After hearing, from some deans/directors, that no patrons want, or use, print documents anymore, I am curious as to how many FDL's keep and share statistics on usage of print materials.  We keep stats here at LSU, and they actually show an increase in the usage of our print collection over the last year.  I'm thinking of writing an article on this phenomenon and would appreciate getting any stats from other FDL's that would corroborate my findings.

I started a Government Information Interest Group at ALA Connect. If you are a member of ALA, please consider joining. It is pretty bare bones right now and I could use some help in developing it and making it grow. It is a great way to connect with all types of librarians who share an interest in government information, but may or may not be part of a depository library or a member of GODORT. It is another way to provide outreach and educate our fellow librarians about the world of government information!

The group is for those interested in government information (federal, state, local, and international). Various topics of interest include depository libraries, government information collections, open access, transparency, and preservation of government information, E-government, Government 2.0, and using social networks to collect and disseminate government information (”Gov Docs 2.0″) and more!

My earlier post, CRS Reports to the People!, dealt with which congressmen to contact and which congressmen sponsored what bills in the past, etc. But now I would like to offer some sample letters that you can emulate and send. I sent all of mine just after the inauguration of President Obama and will let you know what kinds of responses I get.

Here is a sample letter to send to those who have sponsored similar bills about publicly releasing all CRS Reports in the past (be sure to refer to my previous post that lists all these bills and their sponsors in your letter!):

The Honorable [full name]
[Room #] [Name] Senate [or] House Office Building
United States House of Representatives [or] United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Senator:
or
Dear Representative:

The Sunlight Foundation has a new website called OOGL: Open Our Government List, for you to vote 3 times and submit ideas for what the President's Open Government Directive should address. Make one of your votes for Digital Deposit of Government Information to Libraries!

The Sunlight Foundation also has a website called  Show Us the Data! Vote 3 times for what you you think should be the "Most Wanted Government Documents, Reports or Data Sets" that should be available on the web. Please make two of your votes go toward PACER and CRS Reports!

I am putting together a training manual for our work-study students and would love to know if anyone else has put together such a manual. I am a one-woman show and without my students would be really lost. I use the students to open boxes, check items against shipping lists, determine if we have received what we selected, enter routine and recurrent publications into our online catalog, and help with inventory and weeding.

The instructions for all of these are written in my procedures manual or in various library procedures manuals but are not together in one place. I also intend to add visual examples of the various kinds of documents, write a manual and also a power point presentation and then make it bilingual since our students in Puerto Rico are Spanish-speakers.

If anyone has done a similiar manual, I would appreciate any suggestions and a copy of the manual