close by issuing an invitation to stop by our booth at the Convention Center while you are here. We will be happy to demonstrate any part of GPO Access. We can also provide you with promotional materials on what is available in the Sales Program, and as an added bonus, LPS personnel will be available to answer questions related to the Federal Depository Library Program. So please stop by Booth Number 927. A flyer is available in the back of the room to keep as a reminder.

Partnerships in Transition
or, We Know It's a Transition, Because We Keep Changing It!
Remarks by George Barnum
Electronic Transition Staff, Library Programs Service

The Superintendent of Documents has said: "Partnership is the key to stable, long-term access to electronic government information."

One of the guiding principles in GPO's planning is the assumption that the greatest benefit returned for resources invested will come from the development of partnerships that share the tasks of building, storing, disseminating, and preserving the collection of Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) electronic resources. The partnership concept builds upon the successful model of the distributed collection of tangible FDLP products made permanently accessible through the regional depository libraries. Partnerships can develop along various lines, with varying degrees of formality, and at various points in the information life cycle.

One of the principal challenges in our commitment to providing permanent accessibility to electronic government information products is the issue of the capacity required for storage of the data and the expertise required for making it available, both of which are formidable. Partnerships are a way for us to model various strategies for redefining the FDLP taking advantage of the possibilities of the electronic environment.

Our partnership activities at the moment fall into several broad categories:

• Content
• Service
• Gateway

Content partnership focuses on our commitment to permanence. In content partnerships, agencies and depository libraries enter GPO-brokered agreements to provide the environment and resources for permanent access. GPO is assuming responsibility for permanent access, in a way that we see as analogous to our role in continuing accessibility for paper documents distributed to depositories. We delegate the specific tasks and responsibilities to a partner, via a written agreement.

In general, a content partnership requires that an institution or organization can provide storage capacity and is willing to cooperate with the agency and GPO in providing user access to the product or products. The agency will provide the electronic content without restrictions on redissemination. GPO will act as broker of the agreements and will agree to receive custody of data and software in the event that the partner institution withdraws from the arrangement. Other provisions may be negotiated into individual agreements.

At this point, we have in place agreements with The University of Illinois-Chicago/Department of State, University of North Texas/Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, and the FDLP/ERIC Digital Library Pilot, with OCLC, Inc.

We're now identifying a slight variation on the content partnership theme, in which we make arrangements directly with agencies for their content, but rely on their own resources for storage and delivery. In this realm, the NTIS agreement and the DOE Information Bridge project which Sandy has worked on are now underway.

Coming very soon, UIC will be expanding its partnership with the OTA Legacy collection, which has been available on the net for some time, but for which we've been unable up to now to guarantee permanent access through an agreement.

We can identify a number of potential benefits in these arrangements:

• Permanent accessibility
• Assured bibliographic control
• Distributed workload
• Increased involvement of libraries
• Strengthened relationships between agencies, GPO, and libraries

We're now at the stage of each agreement being a "work of art." Each one is very specific and very painstakingly cast. One of our goals is to begin identifying what about the process of establishing the partnerships is common to all, so that we can streamline the process if possible. We're ever-conscious of the extent to which we're playing catch-up with the material already on the net.

In service partnerships depository libraries develop services and tools which enhance the use of FDLP administrative information. Upon determination that a service developed for depository operations or administration has a broad appeal and utility, GPO will enter an understanding with the creating library to offer the service across the FDLP. Examples:

In all these cases, we're seeing the ingenuity and creativity of depository librarians in creating tools that make everyone's life easier. In these cases there is a documented understanding between GPO and the partner, but the agreement is less formal.

We began taking a close look at Gateways late in the summer as libraries continued to express interest in having Gateway status. In the process of updating our 1995 policy, which we found to be hopelessly outdated, one of the conclusions we reached is that Gateways are really another flavor of partnership, related to but not exactly the same as what we have defined as service partnerships. Here, rather than providing a tool specifically for other librarians and documents staff, the partner libraries are actually providing an alternative avenue of accessibility to online resources in GPO Access.

Our goals for the Gateway initiative are:

1. Provide expanded accessibility to GPO Access.
2. Promote and enable the provision of low-end access (dial-up and telnet connections to a local server or SWAIS).
3. Provide an environment conducive to high quality service, innovation, and experimentation in local libraries.
4. Provide users with significant locally tailored instructional, navigational, and interpretive content.
5. Encourage and facilitate consistency of search strategy and search results for end users.

From these we have developed a list of seven specific objectives. We hope to have this new policy published very soon in Administrative Notes, so that the libraries currently expressing interest in becoming Gateways may move forward.

Each of these categories, and any that develop over the days ahead, is nothing more or less than GPOs best effort at redefining (reinventing if you will) the FDLP in electronic terms. Each one that we're working on comes directly from the labors, brainstorms, initiative, and follow-through of depository librarians. I mention this for two reasons: they deserve our gratitude and recognition for their work; and, they need to be recognized as seeds in the fertile garden of the combined brainpower in this room.

If you have ideas for partnerships, or questions about what we're doing, contact Sandy Schwalb, Gil Baldwin, or me. No reasonable offer refused!

Cataloging Branch Update
Remarks by Thomas A. Downing

Chief, Cataloging Branch, Library Programs Service

Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be here with you to provide an update to recent Library Programs Service Cataloging Branch operations. Topics to be addressed today include: recent staff changes, cataloging of Browse Electronic Titles, work waiting to be cataloged, cataloging production during FY 1997, Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURLS), and the web site edition of the Catalog of United States Government Publications.

Two experienced catalogers, Jennifer Davis (serials cataloger) and Regina Koo (monograph cataloger) joined us in October, 1997. Both are undergoing training and are beginning to produce records, primarily for resources related to cataloging electronic government information products. Our branch now includes sixteen catalogers. We have interviewed two people for the position of Administrative Librarian (Electronic Services). We hope to soon select someone for this new position. An initial assignment for the person selected will be to participate in development of Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURLs) related services.

We began cataloging many Browse Electronic Titles soon after BET entries became an application at our web site: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/index.html The Depository Administration Branch deserves much credit for initiating and maintaining this service.

Until recently, the few BET entries that represented errata sheets and transmittal notices, etc., were not cataloged. We have begun to catalog such resources as shortform cataloging. Shortform cataloging for these resources is consistent with our practice for physical forms. At present, shortform cataloging is available only in the paper and CD-ROM editions of the Monthly Catalog. BET related shortform records began to appear in the CD-ROM edition beginning in January, 1997. In the future, we hope to develop a web application associated with the Catalog of United States Government Publications that will include shortform cataloging records.

BET serials "issued" more than twice each year will continue to be represented by collective records published within the Periodicals Supplement. The 1998 Periodicals Supplement will soon appear within the CD-ROM edition of the Monthly Catalog and at our web site.

Many BETs serve as "group entries" that direct users to titles associated with monographic series, multi-part sets, technical and research report groups, and resources related by topics. One BET may lead users to many individual titles that require cataloging.

A survey of our cataloging of BETs was recently conducted to determine the relationship between BET entries and cataloging workloads. This survey was conducted during a two-week moratorium on posting "New Additions" to BETs during the month of December. Posting of new BETs resumed on December 22, 1997. The results of our cataloging survey are as follows:

From June, 1996, through the present, the Depository Administration Branch has posted approximately 2,300 Browse Electronic Title entries at the web site. As of 12/30/97, approximately 3,700 works have been identified as suitable for cataloging. Approximately 3,000 of these titles are monographs and 700 are related to serials. Approximately 1,700, or nearly 46% of these 3,700 works have been cataloged as of the last week of December, 1997. Approximately 1,350 records represent monographs and approximately 350 records represent serials. It appears that most of the approximately 2,000 works not yet cataloged may require original cataloging.

Approximately thirty "New Additions" entries are added to BET each week. Many, but not all of these entries may contain titles that lead users to several dozen or more related resources that are suitable for cataloging. The mix of resources means that a one-to-one correspondence does not exist between many of the BET entries and a cataloging record. We are collecting data to help us estimate the ratio of BET entries to cataloging workload on a weekly basis and will report more information as it becomes available.

Our objective is to catalog works related to each week's "New Additions" BET entries within one week after posting without compromising efforts to quickly catalog physical formats. We are working through the backlog of approximately 2,000 uncataloged BET related resources by cataloging the most recent titles and working back to the oldest. We anticipate that several months may be required to work through this backlog.

An inventory of uncataloged physical formats (paper, microfiche, CD-ROMs, etc.) undertaken on January 5, 1998 was combined with a review of our cataloging of BET related works to produce the following information:

Approximately 7,600 pieces of work await processing. This work includes the approximately 2,000 works related to BET entries and approximately 5,600 physical formats. Approximately 3,000 pieces of work related to physical formats relate to serials. We hope to reduce much of this backlog, particularly serials, within the next six months. Our current backlog count is much less than the more than 20,000 titles that had been carried several years ago, but certainly is higher than any of us are comfortable with.

Several factors have contributed to our current backlog. Our temporary move from and back to our permanent worksite during renovations resulted in an estimated loss of approximately 1,000 records that otherwise would have been produced. Another contributing factor has been those BET entries that lead to large numbers of "group entries" that require more cataloging records than might at first appear to be associated with a single BET entry. As we gain experience with cataloging BET related works, we become better at recognizing work loads and are improving methods for assigning and accounting for work. But regardless of how we catalog the BET resources, this is a large new workload that we have undertaken with only a very modest increase in personnel resources.

More than 25,000 pieces of work were processed by the Branch during FY 1997. As in previous years, more than 90% of our cataloging is original.

Our FY 1997 CONSER related work included CONSER level cataloging for 149 serials and authentication of 118 titles, for a total of 267 records that were added to CONSER. We maintained a total of 1,487 CONSER records during FY 1997. More than one third, or 596 of these transactions, were associated with electronic serials or with physical formats with electronic versions. Staff also created 57 series authority records for the NACO program and logged 81 NACO related maintenance transactions during the fiscal year.

Given the ever increasing number of electronic titles, establishment of PURLs services for Monthly Catalog and Browse Electronic Titles applications is a high priority within the Library Programs Service. PURLs provide a seamless means for redirecting users who use an outdated URL to the most recent URL via a server.

Personnel from LPS and GPO's Production Department are working to establish PURLs services using OCLC's PURLs software. To date, we have downloaded, installed, and tested PURLs software.

In response to our request, OCLC will soon release a new version of PURLs for public use. This version will enable server administrators to generate an accession number as a unique identifying component of each PURL. Our PURLs syntax will take full advantage of PURLs software capabilities by combining a simple syntax e.g., PURL.GPO.GOV/1, with a unique machine-generated accession number.

This new version also will contain a PURL checker application needed for checking PURLs within the server environment. A checker application is an essential component for large scale use of PURLs. We appreciate OCLC's impending software upgrades and hope to establish PURLs services soon after these upgrades are publicly available.

When PURLs services are established, BET entries and associated works will be associated with PURLs, instead of URLs; and the PURLs, not current URLs, will be input into the 856 field of appropriate Monthly Catalog records.

Understandably, each PURL is only as good as its related URL, and we shall do our best to update URLs in the PURLs server to maintain hot links. We hope to establish PURLs services for accessing new BET entries and for access to most of these titles via the Catalog of United States Government Publications records during the early part of this year. We shall work towards a retrospective conversion of URLs to PURLs as time permits.

The Catalog of United States Government Publications contains records produced from 1994 through the present. During this period, more than 94,000 records have been added to this application. More than 2,800 of these records contain URL data. Most URL data are associated with records for titles in physical formats with electronic versions, but an increasing number are being produced for electronic versions only.

In conjunction with our permanent access responsibilities, we anticipate maintaining an ever increasing number of cataloging records at our web site, without restriction as to the number of years of cataloging represented by these records. We also look forward to the opportunity to use PURLs software to assist in maintaining hot links for the increasing number of records offering access to Internet related resources.

The Fall, 1997 Depository Library Council recommended that we modify the display of entries in the web site edition of the Catalog to produce a more user friendly labeled format and that underlying MARC tags should remain available as an alternative display. We will investigate modifying the record displays at the web site to display a user friendly labeled format in addition to the current MARC tagged display. Work on this enhancement was postponed pending progress on the PURLs application that is required for maintaining records with hot-linked URLS.