5.9 Additional Ways to Enhance Your Depository Collection

• You should investigate cooperative acquisitions with neighboring depositories and seek to avoid unnecessary duplication of materials with neighboring depositories. Prudent selection leads to more efficient use of library resources; it expands the availability of resources in your geographic area and optimizes the time staff are engaged in technical services.
• The State Plan for each state, if available, may discuss cooperative acquisitions and collection development relationships of the selective depositories in your state or region so all of the depositories work together to provide a complete collection of Federal Government publications to serve all of the users in the state.
• Access to government information products may be enhanced through the use of indexes. Relevant print and electronic indexes should be available in your depository to facilitate access to the resources in your documents collection. As electronic items are added to the depository collection, ensure you're providing users the ability to locate these items which may be through a database, index, or web site search. You should consult reference staff and professional literature to discover new publications to add to the collection, or to assess demand, and to supplement other publications where appropriate and needed. New information gained by keeping abreast of changing demographics in your community or new businesses that have moved into your community are useful in helping you collect materials that effectively serve the users in your Congressional district.
• Special materials are offered through distribution to the FDLP. Special materials include maps, audio, Braille, large print government documents, foreign language items, and other special materials. You should closely monitor user needs for special materials. In particular, you might track the demand for maps or for government documents in specific foreign languages, and if so, which languages. If demand warrants, then you should select these types of government information resources.
• You may also want to purchase commercial equivalents or value-added depository items if this serves your user needs.

5.9.A Maps

The selection of maps for your depository library will fall under the same general collection development policies that have been established for your larger institution. However, there are factors in the development of map collections which should be considered and which are specific to maps as a format.

The following factors impact the development and use of a map collection in a depository.

• Circulation of the map collection;
• Security of the map collection; some maps are rare and valuable and as such, they have been targeted for theft from some libraries;
• Extra clerical help required for processing the number of maps which may be seasonal depending on the frequency of map distribution;
• Care in handling maps;
• Specialized supplies, equipment or furniture required for processing, handling, storing, servicing, and using maps; Map cabinets, wall hangers, pigeon hole or other shelving devices may have to be purchased.
• For collection development purposes, maps of a library's local area and region are always in higher demand than those of other states and regions. If it is possible to select a series by state, a library in, for example, New Jersey should consider whether it really needs detailed coverage of Texas or other far away states.
• Consider the scale of the maps that you are considering for selection. A large scale map, such as the 1:24,000 topographical map, will have many more sheets and require more map case space than a map at the scale of 1:100,000 to cover the same geographic area.
• The availability of electronic maps MUST also be considered. The advent of the “digital age” has led many Federal agencies to shift their map publishing and distribution efforts from print to a combination of print and electronic resources. Government-issued cartographic materials are now increasingly—and in a growing number of cases, exclusively—available in electronic format as scanned images and digital maps (both of which can be viewed online, printed or downloaded as an image file), or maps produced on-the-fly with Web-based mapping applications, also known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
• A list of maps available for selection by depositories can be created using Documents Data Miner 2 by conducting a title search for “map” in the List of Classes database.
• Your depository may wish to consider providing GIS services to your patrons. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a computer-based system that stores geographically referenced data linked to textual attributes (a database) and allows for mapping, display, analysis, and modeling. The majority of GIS data from the Federal Government is available for selection in CD-ROM form. These CDs are divided into three main types 1) those with an internal GIS, 2) those with GIS files that can be used with third party software without the need to be processed, or 3) both. In addition, GIS data is available through online resources. Prime examples include Geodata.gov and The National Map. Software by various companies can be used to view, analyze and display data.
• As with most technology, GIS is not useful without people to manage the system/software or to utilize it. One of the most challenging aspects of having a GIS service is staffing.

Additional information regarding map collections can be found in Appendix C in this Handbook.

5.9.B Non-Depository Materials

• The acquisition of non-depository materials becomes more crucial in an electronic environment. With the advent of desktop publishing more and more federal agencies are disseminating information directly to the Internet, thus avoiding GPO altogether. While GPO is engaging in numerous efforts to reconcile this, it becomes more incumbent upon you as the depository librarian to exert efforts to capture, retain, and provide access to these electronic materials. GODORT maintains the Government Information and Depository Management Clearinghouse of resources to explain and assist depository coordinators with collection development.
• There are also numerous sources that you can consult to acquire non-depository materials. Using GOVDOC-L, a moderated discussion list for government information, depository library issues, and depository librarians is an excellent source to learn of non-depository materials. Another valuable resource is the ASI (American Statistics Index) non-depository microfiche collection. There are also numerous trade journals, reviews, and other resources available for consultation in the procurement of these materials. Lastly, writing directly to federal agencies to acquire materials can yield some success.

5.9.C Fugitive Documents [LostDocs]

• Fugitive or “lost docs” are defined as those documents of public interest or educational value, and not classified for reasons of national security, which have not been acquired for distribution to Federal depository libraries or disseminated through the Catalog of U.S Government Publications (CGP).
• LSCM asks depository libraries to assist in notifying LSCM of documents that have not been made available through the depository program. To notify LSCM, you can use the online form to report lost or "fugitive" documents.