Government Documents Roundtable of the Iowa Library Association

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DOCUMENTS ROUNDTABLE NEWS

 Published by the Government Documents     Editor:  Barbara Corson

Roundtable, Iowa Library Association                  State Library of Iowa

Number  59         October 2002

Contributed articles are welcome.  Contact Barbara Corson, State Library of Iowa,  515-281-4352, fax 515-281-4118, barb.corson@lib.state.ia.us

ILA/GODORT at ILA Fall Conference

On Friday, October 11, 7:30 AM, ILA/GODORT will hold a combined breakfast & business meeting. All GODORT members are encouraged to attend.  The business meeting is an opportunity for GODORT to make plans for the coming year and we will be looking at a rough outline for the Iowa State Plan for Federal Documents. 

 At 11:30 AM on Friday, Hank Zalatel will present a session on “Iowa Government Documents for Free or for Very Low Cost.”  This workshop will outline what types of materials are available that would be useful and of interest to public libraries and their patrons and how to obtain those publications

 ILA/GODORT will also have a display of “Notable Government Documents” and Iowa documents at the conference.  There will be a drawing for the Iowa documents.

 Summer Wokshop a Success

 The July 12, 2002 workshop in Ames was a success with twenty-five registered attendees.  The featured speaker was Willis J. Goudy, Professor of Sociology at ISU, who spoke on  "Population Change in Iowa and the Nation."  Dr. Goudy highlighted population trends indicated by Census data and shared over 100 slides with the audience. He presented data at the national, state, and Iowa county level.  Topics included trends in population growth, births and deaths, marriages and divorces, net migration, rural population and urban population, levels of education, etc.. 

Joyce Lindstrom, Government Documents Librarian at Iowa State University provided an update on GPO and issues related to federal government documents. She discussed documents issues related to September 11 and to the OMB Memorandum that will permit agencies to contract directly with printing firms and not use the Government Printing Office.  She also presented highlights from the Pew Internet & American Life Report:  “The Rise of the E-Citizen.”  http://www.pewinternet.org/

 Barbara Corson, Head of Technical Services at the State Library, provided an update on Iowa documents and a discussion of issues related to revising the state plan for federal documents completed the program.

 State Documents Update:

Barbara Corson, Head of Technical Services at the State Library, gave an update about the status of the State Library and of the State Documents Depository Program.

The State Library has had a 25% budget cut this year.  It would have been as much as 40% if Governor Vilsack had not vetoed further budget cuts affecting the library that were approved by the Iowa Legislature.  The cuts will mean large cutbacks in both periodical and books budgets for the State Library including the Law Library. 

 The Governor also vetoed a measure to eliminate funding for the State Medical Library. Mary Wegner, State Librarian, will convene a task force to look at this issue in the fall to address it before the next budget talks. The State Documents Center at the State Library has two open positions and, over the last two years, has gone from 3 FTEs to 1.5 FTEs.  Despite this, we are trying to keep up with the workflow and address the issue of electronic state documents. 

The Dept. of General Services informed the State Library that, due to budget cuts, they are no longer able to cover the shipping costs for core state documents.  The State Library asked the depository libraries if they were willing to pay the approx. $50 for shipping.  Two libraries chose to drop out of the program rather than pay the costs.  The remainder were sent invoices and the State Library will coordinate a group order and payment for the core documents.

The number of state documents that are published only electronically has increased tremendously. The State Documents Center is  working on policies to ensure long-term access to these documents.

Roy Kenagy, who has attended many GODORT meetings in the past, is leaving his position at the State Library as Head of Information Services to become the Administrator for the Central Iowa Library Service Area. Barbara Corson will be the acting Head of Information Services.

 Iowa State Plan Revision 

About one year ago Fran Buckley, the Superintendent of Documents, sent a letter to depository library directors asking for their support in creating or revising their state’s plan to deliver Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) services.  The last call for creation of such a plan was about twenty years ago when paper and microfiche were the only format options.  A lot has change since then.   The purpose of the plan revision is to accommodate the rapid transition to electronic formats which impacts housing and storage issues, relationships among FDLP libraries, the ability of librarians to manage information, and the ability of citizens to utilize government information.  An attachment to the letter suggested several features to consider in the plan revision.  They are:

• Managing the transition from the physical to online world of information.
• The continuing value of historic print collections.
• Electronic resource delivery, including issues of access policies for the general public, selections, service guidelines, security, and infrastructure.
• Training library staff in Government information service delivery.
• The role of the regional depository; both with the selective depositories it serves, and coordination with other regionals.
• Examination of retention policies for physical products, including substituting online versions for physical products.
• Contingency planning for service interruptions (network failures, natural disasters, etc.)
• Provision of service in a 24 by 7 world.
• Selective housing agreements or offsite storage arrangements.
• Development and support of State Internet/web services.
• Identification of potential new depositories.
• A periodic review schedule for the state plan.

 The time is right for Iowa to revise its plan which was created in 1984.  In preparation, a committee has been formed to update the plan and present it to the members of GODORT for their approval.  If all goes well, we will have the draft ready for the autumn Iowa ALA, GODORT meeting.  Committee members are Maeve Clark (Iowa City Public Library), Barb Corson (State Library of Iowa), Edith Ericson (Clinton Public Library), Joyce Lindstrom (Iowa State University), Marianne Mason, Chair (The University of Iowa), Hank Zaletel (Dept. of Transportation). 

 At the July 12^th GODORT meeting a session was devoted to informal brainstorming about broad concepts that should be addressed in the plan revision.  Each group of participants contributed unique perspectives that will be folded into the Committee’s discussions.  Several states have already developed plans in response to the request by Fran Buckley.  The State Library of Michigan has created a Web page with links to those plans as well as older plans (including Iowa’s ’84 plan) at: <http://www.libraryofmichigan.org/services/plans.html> I encourage you to take a look at the plans and make further suggestions or recommendations to the Committee. 

 Marianne Mason  

The University of Iowa  

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