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Invitation to Complete the GPO Access 2001 User Survey
[Prepared by the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination]
GPO invites you to share your comments about GPO Access by completing our 2001 User Survey. Have you contacted the GPO Access User Support Team? Rate your experience. Let us know how often you find the information you need on GPO Access. Did you use a search engine to find GPO Access? Indicate which search terms you used and help us to improve the indexing of GPO Access Web pages in the major Internet search engines. To help further improve and tailor our products and services to our customers, you will have the opportunity to share some additional information such as professional affiliation, frequency of usage, and how you learned about GPO Access. You will also be able to rate several attributes of GPO Access such as navigation and overall usability.
The survey is available online at <www.gpo.gov/su_docs/survey01.html>. It is also linked from the GPO Access home page at <www.gpo.gov/gpoaccess>. Please take a few minutes to provide GPO with your valuable feedback on GPO Access. Surveys must be received by GPO by September 30, 2001. Thank you!
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Needs and Offers List Has New Editor:
Bill Gordon
The Library Programs Service is pleased to announce that Bill Gordon of the University of North Dakota, Chester Fritz Library, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, has become the new editor for the Needs and Offers List (N&O). The N&O is a tool used by depository librarians for collection development purposes, in which selective depositories seeking to dispose of publications withdrawn from their collections may place publications with other depositories.
The University of North Dakota has been a depository library since 1890, and cooperates with North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND, to serve as joint regional depository for the state. Jim Beasley is Head of Government Documents. Gordon will be the sixth volunteer editor of the list, following Clyde Hordusky (1983-1987), Nancy Hanks (1987-1990), Beverly Norton (1990-1992), George Carlson (1992-1996), and Kevin Reynolds (1996-2001).
The Needs and Offers List can be found on the FDLP Desktop at <www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/tools/needs_of/index.html>.
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Agreement Reached on Permanent Public Access to
NREL Information
The Library Programs Service and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have completed a Memorandum of Understanding for permanent access to NREL’s laboratory and outreach publications. Under the terms of the agreement, publications will remain available on the NREL server permanently.
NREL is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Field Office in Golden, Colorado. By assuring that the specified publications are permanently accessible, this arrangement will allow NREL to discontinue providing printed publications to GPO for the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and expedite the distribution and access of NREL publications to the public.
NREL’s online publications will be part of the FDLP Electronic Collection, GPO’s growing digital library of Federal Government information. Under the terms of the Memorandum, GPO will provide failsafe assurance that, in the event the NREL can no longer retain publications on its servers, GPO will bring publications onto the GPO archive server.
The agreement with NREL was initiated by the agency, and joins a growing list of Federal agencies partnering with GPO to assure ongoing access to their publications.
More information about NREL and its activities is available at <www.nrel.gov>. You can search in the FDLP Electronic Collection using the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, found at <www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/cgp/index.html>.
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Readers Exchange
Displays Clearinghouse Continues to Grow
Mark McCullough
Government Documents/Maps Librarian
Minnesota State University, Mankato
The Government Documents Displays Clearinghouse has grown steadily since it was first unveiled in April 2000. The clearinghouse Web site, which was created by staff at Memorial Library at Minnesota State University, Mankato, now includes over 50 displays from 24 libraries in 13 states. The site includes displays on topics such as Elections, National Parks, Crime, and the 2000 Census. It also includes links to several virtual government document displays.
The clearinghouse idea evolved, in part, from a desire to minimize the amount of time required to create promotional displays for the government documents and maps collections at Memorial Library. In 1998, Mary Nere (Government Documents Technician) and Mary Beatty (Maps technician) began creating displays for both collections with a fairly ambitious, one per month, rotation schedule. Displays were photographed using a digital camera and bibliographies of the displayed items were compiled. The idea was to save as much information as possible so the displays could be re-created in the future.
The Web clearinghouse was a natural extension of these efforts. We recognized that all depository libraries are expected to promote their collections, and that displays are a popular method of doing so. What if we mounted our displays on the Web for others to see? What if others were willing to share their creative efforts? It is sometimes difficult to come up with new display themes, and it can be time-consuming to walk through the collection looking for colorful government publications to put on display. We thought a Web clearinghouse would facilitate the sharing of display ideas among depository personnel, spawn new ideas for displays, and make it easier for staff to identify and gather attractive documents to use in their displays.
The display clearinghouse is the main component of a Web-based tutorial on government document displays that was supported by a $250.00 stipend from the ALA GODORT Education Committee. The money was used to purchase additional memory for a library server. The clearinghouse was created by Mark McCullough, Government Documents/Maps Librarian, Mary Nere, Government Documents Technician, and former graduate assistant, Pam Schmutz.
Ms. Schmutz was responsible for much of the design and maintenance of the site during the first few months of the project. Nere and Abu Ashraf, a student worker in the Memorial Library documents department, are currently responsible for updating and adding new submissions to the site.
The project has also received support and encouragement from Dr. Sylverna Ford, former Dean of Library and Information Services at MSU, Dr. Joan Roca, Interim Dean of Library Services at MSU, and Julie Wallace, Regional Depository Librarian.
Staff from several depositories in Minnesota and South Dakota contributed displays to the prototype site at the beginning of 2000. To see their displays, as well as many others, visit the Government Document Displays Tutorial and Clearinghouse at:
http://www.lib.mankato.msus.edu/lib/govdoc/proj/tutorials/finalfront2.html![[ Click Here For Information About the FDLP Desktop ]](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090103070507im_/http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/images/fdlpdskz.jpg)
