FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS IN ARL LIBRARIES
PEOPLE, EVENTS & IMPORTANT INFORMATION
GOVERNMENT RESOURCES SECTION EXECUTIVE BOARD 2005

FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS IN ARL LIBRARIES

Future Of Government Documents in ARL Libraries: Report on the October 6-7, 2005 Meeting
By Karrie Peterson, Head, Government Information Services, NCSU Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries sponsored 2 meetings this past fall for ARL Library directors
or administrators to attend, along with their documents librarians. The meetings were held to explore the changing
opportunities for providing access to government information.

The description below represents my impression of the very successful October meeting in Seattle, WA.

Opening discussions included:

• Librarians wanting to know the level of specialization they were expected to have, as once-separate
  documents reference desks were being absorbed by regular reference desks, with documents librarians wearing several hats.
• Directors asked for practical reasons to maintain depository status with the federal Government Printing Office
  beyond general "social do-gooding." (Stay tuned for at least one version of that list to emerge later this winter.)
• How digital publishing can enable libraries to serve different types of users
  (power users of government information or scholars with exacting needs, novice users who
  may become power users, and casual users) who all want personalized service and disintermediation.
• Values that made us successful in providing government information in the past,
  and will need to remain for future success.

Digital Deposit, Google Print, OCA, and Legacy Digitization
Enthusiasm was expressed about the possibilities inherent in digitizing our legacy collections.

If GPO is able to complete its targeted digitization of the legacy collection by 2007,
and both Google Print and the Open Content Alliance include federal government information,
then we may potentially have 3 master copies of many government documents.

Libraries participating in Google Print and OCA most likely will have their own digital copies
from the master, and Clifford Lynch was quoted secondhand (he was not at the meeting)
as having said that the entire corpus of legacy government information may some day be regularly loaded on PDAs.

What do users want from digitized government information? On behalf of our users, these suggestions were made:

• Authority and durability
• Preservation quality (to allow some libraries to selectively discard print)
• Good granularity in searching for particular bits (document contents)
• At the same time, good cataloging records for the containers (whole documents)
• Usability (not page-by-page image pdfs like US Patents)
• Maps
• Statistical tables, images but also ability to manipulate numbers as data
• User space, a way for users to contribute their own vocabulary and their way of using content
• Download everything I want and put it on my computer
• Show relationships between related documents

In the same vein, there was discussion about the need for government documents librarians to become
as comfortable with electrons as they are with paper - to learn about infrastructure and metadata issues
so they can inform decision-making both locally and nationally, and begin to practice all their usual
collection activities (adding value for usability or discoverability, establishing preservation routines,
collecting with depth in defined subject areas, etc.) in a digital context.

With tongue firmly in cheek, one director expressed enthusiasm for library projects by saying,
"Government information is too important to leave to the government to mismanage!"

PEOPLE, EVENTS & IMPORTANT INFORMATION

From Government Documents at UNC-Greensboro Library, which has been
combined with Reference and Instructional Services since 2003 - Government
Documents Librarian, Bob Gaines, will retire in the Fall of 2006, after
over 32 years of service in that position at UNCG.
His wife Kathy, who manages Serials Binding at UNCG Library, will also
retire at the same time. They plan to travel, foster more homeless Beagles
(Triangle Beagle Rescue), and Bob will continue to teach history for
Guilford Tech.

GOVERNMENT RESOURCES SECTION EXECUTIVE BOARD 2005

Chair

Beth Kaylor

University of North Carolina, Wilmington

910-962-4232

kaylorj@uncw.edu

Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect

Mimi Curlee

Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County

704-336-2980

mcurlee@plcmc.org

Volume 32 Number 2, Fall 2005, Posted 6 January 2006
Editor: Michael Van Fossen, UNC Chapel Hill.
The Docket (ISSN 0198-1048) is the official newsletter of the Government Resources Section Section of the
North Carolina Library Association.  Published twice a year in the Spring and the Fall.
Permission to copy is granted provided appropriate credit is given to The Docket and individual authors.

Issues from Spring 1998 are available at: http://www.nclaonline.org/grs/pub.html.
Contact the Editor for issues prior to Spring 1998.

Address editorial correspondence to:
Michael Van Fossen
Davis Library, Reference, CB#3912,
University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3912; 919-962-1151;
fax 919-962-5537; email mike_vanfossen@unc.edu