of the Iowa Library Association
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Government Documents Roundtable
of the Iowa Library Association |
DOCUMENTS ROUNDTABLE NEWS
Number 81, March 2009
Greetings! Planning for the Summer ’09 GODORT Workshop began at the ILA Conference last Fall during the GODORT Breakfast. Many of the ideas expressed involved local and statewide issues and making better use of money in GODORT ‘s treasury, so these ideas were folded into the program planning. Here’s a quick look at the agenda for the July 24th GODORT Summer Workshop (St. Ambrose, Davenport).
GODORT will also sponsor a session at the ILA Conference in October with the Iowa theme. Will Goudy will speak on his most recently published research “Past, Present and Future Look at Numbers That Shape Our State.”
Hey, what’s happening in your library? Share with your colleagues via: govdoc-iowa@list.uiowa.edu or write about it for the June issue of the GODORT Newsletter.
Marianne Mason, University of Iowa Libraries
GODORT Chair
Marianne Mason, Chair marianne-mason@uiowa.edu
Julia Bauder, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect bauderj@Grinnell.edu
Amy Groskopf, Secretary/Treasurer agroskopf@davenportlibrary.com
The State Library has been administering the State Documents Depository Program for over 30 years. The purpose of the program is to provide access to important state documents for all Iowans and to ensure the long term preservation of the documents by having many copies in widely different locations. Currently there are 30 public and academic libraries all over the state that participate in the program that receive shipments of “core” documents. In addition, all state documents collected are permanently archived in three locations: The State Library, The University of Iowa’s Main Library, and the Library of Congress.
The move to digital publishing has had a profound effect on this program. In the past, state agencies published their annual reports, newsletters, financial reports and other types of documents in paper and were fairly willing to give the State Library enough copies to send out to all of the depository libraries when asked. As more and more agencies began publishing documents in electronic format only, it has become increasingly more difficult to obtain enough copies of the ‘core’ documents in print to send to all 30 depository libraries. State Library staff has encouraged depository libraries to include records in their online catalogs to state documents with links to the online documents.
A mainstay of the state documents program – legislative materials including the Iowa Administrative Code (IAC), the Court Rules, etc. - have also been moving to electronic format with access to print copies on a print-on-your own basis. Printing the update pages to the IAC on a bi-weekly basis has been problematic for depository libraries. There have been many as 500 pages to print for a single update as the software program that produces the IAC was not designed for printed updates, but rather for online access.
These changes have led the State Library staff and members of the ILA Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) to wonder about the future of a program like this that was developed and functioned well in a paper environment. In 2008 only 19 “core” documents were sent to the depository libraries from the State Library!
ILA GODORT will be addressing this topic at their Annual Summer Workshop on July 24th at St. Ambrose University. There will be an afternoon panel discussion and input from the attendees will be very valuable to the decision making process. Please watch the Catalyst and the IOWALIB listserv for registration information about this workshop.
March 27 . . . . . . Archival Materials Workshop, University of Iowa Libraries
April 20-22 . . . . . Federal Depository Library Council Meeting, Tampa, FL
April 17 . . . . . . . . ILA/ACRL Conference, Waterloo
May 23 . . . . . . . . Spring Meeting, Special Libraries Association – Iowa Chapter, Des Moines
July 9-15 . . . . . . . American Library Association, Annual Conference, Chicago
July 24 . . . . . . . . . Iowa GODORT Summer Workshop
October 21-23 . . . Iowa Library Association, Annual Conference, Des Moines March 31–April 2
Please send comments about this website to: Marianne Mason
This page last updated: March 12, 2009