THE DOCKET
Newsletter of the Documents Section of the North Carolina Library Association
Volume 28 Number 1 Spring 2001
· DOCUMENTS SECTION FALL WORKSHOP
· NC STATE PUBLICATIONS CLEARINGHOUSE NEWS
· NCLA DOCUMENTS SECTION EXECUTIVE BOARD, 2001
The Section’s Fall Workshop in November saw a changing of the guard in leadership. Mary Horton stepped down as section Chair and assumed the hard earned and respected title of Past-Chair and Catherine Shreve finished her term as Secretary/Treasurer. We owe both of these individuals our heart felt thanks for their hard work on behalf of the section. I know both will continue as active members and share their broad based knowledge of section matters. We also selected new officers. Paula Hinton, Social Science Reference Librarian at UNC-CH, will assume the title of Chair-Elect. Paula can trace her documents lineage directly to the Grand Master, Ridley, with whom she took the Doc’s course while a MSLS student in the mid-80s. Karen O’Keefe, a documents cataloger at the State Library of North Carolina, is our new Secretary/Treasurer. Karen recently finished her Ph.D. in Information and Library Science at UNC-CH. I welcome them both.
On a separate matter, storm clouds are building on the horizon regarding the Federal Depository System and the Government Printing Office. Recent budget cuts and hard questions about the function of GPO in an ever-increasing electronic environment cast doubts about the future. I don’t claim to have a crystal ball but suspect changes are in store. It is important that those of us who deal with federal government information and the end-user on a daily basis make sure that our voices are heard as the bureaucrats in D.C. set policy. Letters, phone calls, and e-mails to your Washington representative demanding unfettered access to the people’s information do help. Ridley Kessler and Ann Miller have both been active in advocating for continued public access to government information. It must be a section priority to give them our full support.
--Frank Molinek, Davidson College, Chair, Documents Section
Documents
Section Fall Workshop
The Fall Workshop for the NCLA Documents Section entitled “Collecting and Disseminating Local Government Information” was held November 17, 2000, at McKimmon Center in Raleigh. There were 34 people in attendance.
Ridley Kessler, UNC Chapel Hill and Regional Librarian, and Ann Miller, Duke University and current GODORT Chair, informally discussed issues from the Federal Depository Conference.
Marilyn Schuster and Patti Easley from UNC Charlotte, presented “The Local Documents Puzzle.” Marilyn Schuster discussed the evolution of the Local Documents Collection at UNC Charlotte and related obtaining and making local documents available to finding the pieces of a puzzle and making them fit. She reported that a project to catalog and have local documents in the online catalog at UNC Charlotte was begun in 1998. At this point, earlier documents have been cataloged and newer publications are now routinely added to the collection.
Marilyn focused on ways to build the collection and relayed some of the challenges or obstacles which present themselves. UNC Charlotte is a depository for publications of the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Though it’s true that being a depository means you are entitled to the publication, that often means nothing to the person you find yourself talking to. Finding out about the publications in the first place often requires checking local newspapers, meeting agendas, meeting minutes, agency newsletters; listening to the news; contacting agencies/departments; and sometimes even surfing the net. Actually obtaining the pieces for the collection can be a lengthy process and presents a new set of challenges which may include making phone calls, and calling again and again; writing letters, and when there’s no response figuring out someone else to address the letter to; and often, physically making a trip to pick up the item, if you’ve been lucky enough to have them agree to provide it. Persistence will sometimes win, but sometimes it will not. From the perspective of the Local Documents Librarian, the process of making the publications available may seem like the easy part after all that has transpired in getting the publication in hand. It is, however, unlikely the Catalog Librarian would agree. However, there are still a couple steps left for the Documents Librarian. One decision is whether to catalog the publication separately or as a collection-level item or even possibly to scan it, and a decision needs to be made about binding.
Marilyn emphasized that the local documents are labor intensive and in the age of diminishing budgets, require a level of administrative support for building the collection. There are a few publications from surrounding counties in the collection, and there is a desire to make this more of a regional collection, but so far time constraints have made that impossible.
Marilyn mentioned that many of the issues facing those collecting local documents are the same issues which faced those collecting state documents before the state clearinghouse was established. And some of the current issues are consistent in every area of documents – declining budgets, fewer items being published in paper, items available in electronic format initially and then suddenly no longer available, the whole issue of archiving publications, etc.
Patti Easley presented the Cataloging function as a tool to be used by Documents Librarians to control local documents. The key to doing this is communication between the Documents and Catalog Librarians. As an example, local names frequently have many variations and authority control (linking these variations together) is one feature the Cataloger can offer. But the Documents Librarian is the obvious person to provide the information.
Patti pointed out several areas of cataloging which require special attention with local documents. For libraries using Library of Congress classification, catalogers will find that there is often too little in the classification schedules at the local level. Title added entries for variations may be needed with titles which are often generic, and sometimes even missing. Physical descriptions cannot be accurately recorded until the Documents Librarian has made the processing and binding decisions. For the miscellaneous works, collection level cataloging may be an option. If done, the items should have easily identifiable titles, they should describe the material in the collection and the records should require a minimum amount of maintenance as items are added. Patti reiterated that locating resources and quality cataloging are results of communication between Documents and Catalog Librarians.
Duane Bogenschneider, head of the Documents branch at the State Library of NC, spoke on "Accessing Local Government Information through Find NC" (http://www.findnc.org/). Find NC is a central gateway to NC government information, providing search access to NC state agency web pages, county and municipal web pages, NC education web pages, and NC Government Information Locator Service (NC GILS) records. Also provided are direct links and information about state government, local government, and frequently requested information.
Find NC's Simple Search allows users to search state and local government and education web pages using standard Boolean search elements. Find NC's Advanced Search allows users to separately search local government web pages. The search includes web sites for NC cities, towns, and counties.
In addition to the search engine that retrieves information from local sites, Find NC provides an information page listing NC cities and towns with direct links to those having web sites. Find NC also provides an information page for NC counties. The page lists all 100 counties, with links to county web sites and links providing a county profile, listing of communities, demographic and political information, and historical information for each county.
Find NC will also provide direct access to the new LINC statistical database when it becomes available in March of 2001.
NC State Publications
Clearinghouse News
o The web site for the Clearinghouse has been updated and additional information has been added. The site is located at http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/tss/deposito.htm.
o Work has begun on developing a plan to assure access to and preservation of NC state government information in an electronic environment. A State Government Information Committee will be appointed in 2001 as an advisory group in the development of this plan. Any individuals interested in serving on this committee should contact Duane Bogenschneider at dbogenschneider@library.dcr.state.nc.us.
o Depository libraries will be asked to review and update their profiles for document selections in February.
o Any individuals interested in serving on the Depository System Advisory Board should contact Duane.
o Work has started on the creation of a database providing metadata for state agency web sites. This will allow for the creation of subject trees for state sites on Find NC.
--Duane Bogenschneider, Head, Documents Branch, State Library of
North Carolina
The Depository Clearinghouse receives documents from all state agencies about a diverse variety of subjects. Some of the most remarkable and well-designed items that have been cataloged in the last year are discussed in this article.
Some of the most interesting and colorful items describe cultural attractions for state residents or tourists. North Carolina’s first ladies, 1891-2001, who have resided in the executive mansion at 200 North Blount Street, by the Department of Cultural Resources, includes a cameo and some informal pictures, along with two to three pages about the personal qualities, motivations, and contributions of each of North Carolina’s First Ladies from 1891-2001. Also by the Department of Cultural Resources, The North Carolina State Capitol, is a pamphlet which includes history and several miniature pictures of the various state houses and capitols of North Carolina, information about its respective architects, along with a pictorial and diagrammatic tour of the current capitol. The rich heritage of African Americans in North Carolina, is published jointly by the Department of Commerce and Department of Cultural Resources. This colorful booklet contains a short history of African Americans from their appearance in North Carolina, through slavery, the Civil War and the civil rights movement to the present. It also lists sites of historical and cultural importance by county, and advertises yearly festivals. North Carolina : the official … travel guide, by the Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development, is a colorful guide with a mixture of Department of Tourism listings of attractions and places to stay by County and City, maps by region, and local advertisements. Celebrating five million volumes : an exhibition of materials from the William Butler Yeats Collection :Rare Book Collection, Wilson Library, February 11- May 31, 2000, was sent from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC Libraries celebrated the acquisition of its five-millionth volume with this collection of poetry by this Irish poet claimed to be “arguably the most important English-language poet of the twentieth century. The artisan, Pitt Community College’s annual artistic exhibition, contains several types of unique graphic designs as well as poetry and short stories done by the students There is no doubt that our state has many historical and educational cultural attractions, and its publications attest to that.
Materials regularly come to the clearinghouse directed towards the needs of one or more specific interest groups. Two such items directed towards parents are of interest. There are a series of pamphlets written in Spanish, English, or both, for parents explaining normal infant development and good parenting measures written by the Family and Consumer Sciences in the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. There is also a Handbook on parents’ rights guaranteed by state and federal law for parents of special needs children and published by the Department of Public Instruction. These guides, aimed at specific interest groups, are well-written and helpful.
Other documents discuss changes that affect citizens, their property, or their money, or they predict trends for the future. Occupational trends, 1996 to 2006, by the Employment Security Commission, is a set of three companion publications that discuss employment (by city) and projected employment (by region) sorted by occupation for 1996 to 2006. First in America … progress report, by the North Carolina Education Research Council is the first in an annual series of reports showing graded progress towards five specific goals to improve education in North Carolina between now and 2010. Tax law changes, from the General Assembly, is an annual list of new taxes and tax exemptions. Many items, one for each project, from the Department of Transportation’s Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch in the Division of Highways have defended the lack of environmental impact of bridge replacements or road construction work in widespread areas of the state.
Many of the documents the State Depository Clearinghouse receive discuss how to manage our agricultural and natural resources in a more environmentally friendly way. Recently cataloged was the Natural area inventory of Pender County, North Carolina. Also cataloged this year was a similar one for Onslow County and both describe natural flora and fauna with preservation and conservation in mind. They are published by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Insect and other pests of people and animals : some important, common, and potential pests in the Southeastern United States, from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, is a very descriptively detailed work, both verbally and graphically, of the pests of the Southeastern United States that afflict livestock, poultry, pets, and people. Previous volumes in this ongoing effort to provide “an encyclopedic coverage” of pests have covered horticultural pests. These types of publications ensure that our land and agriculture are both commercially productive and provide private enjoyment.
Our state’s many agencies publish many fascinating items on a diverse array of interesting subjects. These documents can be found at the State Library of North Carolina, or at any of the state’s depository libraries.
-- Karen O-Keefe, State Library of North Carolina, Secretary/Treasurer,
Documents Section
Anyone
researching international affairs issues can now use UNBISNet, http://unbisnet.un.org/, the latest free database offered by the United
Nations. The system includes three
sections: Bibliographic search, Voting
Records, and Index to Speeches.
The
“Bibliographic” search includes the catalog of UN publications and documents
indexed by the UN’s Dag Hammarskjold Library in New York and the United Nations
Library in Geneva. Users can search for
UN documents by author, title, subject, UN numbers or do a multi-index
search. There’s also an option to
search for non-UN documentation, such as books and journal articles. The library has included bibliographic records
for individual journal articles that relate to issues before the United
Nations.
“Voting
Records” allows users to search for votes on adopted resolutions – either
without a vote or by roll-call or recorded vote – from the General Assembly (38th
session, 1983 to the present) and the Security Council (1st session,
1946 to the present). Full-text of
resolutions from UN organs (years vary) are included on the UN site but this
database currently doesn’t link to them.
The “Index to
Speeches” retrieves citations to speeches made in the General Assembly (38th
session, 1983 to the present), the Economic and Social Council (1983 to the
present) and the Trusteeship Council (15th special session, 1982 to
the present). Texts of speeches are not
currently available on the UN website, though you can find some on websites of
Permanent Missions to the United Nations.
Go to http://www.un.int/index-en/webs.html and select the country.
--Michael
Van Fossen, UNC Chapel Hill, NC Libraries Representative
News from East Carolina:
Walter Zoller has taken a leave of absence to be a Depository Library Inspector with GPO in Washington, D.C. He is working for Robin Haun-Mohamed. When I asked Walter how he heard about this position, he said he answered a job advertisement in American Libraries. He also indicated he felt “this was the best way to learn more—right from the source—especially with all the changes that are going on in GovDoc Land.” Walter has a background which includes banking experience and started at East Carolina in 1997.
* * * **
News from Chapel Hill:
The House Undergraduate Library at UNC-CH has closed for a two-year renovation. The Circulation, Reserve, and Reference functions are now in Davis Library; the Nonprint Section is in Wilson Library. For detailed information, look at the Undergraduate Library Renovation page at http://www.lib.unc.edu/undergradlibrary/.
Antoinette Satterfield has joined the Documents Section staff as the Federal Documents Assistant. Antoinette graduated from Mary Baldwin College with a B.A. in History and is currently taking courses in the School of Information and Library Science at UNC. According to Antoinette: “this is an ideal job for me because it combines two of my favorite subjects: government and history.” Welcome Antoinette!
Ridley Kessler, Federal Regional Library, will speak on “Changing Access to Government Information” at the annual Conference of the Librarian’s Association of UNC Chapel Hill on Monday, March 19. The Conference will be held at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill. For information about the conference, see http://www.unc.edu/lib/launcch/conf2001.htm.
Barbara Levergood, Electronic Documents Librarian, will speak to the Texas Library Association about Census 2000 and Maps at its annual meeting on March 29. She will also be speaking at a session of MAGERT at the ALA annual convention in San Francisco this summer.
Mike Van Fossen, International Documents Librarian, will be editing the Government Publications section for the 12th edition of the “Guide to Reference Books” to be published by ALA in 2004. Mike was a co-editor of this section in the 11th edition, published in 1996.
Paula Hinton (Social Sciences Librarian and Documents Section Vice Chair/Chair-Elect) and Mike Van Fossen edited the “United Nations and other International Organizations” section of the 2000 “Notable Documents” issue of the “Journal of Government Information.” Catherine Shreve, International and State Documents Librarian, Duke University, also contributed publication annotations to this section.
NCLA Documents Section Executive Board
Chair
Frank Molinek
Davidson College
704-892-2154
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
Paula Hinton
UNC Chapel Hill
919-962-1151
Secretary/Treasurer
Karen O’Keefe
State Library of North Carolina
919-733-3683
kokeefe@library.dcr.state.nc.us
Past Chair
Mary Horton
Wake Forest University
336-758-5829
Docket Editor
Marilyn Schuster
UNC Charlotte
704-687-3983
NC Libraries Board Representative
Michael Van Fossen
UNC Chapel Hill
919-962-1151
Regional Librarian
Ridley Kessler
UNC Chapel Hill
919-962-1151
State Clearinghouse Coordinator
Duane Bogenschneider
State Library of North Carolina
919-733-3683
Dbogenschneider@library.dcr.state.nc.us
Well, here we are beginning a new calendar year with a new Congress and a new President. However, the issues facing Documents Librarians will be the same that have been on the agenda for some time.
The Documents Section begins a new calendar year also, with new officers. Plans are being made for the Spring Workshop and the programs the Documents Section will sponsor at the Biennial Convention, which is October 2-5, 2001 in Winston-Salem.
If anyone would be interested in writing a column for The Docket that points out and briefly describes some recent federal documents, please let me know. I personally find the state and international columns very useful and would like to see a column for federal documents also. I’m always interested in information to include in the People and Events column - information about what’s happening in your library - new faces, new positions, presentations, publications, etc. And if there are other columns or articles you would like to see included in The Docket, let me know.
I am also looking for someone who would be willing to do the “production” work on The Docket. Pat Langelier has been filling that position since at least 1992 and has done a great job! She would, however, like to pass this opportunity along to someone else at this point. To briefly explain, I send the files to Pat and she does the layout of the newsletter. She then sends the copy to the Secretary/Treasurer who puts the actual publication in the mail. If anyone would be interested in filling this position, please let me know.
Public service is something I like to stress. I know the students I work with often opt for instant information instead of taking time to research the issue – although there is a wealth of information available quickly in this internet age, and yes, a fair amount of it is government information. However, there’s so much information in documents – international, federal, state and local – and I feel that information is often overlooked when we are forced to answer questions in a hurry. We spend a lot of time fighting to have the information available in the first place, and in addition we work to obtain, process and make these publications available. Let’s use every opportunity to encourage the use of government documents.
--Marilyn Schuster, UNC Charlotte, Editor, The Docket
Volume 28 Number 1 Spring 2001
Editor: Marilyn Schuster, UNC Charlotte
Production: Pat Langelier, Institute of Government, UNC-CH
The Docket (ISSN 0198-1048) is the official newsletter of the Documents Section of the North Carolina Library Association. Published twice a year in February and August, the deadline for contributions is the first day of the month of publication. Permission to copy is granted provided appropriate credit is given to The Docket and individual authors.
Current contact information and back issues of The Docket are available at: http://www.nclaonline.org/grs/pub.html. [2/24/05]
Address all editorial correspondence to Marilyn Schuster, Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223-0001; 704/687-3983; fax 704/687-2232; email: mbschust@email.uncc.edu.
Address other mail to Karen O’Keefe, State Library of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, 919-733-3683; kokeefe@library.dcr.state.nc.us.