6.12 Tips, Practical Advice. And Lessons Learned

• Keep up-to-date with new practices of other depository coordinators by attending the Federal Depository Library Conference, reading reports from the conference, or subscribing to e-mail discussion groups. You will continually discover efficient and timesaving practices for processing and cataloging publications.
• Cultivate a good working relationship with your regional depository coordinator and staff; they often save your depository library time and effort with cataloging, classification, and corrections. Keep in mind that selective depository libraries can also assist regional depository libraries.
• If depository material is cataloged outside of the depository operation, cultivate a good working relationship with the library’s technical services staffs.
• Maintain a manual for handling, processing, and cataloging government publications, with various policies, procedures, and decisions recorded and regularly updated. All decisions and changes should be written down for future reference, and local policies and procedures relating to depository material should also be recorded and kept easily accessible for all staff.
• Staff should be cross-trained so that there is adequate staffing in times of emergencies, resignations, vacations, and reassignments to avoid backlogs in the processing of depository shipments and to avoid delays in providing access to depository material.
• Cataloging records for both serials and monographs are continuously updated and corrected based on new information. Libraries should plan to update records as indicated by Administrative Notes Technical Supplement (ANTS) and WEBTech Notes as well as to monitor and make any required corrections to batch-loaded records. Changes may include SuDoc numbers, typographical corrections, corrections in access points such as names, subject headings, and corrections to URLs and PURLs. Libraries are encouraged to develop policies and procedures for updating records.