CD-ROM Doc:
GITCO CD-ROM Documentation Service

Government Electronic Resources in Physical Format

What is the GODORT CD-ROM Documentation Service?

The project provides bibliographic, content, use, technical, and management information for government-produced and government-related CD-ROMs, DVDs, and floppy disks, brought together in one centralized location on the World Wide Web. Federal, state, international, foreign, and commercial physical electronic media are included. Links to websites that contain related information are also provided.

• About this project
• Searching the database
• Contributions to the database

About this project

The CD-ROM Documentation Project is a cooperative undertaking merging the work of the American Library Association, Government Documents Roundtable Government Information Technology Committee (GITCO) and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (Big Ten schools). Its purpose is to provide a web interface to existing CD-ROM technical documentation, as well as additional documentation provided by documents librarians, in order to improve access to local CD-ROM collections. The Government Publications Department of the University of Iowa is the host site for this project.

This service provides a central location for the collection and dissemination of often hard-to-find documentation, which can eliminate duplication of effort by individual institutions. The service can be linked from each institution's home page and accessed by any user of government information. In many cases, subject-specialist librarians have created the database records, which makes such specialized information available to a larger audience. In addition, this service can serve as an example of the type of documentation that users and library staff need in order to access, use, and manage CD-ROMs. Having and conveying suggested standards for CD-ROM documentation may result in better, more comprehensive information being provided by the issuing agencies or vendors.

More on the history of the CD-ROM Documentation Project can be found at GITCO's website.

Searching the database

The search form contains seven searchable fields. The first four, SuDocs Number, Item Number, Title, Agency, and Content Description, require the user to fill in the needed information. The SuDocs Number field can be searched by either complete or partial SuDocs Number. The Item Number search field must contain the exact Item Number. The Title and Agency fields can be searched by phrase or individual keywords. The last three fields, Format, Government Type, and Content Type, contain pull-down menus to further refine the choices. For example, Format includes the choices of CD-ROM, DVD, Diskette (3.5) and Floppy (5.25). Searches can also be limited by date.

See the data dictionary for a complete description of the elements of a database record and the seven searchable fields.

Contributions to the database

Past and present contributing partners to this database include:

Tom Byrnes, University of Kentucky
Beth Clausen, Northwestern University
Brett Cloyd, University of Iowa
Aaron Dobbs, Austin Peay State University
Cynthia Etkin , U.S. Government Printing Office
Carolyn Kohler, University of Iowa
Anne Liebst, Washburn University
Marianne Mason, University of Iowa
Steve Ostrem, University of Iowa
Carlette Washington-Hoagland, University of Iowa
Amy West, University of Minnesota
Stephen Woods, University of Pennsylvania
Grace York, University of Michigan

Contributions continue to be welcomed and encouraged. If you would like to participate, please contact:

Brett Cloyd <brett-cloyd@uiowa.edu>, or
Marianne Mason <marianne-mason@uiowa.edu>