Building a depository collection begins with a well written collection development policy, regularly reviewed and updated as appropriate. It should include the following to maximize your service to the community:
- A community analysis of the Federal government information needs of your library’s users to include subjects, formats, languages, special products, and age-appropriate materials.
- Identification of the information needs of the Congressional district, state, region, or local area, and collect only the items best suited to meet those needs.
- Strategies for meeting the Federal Government information needs of the primary library patron community and, if different, the general public. This may include cooperative collection development efforts with neighboring depository libraries.
- Procedures for providing documents requested by users but not selected by your library; this may mean inter-depository coordination of selections, cooperative collection development, and interlibrary loan to provide access in your local area to seldom used items.
- Intensity levels and subject strengths of your existing collection which you may want to continue and enhance, or which you may want to transfer to another depository to strengthen their collection.
- Practical guidelines for format selection decisions based upon your users’ needs.
Library Services and Content Management (LSCM) no longer requires depository libraries to maintain a specific selection rate; it is based upon whatever rate meets the information needs of your users. This rate could be 10% or it could be 90%. Remember that selection rates traditionally served as a benchmark for comparing the size of your library’s document collection with other libraries of similar size and type. These rates can be an indicator of how much physical space your tangible collection requires, but selection rates are beginning to be a moot point in an electronic era. However, selection rates remain a good indicator of the work load in your depository.
Provisions may be made in your collection development policy for acquiring or locating audio, Braille, large print and foreign language editions of a range of government resources, noting also the availability of video, film, photograph, map and other non-print archives. If access is being provided electronically via a commercial source, provisions should be made to provide access to the public, ensuring a sufficient number of terminals for in-library usage, for example.
If your depository library also purchases commercial products, depository coordinators can consult the periodic review of scope and search features to determine if the collection should include access to titles through those products, to titles available in tangible and/or electronic formats through the FDLP, or a blend of formats and access points. Relevant print and electronic indexes should be available in your depository to facilitate access to the depository collection.
5.2.B. Item Number System
Item numbers are fundamental to the depository library system. Each item number represents a series or group of related publications issued by a specific Federal agency and available for selection by depository libraries from GPO.
An item number assigned to a series may also govern the distribution of closely related series of a similar nature, e.g., numbered manuals with similar content issued by the same agency. In this instance, the library selecting this item would receive the related series as well.
The addition of new series to item numbers is announced on shipping lists and in Administrative Notes Technical Supplement.
The Technical Supplement is available on-line via the WEBTech Notes service.
For agencies whose scope and publications are limited, e.g., Fine Arts Commission, Marine Mammal Commission, etc., one item number has been established to cover all publications issued.
New depositories will begin receiving items they have selected within one month of receipt by LSCM of their item selection profile. All other selections are dependent upon the annual item selection update cycle which is described below. Bear in mind that selection of item numbers 0556-C and 1004-E is mandatory.
Libraries should retain historical files as they may contain information about when an item was selected, dropped, discontinued, superseded, changed format, changed SuDocs class number, sent to a selective housing site, etc. If these data are vital to the administration of the depository operation, be cautious about the disposition of item cards. If item cards are no longer maintained by the library, other means of establishing the item selection history MUST be in place, e.g., archiving copies of the Item Lister records, maintaining a local database, customizing electronic files from data downloaded from the Federal Bulletin Board, FDLP Desktop, etc.
