Recently, the 50-State Agency Database Registry produced an annotated list of searchable inmate locaters. Many states have databases on many given subjects, so the volunteer staff of the Database Register is interested in expanding the offerings on our subject-focused databases page.

We (the Registry volunteers) would like to do this with subjects of interest to the community. So tell us what we should do next, either by leaving comments here or by participating in a brief poll on the main page of the State Agency Database Highlights blog at http://statedatabase.blogspot.com.

For databases from the 50 states, please see the 50-State Agency Database Registry

An aspect of the job that I enjoy doing is public service.  I really like the one-on-one contact that I have with my patrons.  At times, you developed friendships with some of them.  It has gotten to the point when they will stop by my office, the reference desk, or the gov. docs. desk to talk about what's going on in their lives or just have someone who will listen.  There is this one patron whom I believe may have saved a great deal of money in pyschiatric services just because he stops by once a week to vent with me. 

One of the biggest attractions of working at a library for me is the wonderful mix of research, history, and public service that is involved in the position.  I am constantly learning something new everyday.  Since my B.A. is in American history, I really am proud of the fact that I use my degree every day as a government documents coordinator.  But, one of the aspects of the job that really makes it all worthwhile for me is the need to nurture.  Being there for someone who might be in distress because they cannot find the resources they need or coming to you shyly because they need help using the online catalog.  Yes, this is the part of the job I enjoy the most.

I guess, for me as a single male, that is the outlet for my nurturing tendencies.  I imagine that for those of you who are married with children and grandchildren, having to nurture patrons as well might be more than you are willing to do.  What I do know, though, is how appreciative they are after you have helped them.  That usually makes my day and it also makes up for the times when I really don't want to be at work...its what motivates me to get up in the morning and head happily to work.

I am proud of the service the library community provides for its patrons and, for the most part, most patrons are grateful for the service you provide them.  I really am very proud to serve my community as a librarian and for the opportunity to help meet their needs.

This is my last blog entry as guest blogger for FreeGovInfo.  I am thankful for the opportunity to talk about life in the library.

I also would like to wish you:

Merry Christmas 

Feliz Navidad

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Kwanzaa

I hope everyone had a nice and restful holiday.  May all the turkey you ate gave you the opportunity for some nice long naps and re-energized you for this week.

Since we are all feeling restful and sharp-minded, why don't we take some time to think about how the depository system could reinvent itself.  Let's throw in some ideas that will help the folks at GPO to do sme great things for us and them.  When thinking of these ideas, begin by creating in your mind your ideal depository.  Also, think about what  could GPO do for us that would help you with your work.

Just some things off the top of my head.

FDLP Desktop:

Since the FDLP Desktop is still in beta, this is a good time to make suggestions that will make it ideal for our work.

• I would like to see the ability to tailor some tasks according to a depository's profile.  For example, have the New Electronic Titles be tailored to your profile.  I would like to login, click on the NET link and it show me all the online publications that are part of our profile.  This way, we wouldn't have to print the list, then scan through each one and compare it to our profile before being able to download it onto the online catalog.
• The ability to download bib. records from the CGP.
• Would like to see the manual dealing with Inactive/Discontinued lists of item numbers improved so you can differentiate between inactive and discontinued.  To me, these are two different things.  Inactive implies that it may return at some point in the future while discontinued means it has ceased and there is no hope of its return.  Separating the lists within the same manual would be good or creating a column for status detailing if it is inactive or discontinued would be helpful.

I do like the new look of the beta site of the FDLP Desktop.  You will be able to instant message, email,  and create buddy lists from within the depository community.  Seems to be better organized than the old Desktop website.  I like the calendar feature and the ability to order promotional items online is a great tool as well.

New Services Suggestions:

• Creating a full-text database of government publication periodicals/serials.    The government offers a variety of interesting articles through its periodicals/serials and most people are missing out because most of them are not indexed by commercial publishers.  The great thing about this would be that depositories would have free access to this database while non-depositories would have to pay a subscription fee.  This would allow GPO to actually make money and, at the same time, provide a service that would be attractive to non-depository libraries.  The database could eventually become something like JSTOR which would include articles going as far back as possible.  Make sure there is a way to search for peer-reviewed articles as well.
• A GPO Gift Shop that would allow you to promote the depository better like good cotton t-shirts with the GPO logo on it and customizing it with the name of the depository and the name of the employee so it can be worn at work.  Such t-shirts would also be bought by the general public just for the nifty GPO logo alone.  The handbags that were recently distributed at the Fall conference for attendees is a great idea as well.  I didn't attend the conference but noticed at a recent depository meeting for WA State librarians that someone had one.  I admired it and one of the librarians at the meeting told me I could have theirs.  Ever since then, I have been using it for work.  Again, its promtoing the depository library and is quite an attention catcher....ah, remember the washable GPO tattoo that someone created for an event at their library?
• Instruction on how to maintain a collection that soon will become archival.  How to do some basic repairs of tangible documents and how to preserve online documents.

New Digital Project Suggestions:

• Would like to see the Congressional Record from 1876 - 1993 digitized.  Pre-1876 has been digitized by the Library of Congress via their American Memory collection and, of course, we have it available since 1994 via GPO Access.

Community Service:

• Find ways to provide community services at the local level.  Oregon State University took a giant step at their library by providing limited day care at their library. 
• Some depositories are providing services as passport centers.

What ideas do you have?

Where has the time gone? I was just looking at the list of FGI user accounts, and noticed that my account was created 3 years and 1 day ago!! In light of our 3rd anniversary, I'd like to highlight the FGI monthly archive located in the lower right column. This will add one more way of accessing FGI content besides the search,  browse, categories and RSS feed. Take a few minutes, browse back through the last 3 years, and let us know if you have any favorites.

Thanks to all of our visitors (we get over 2000 hits/day!!) for continuing to come back and reading the FGI blog. We really appreciate it!

--The FGI admins (Jim Jacobs, Daniel Cornwall, James Staub, Shinjoung Yeo and James Jacobs)

While we haven't been great at generating comments, I wanted to toss out a discussion topic and see where it goes.

As I hope many of you know, the New York Times has dropped subscriber charges and the uber-capitalist Wall Street Journal will follow suit in the next few months. The NYT found they were losing more in ad revenue than gaining in subscriptions. New WSJ owner Rupert Murdoch is on record saying that ad revenue is where the money is.

What, if anything, does the death of premium subscriptions for propriety content, mean for electronic federal information that gets sold? Not just the GPO Sales program, but NTIS, PACER, so-called cooperative publications and the rest? What is their future? Do they have one? At least the NYT and WSJ had copyrighted materials they could defend. With some exceptions, federal information is public domain. Once you get it out of a paid system, you can use it how you want. It's not quite that easy since a few federal fee-based databases are licensed, but it's mostly true.

We at FGI think there is answer -- that selling federal information, aside from being an affront to the taxpayers who paid for the the first time, will not be viable. It wasn't when GPO tried it in the early 1990s and it won't be now. Eventually fee-based gov't information will need to be provided freely, like NYT and WSJ. Though without the ads. It's not inevitable, but even the market seems like it may be trending that way. What do you think?

An economic study funded by the Canadian government has concluded that heavy Peer-to-peer (P2P) users buy more music, not less as had been posited by entertainment industry organizations like the MPAA and RIAA. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has more background on his blog.
And why, you say, should FGI care about a Canadian study about file-sharing technology like Napster? Because this technology, a fundementally different 'Net architecture -- and one that looks and acts like a library consortium! -- is currently the architecture being used in LOCKSS and could be widely employed to much positive effect by libraries to build and share digital collections, that's why :-)
However, P2P has been under attack from entertainment industry organizations paranoid about copyright infringement. The attack has been so fierce that some states have begun looking into legislation against P2P (On September 16, 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger signed executive order S-16-04 charging the CA state CIO with the development of a statewide policy on P2P technology. See my P2P backgrounder for more). So legislation against P2P and the perpetuation of equating P2P with "piracy" has a deleterious effect on libraries and other cultural institutions trying to build systems of better digital access and preservation for  the public.

• When assessing the P2P downloading population, there was "a strong positive relationship between P2P file sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file sharing increases CD purchases." The study estimates that one additional P2P download per month increases music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year.

• When viewed in the aggreggate (ie. the entire Canadian population), there is no direct relationship between P2P file sharing and CD purchases in Canada. According to the study authors, "the analysis of the entire Canadian population does not uncover either a positive or negative relationship between the number of files downloaded from P2P networks and CDs purchased. That is, we find no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative for Canada as a whole."

The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada 
 

Last year, Linda Zellmer from the University of Indiana, sent out an update to a Thanksgiving poster that details statistics for the various crops served during a Thanksgiving meal.  I immediately printed it out and it is currently on a wall iin the Maps Area.  The information comes from the Economic Census and it arose a great deal of curiosity from patrons.  I am sure Linda will update it once the 2007 Economic Census statistics are available in a couple of years.

The Census Bureau also publishes annually statistics about Thanksgiving Day.  Here's the information for 2007.

Thanksgiving Day
Nov. 22, 2007

In the fall of 1621, the religious separatist Pilgrims held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest, an event many regard as the nation’s first Thanksgiving. It eventually became a national holiday in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. Later, President Franklin Roosevelt clarified that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to encourage earlier holiday shopping, never on the occasional fifth Thursday.

272 million
The preliminary estimate of turkeys raised in the United States in 2007. That’s up 4 percent from 2006. The turkeys produced in 2005 together weighed 7.2 billion pounds and were valued at $3.2 billion.
Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
http://www.nass.usda.gov/

Weighing in With a Menu of Culinary Delights

46 million
The preliminary estimate of turkeys Minnesota expects to raise in 2007. The Gopher State is tops in turkey production. It is followed by North Carolina (39 million), Arkansas (31 million), Virginia (21.5 million), Missouri (21 million) and California (16.8 million). These six states together will probably account for about two-thirds of U.S. turkeys produced in 2007.

690 million pounds
The forecast for U.S. cranberry production in 2007, essentially unchanged from 2006 and 11 percent more than 2005. Wisconsin is expected to lead all states in the production of cranberries, with 390 million pounds, followed by Massachusetts (180 million). New Jersey, Oregon and Washington are also expected to have substantial production, ranging from 18 million to 52 million pounds.

1.6 billion pounds
The total weight of sweet potatoes — another popular Thanksgiving side dish — produced by major sweet potato producing states in 2006. North Carolina (702 million pounds) produced more sweet potatoes than any other state. It was followed by California (381 million pounds). Mississippi and Louisiana also produced large amounts: at least 200 million pounds each.

1 billion pounds
Total pumpkin production of major pumpkin-producing states in 2006. Illinois led the country by producing 492 million pounds of the vined orange gourd. Pumpkin patches in California, Ohio and Pennsylvania also provided plenty of pumpkins: Each state produced at least 100 million pounds. The value of all the pumpkins produced by major pumpkin-producing states was $101 million.

If you prefer cherry pie, you will be pleased to learn that the nation’s forecasted tart cherry production for 2007 totals 294 million pounds. Of this total, the overwhelming majority (230 million) will be produced in Michigan.

1.8 billion bushels
The total volume of wheat — the essential ingredient of bread, rolls and pie crust — produced in the United States in 2006. Kansas and North Dakota accounted for 30 percent of the nation’s wheat production.

841,280 tons
The 2007 contracted production of snap (green) beans in major snap (green) bean-producing states. Of this total, Wisconsin led all states (310,200 tons). Many Americans consider green bean casserole a traditional Thanksgiving dish.
Source: The previous data come from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service http://www.nass.usda.gov/

$9.5 million
The value of U.S. imports of live turkeys during the first half of 2007 — 99.5 percent from Canada. Our northern neighbor accounted for all of the cranberries the United States imported ($2.2 million). When it comes to sweet potatoes, however, the Dominican Republic was the source of 63 percent ($1.7 million) of total imports ($2.7 million). The United States ran a $4.9 million trade deficit in live turkeys during the period but had surpluses of $9.4 million in cranberries and $15.3 million in sweet potatoes.
Source: Foreign Trade Statistics http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/www

13.1 pounds
The quantity of turkeys consumed by the typical American in 2005, with a hearty helping devoured at Thanksgiving time. Per capita sweet potato consumption was 4.5 pounds.
Source: Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008, Tables 205-206 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

An Organic Feast

144,086
Number of certified organic turkeys on the nation’s farmland, as of 2005. Most of these turkeys were in Michigan (56,729) or Pennsylvania (48,815).
Source: USDA Economic Research Service
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/organic/

The Turkey Industry

$3.6 billion
The value of turkeys shipped in 2002. Arkansas led the way in turkey shipments, with $581.5 million, followed by Virginia ($544.2 million) and North Carolina ($453 million). In 2002, poultry businesses whose primary product was turkey totaled 35 establishments, employing about 17,000 people.
Source: Poultry Processing: 2002 http://www.census.gov/prod/ec02/ec0231i311615.pdf

$3.86 billion
Forecast 2007 receipts to farmers from turkey sales. This exceeds the total receipts from sales of products such as rice, peanuts and tobacco.
Source: USDA Economic Research Service http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/farmincome/finfidmu.htm

The Price is Right

99 cents
Cost per pound of a frozen whole turkey in December 2006.
Source: Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008, Table 709 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

Where to Feast

3
Number of places in the United States named after the holiday’s traditional main course. Turkey, Texas, was the most populous in 2006, with 489 residents; followed by Turkey Creek, La. (363); and Turkey, N.C. (270). There also are nine townships around the country named Turkey, three in Kansas.
Source: Population estimates http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/010315.html, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet

8
Number of places and townships in the United States that are named Cranberry or some spelling variation of the red, acidic berry (e.g., Cranbury, N.J.), a popular side dish at Thanksgiving. Cranberry township (Butler County), Pa., was the most populous of these places in 2006, with 27,509 residents. Cranberry township (Venango County), Pa., was next (6,900).
Source: Population estimates http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/010315.html

28
Number of places in the United States named Plymouth, as in Plymouth Rock, the landing site of the first Pilgrims. Plymouth, Minn., is the most populous, with 70,102 residents in 2006; Plymouth, Mass., had 55,516. Speaking of Plymouth Rock, there is just one township in the United States named “Pilgrim.” Located in Dade County, Mo., its population was 135.
Source: Population estimates http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/010315.html, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet

114.4 million
Number of households across the nation — all potential gathering places for people to celebrate the holiday.
Source: Families and Living Arrangements: 2006 http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/009842.html

Editor’s note: The preceding data were collected from a variety of sources and may be subject to sampling variability and other sources of error. Facts for Features are customarily released about two months before an observance in order to accommodate magazine production timelines. Questions or comments should be directed to the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office: telephone: 301-763-3030; fax: 301-763-3762; or e-mail: <pio@census.gov>.

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

According to Wired News, the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.org has leaked a never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The 238-page document, "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures," is dated March 28, 2003, and the ACLU has been trying unsuccessfully to FOIA pry it loose from the Pentagon since then.

The disclosure highlights the internet's usefulness to whistle-blowers in anonymously propagating documents the government and others would rather conceal. The Pentagon has been resisting -- since October 2003 -- a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking the very same document.

The Wired article describes lots of other fun facts of the manual like schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what "comfort items" such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, rules for dealing with hunger strikes, and instructions on how to use military dogs to intimidate prisoners. We're attaching a copy of the document below in a more-the-merrier manner. Please download and propogate :-)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore! -- has just released their 4th assessment report on global warming entitled "Climate Change 2007." Released just in time for next month's world’s energy ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, to begin talks on creating a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. This has got to be among the most important government documents of the last decade and will hopefully move those policy makers to start addressing this dire situation NOW. Yesterday's NY Times has more on the document's release.

There are a bunch of sites devoted to climate change including the NY TImes' DotEarth, Andrew Revkin's blog (which has a good blogroll of other resources), Grist.org and RealClimate.org.

Some of the key findings from the Synthesis Report Summary for Policy MakerS (PDF) include:

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level;
• Global Green House Gas (GHG) emissions due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of
  70% between 1970 and 2004;
• There is high agreement and much evidence that with current climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, global GHG emissions will continue to grow over the next few decades;
• Key vulnerabilities may be associated with many climate sensitive systems including food supply, infrastructure, health, water resources, coastal systems, ecosystems, global biogeochemical cycles, ice sheets, and modes of oceanic and atmospheric circulation.

 The Fourth Assessment Report (as well as all of the previous reports) are available electronically from the IPCC Web site. This report is released in four distinct sections:

• Working Group I Report (WGI): The Physical Science Basis
• Working Group II Report (WGII): Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
• Working Group III Report (WGIII): Mitigation of Climate Change.
• The Synthesis Report (SYR): Summary for Policymakers (SPM).

Hardcopies of the full reports can be purchased from Cambridge University Press.

I'm sure you've all heard of the $100 laptop right? Shinjoung and I were lucky enough to have one to demo on our Internet Archive bookmobile trip and can vouch for their coolness! Not only is the One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) an admirable educational project (inspired by the likes of John Dewey and Paulo Freire) to get a laptop into the hands of every child in the 3rd world, it is a marvelous engineering  feat of building a low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, durable and WiFi-enabled machine built specifically for children and using only Linux and other free and open-source software. Check out the NY Times' David Pogue and his nice little video review.

You all are in luck. From now until November 26, 2007, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program where each person who donates $399 ($200 is tax-deductible) to buy a laptop for a 3rd world child will receive one as well. Please, please, please consider doing this. And perhaps if you get a group to do this (like we're trying to do at university that we work at), you can donate your laptops to children in your communities as well.

I thought folks here would be interested in reading about the history of copyright (plus I really like the title of the thesis!). Eric Anderson has put his dissertation, "Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891" online under a Creative Commons license. I notice he's at Bowling Green University, home of the Browne Popular Culture Library, an amazing repository of American popular culture (post 1876). If you ever find yourselves in Western OH, do take a trip to the library!

Title: Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891 Author: Anderson, Eric Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, American Culture Studies/History, 2007. Advisor: Philip G Terrie Pages: 231p. Abstract: How did people think about copyright in the nineteenth century? What did they think it was? What was it for? Was it property? Or something else? How did it function? Who could it benefit? Who might it harm? Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891addresses questions like these, unpacking the ideas and popular ideologies connected to copyright in the United States during the nineteenth-century. This era was rife with copyright-related controversy and excitement, including international squabbling, celebrity grandstanding, new technology, corporate exploitation, and ferocious arguments about piracy, reprinting, and the effects of copyright law. Then, as now, copyright was very important to a small group of people (authors and publishers), and slightly important to a much larger group (consumers and readers). However, as this dissertation demonstrates, these larger groups did have definite ideas about copyright, its function, and its purpose, in ways not obvious to the denizens of the legal and authorial realms. This project draws on methods from both social and cultural history. Primary sources include a broad swath of magazine and newspaper articles, letters, and editorials about various copyright-related controversies. Examining these sources – both mainstream and obscure – illustrates the diversity of thinking about copyright issues during the nineteenth century, and suggests alternative frameworks for considering copyright in other times.

[Thanks Copyfight]

The GPO has posted a recap of the 2007 Fall Federal Depository Library Conference and Fall Depository Library Council Meeting that includes audio files, photos, and unedited transcripts. Of particular note:Ric Davis, who has been serving as Interim Superintendent of Documents has accepted the job of Interim Superintendent of Documents; the FDSys has been renamed FDSys; and the Depository Library Council is now directly asking "What does FDSys mean for libraries?" Also of note: there were excellent discussions of official and authentic online legal materials and shared models for regional FDLP libraries.

Carl Malamud of Public.resource.org has just made yet another startling announcement that should be a boon for legal scholars, information junkies and advocates of free and openly accessible government information. Starting in early 2008, because of the deal the Malamud and his law ninjas at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have struck with Fastcase, Inc., a large swath of federal case law and Supreme Court decisions will be released into the public domain under a Creative Commons license. As the news release states, the 1.8 million pages of law will be integrated into the ongoing public services from organizations such as Columbia University AltLaw a joint project of Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School) and Cornell School of Law's Legal Information Institute

Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose.

“The U.S. judiciary has allowed their entire work product to be locked up behind a cash register,” said Carl Malamud, CEO of Public.Resource.Org. “Law is the operating system of our society and today's agreement means anybody can read the source for a substantial amount of case law that was previously unavailable.”

Fastcase, the leading developer of next-generation American legal research, has agreed to provide Public.Resource.Org with 1.8 million pages of federal case law. This is a marked departure for the online legal research industry, which traditionally has charged expensive subscription fees to access this information.

And what's even cooler is that they're going to wikify it!!

Public.Resource.Org intends to perform an initial transformation on the federal case law archive obtained from Fastcase using open source “star” mapping software, which will allow the insertion of markers that will approximate page breaks based on user-furnished parameters such as page size, margins, and fonts. “Wiki” technology will be used to allow the public to move around these “star” markers, as well as add summaries, classifications, keywords, alternate numbering systems for citation purposes, and ratings or “diggs” on opinions.

A few weeks ago, I attended a one-day library conference for Northwest gov. docs. folks.  The day long meeting was hosted by one of our community college depositories.  Part of the day included a tour of the library's gov. docs. collection. 

You must know that this particular depository is very diligent about their 5-year retention of documents for their collection.  When the fifth year arrives, they discard all those items except for those they want to retain.  As I have worked there before as an adjunct faculty, I remember how full of titles the gov. docs. stacks were.  Nowadays, the shelves are getting a lot emptier...very stark indeed. 

This got me thinking about what our role iis n a government document world that is primarily online.  How are selective depositories that don't need to retain that much research-oriented material in their collections are able to survive as a fully functional depository?  How are depositories who do maintain a research-oriented collection handle their collection as more and more documents arrive as online only?  Will the tangible collection become an archive instead of an active up to date collection?  How can depositories make a case for staying in the system and insure their survivability?

Let's first take a look at the differences between a main stacks collection and a depository collection.

Some Differences Between Main Stacks & Depository Collections:

*  Main Stacks Collections:

• Main stacks collections continue to be active and updated collections because commercial publishers don't see a financial benefit in publishing their books online.  Commercial publishers' success are determined by the number of sales.  The more they sell, the likeliness they will end up on a best-selling list and the more money they can make. 100,000 clicks does not make a best-seller...maybe 1 billioin clicks?  Were those clicks meaningful clicks or were they just look and see and then leave the site?
• Most people still want the tangible book.  They want to cuddle up to it, they want to feel turning the pages themselves, they want to form an emotional bond with it...a bond that makes them cry, laugh, chuckle, or scare them.
• The ability to come to it any time.  The words remain static on the page, they don't change.  You can retrieve the information over and over again. If the book was produced with good paper, it can last a very long time.
• Books are immovable unless someone decides to weed them out of the collection.  Once weeded out of the collection, they can be sold on ebay or Half-price.com or any other online sellers service;  they can acquire value and be considered rare; and they can even be sent to the recycling bin and become a brand new thing in its new life.
• Books have very nice and artistic dust jackets that help attract book lovers to buy them. 
• Books have varied topics from the latest celebrity biography to the secrets of the universe.  You can find more recreational reading in the main stacks than you can in a depository collection.
• Keeping up with the latest technology is not as big a priority insofar as access to books.

*  Depository Collections:

• Government publications focuses on free access as a result of an openly democratic philosophy.  The right to access publications paid by our tax dollars is fundamental to the system of checks and balances.  Though some government publications are available for sale, the cost is usually much less than commercial publications.  Some titles like the 9/11 Commission Report do very well commercially, this is usually not the norm.  Government is not (usually) in the business to make money.
• Documents, like commercial publications, have varied topics but most tend to be more utilitarian in nature.  You won't find a lot of recreational reading in gov. docs. collections and I don't know of many people who would actually cuddle up in bed or in front of the tv reading an environmental impact statement on Mount Rainier . 
• Government keeps up to date with technology to see if there is a way that will help them save money.  Creating publications online instead of tangible saves them a great deal of money.  Costs are passed on to the end-user.
• Online pubilcations are movable and even removable.  They are maintained by the government agency who published it and neither GPO or the depository coordinators have any control whatsoever.  If the agency decides to remove them one day, you are just out of luck unless you carry a big stick and knock them outside their heads to bring back the information.
• Online publications are even more susceptible to changes when the agency maintains it.  They can redact a document any time without the knowledge of most people unless you are one of the very few who sees the document on a daily basis and know what is right and what is wrong.  GPO is working on the authentication problem but it will be a very long time before authentication is included in every government publication.
• Government publications are viewed as biased and untrustworthy.  A veil of suspicion surrounds the credibility of government publications.  Citizen activists prefer to use sources they feel are above repproach  (nevermind they have their own biases as well).  Yet, the public cannot possibly avoid using government information.  Basic information like the census and health statistics are needed in order to facilitate the public's need for information.
• Now, though you are more likely to find information about unlocking the secrets of the universe via the myriad publications published by NASA and the U.S Naval Observatory, you certainly won't find a bio on Keanu Reeves unless he made an appearance before Congress like Michale J. Fox and Muhammad Ali did when they testified in favor of Parkinson's Disease Research funding.  The closest thing to recreational literature for the masses might be the countless hearings pertaining to scandal and national tragedy (JFK and MLK assassination hearings, ENRON, Watergate, President Clinton's impeachment, etc.).  This type of literature does gain a great deal of attention from the public.  But, even this type of reading can be very technical at times.
• Statistics for online publications are hard to determine.  Since most opac software publishers have not come up with a way to count the clicks you make on a link you've created on the online catalog, it is very hard to determine what is the usage for onlne titles.  GPO's PURL referrals are a step in the right direction, but it doesn't tell you which particular titles were being used.  Without any statistics on online publications, government documents depositories are in danger of disappearing.  Library administrators want numbers and if we don't have any to produce, you can say goodbye to the hard work you've put into the depository collection.

In the past few years or so, I have found myself downloading a lot of online government publications and placing them on our server for assured access to these titles.  I have also spent a lot of time digitizing some titles that are in danger of disappearing or are not available online at this time.  I also spend some time discarding paper versions that are now superseded by the online version.  A few months ago, I managed to get rid of a bunch of IRS publications because they were more current and easier to find online and because they were taking a lot of space on the shelves.

Shipment boxes get fewer and fewer each day.  Now that we have MARCIVE downloads, the way we process government documents has changed.  Of course that changes the work flow as well.  Now, instead of downloading the NETs and inputting those titles ourselves (though I will not miss having to go through pages circling those items that belong to our profile), it does mean having to download a list and see what is actually coming in and compare it to our profile. 

How can we reinvent ourselves?  How can we demonstrate to library administrators the usefulness of depository collection and their importance to an open government?

On the January 15, 2004 issue of Administrative Notes, there was an article on becoming a passport acceptance faclity.  The idea of providing such a service is definitely an interesting one since it does provide a service for people who may not be available during the normal 9 am - 5 pm slot.  The library receives a$ 30.00 commission for each application for providing the service.  Such a service does provide the opportunity to bring in new people to the library and to the depository collection.

Over a week ago or so, I found an article written by Thomas Frey from the DaVinci Institute who was thinking about the future of libraries.  He mentions a bit about the history of libraries and denotes some trends that is causing libraries to change due to technology.   One of the recommendations he made about libraries:

Trend #10 - Libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture

 With the emergence of distributed forms of information the central role of the library as a repository of facts and information is changing.  While it is still important to have this kind of resource, it has proven to be a diminishing draw in terms of library traffic.

 The notion of becoming a cultural center is an expansive role for the future library.  It will not only serve as an information resource, but much more, with the exact mission and goals evolving and changing over time.

 A culture-based library is one that taps into the spirit of the community, assessing priorities and providing resources to support the things deemed most important.  Modern day cultural centers include museums, theaters, parks, and educational institutions.  The library of the future could include all of these, but individual communities will be charged with developing an overall strategy that reflects the identity and personality of its own constituency.

One of Frey's reccommendations for libraries includes:

4)       Experiment with creative spaces so the future role of the library can define itself.  Since the role of the library 20 years from now is still a mystery, we recommend that libraries put together creative spaces so staff members, library users, and the community at large can experiment and determine what ideas are drawing attention and getting traction.  Some possible uses for these creative spaces include:

a.       Band practice rooms

b.       Podcasting stations

c.       Blogger stations

d.       Art studios

e.       Recording studios

f.        Video studios

g.       Imagination rooms

h.       Theater-drama practice rooms

We have come a long ways from the time of da Vinci and the time when books were chained to lecterns.  But we’ve only scratched the surface of many more changes to come.  Writing the definitive history of modern libraries is a work in progress.  Our best advice is to enjoy the journey and relish in the wonderment of what tomorrow may bring.

Of course Frey, as a computer engineer and designer does have a bias towards technology being the guiding force in replacing the functions of libraries.  Many libraries  with media services are already providing spaces like video studios or at the very least terminals with multimedia software and functions.  The idea of a library providing band practice rooms, art studios and theater-drama practice rooms is more of a fine arts function that many places already provide for the community.  Seems like Frey is trying to dilute the functions of libraries thinking that technology will do everything that a library does.

An interesting article popped up as a forward on my inbox today.  The article was about Oregon State University's Library providing short-term childcare space for children (from age 6 months to 10 years old) of students.  While mom and dad are trying to get some work done in the library, the kids participate in age appropriate programs. This is definitely an interesting idea since most young parents cannot find someone readily to look after their child or may not be able to afford it.  Campus daycare is only available during the daytime and may be quite full as it is.  Its hard for mom and dad to do their homework when the kids are vying for their attention.   Having short-term childcare in the library does provide a community service that could possibly increase the literacy rate if the programs include reading (I would hope so) and other library-related activities.  I would be curious to know if the literacy rate of children on the campus would go up as a result of the service.   I hope OSU will be able to provide data on the effects such a service to library patrons and its effect on literacy, cognitive skills, and schooling. 

I wonder what other new ideas are on the verge for the 21st century library?

Yes we've talked a lot and linked a lot to Laurence Lessig but only because the issues he raises in terms of copyright are so compelling, especially for librarians. Here's a clip of his recent talk at the TED Conference in March, 2007, "How creativity is being strangled by the law." This will probably be his last public presentation about copyright seeing his much written-about announcement of a shift in academic focus from copyright to corruption. While we will miss his voice in support of the public domain -- not to mention his work with creative commons and the hilarious remixes -- we look forward to his no-doubt-equally-provocative presentations on his new bailiwick. Enjoy!

The Morris library in the McLafferty Annex library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale celebrated 75 years as a Federal Depository Library this past week. The Southern Illinoisan newspaper celebrated this occaision with an article titled Morris Library Recognized for Participation in Federal Program. The article featured a photo of documents librarian Jian Anna Xiong.

What I liked was that Ms. Xiong was able to get the paper to mention a number of highlights of the collection:

There are correspondences from Abraham Lincoln, volumes from the U.S. Bureau of Entomology and CIA reports on the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to library officials, much of the history of the federal government from 1789 to present day is available for viewing.

Government Information Librarian Jian Anna Xiong said the depository offers information on almost every imaginable aspect of the federal government.

"There are 400,000 documents on paper and about 900,000 on microfiche," she said. "It's almost every area of American history: political science, race issues, slavery, taxes, health."

Happy Anniversary! And good work in getting your local media to notice the anniversary and to talk about your collection!

As a demonstration of things that can be done with ALA GODORT's 50-State Database Registry I have created a page listing sites of state prisoner locator tools at: http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Prisoner_Locator_Tools.

So far it looks like nine states have such sites. If you see a state that's missing, let me know or if you have patrons that need to find folks in state prisons, suggest this site to them.

Is there a subject focused page involving state databases you'd like to create? Register with the ALA GODORT Wiki and get started. Or drop me a line.

There was a great post to NGC4Lib list (ngc4lib = "Next Generation Catalogs for libraries") yesterday by Joe Lucia, the University Librarian
at Villanova, entitled a "thought experiment." In it, Lucia describes how to create next generation library systems via an open source collaborative commons. WOW!, a university librarian suggesting that a bunch of libraries get together to build an open source development system?! Thanks Joe Lucia for starting this conversation. I really hope it becomes more than simply a "thought experiment." Here's one of the juicier bits:

If we look beyond money to personnel, the option looks even better. Let me suggest some numbers. What if, in the U.S., 50 ARL libraries, 20 large public libraries, 20 medium-sized academic libraries, and 20 Oberlin group libraries anted up one full-time technology position for collaborative open source development. That's 110 developers working on library applications with robust, quickly-implemented current Web technology -- not legacy stuff. There is not a company in the industry that I know of which has put that much technical effort into product development. With such a cohort of developers working in libraries on library technology needs -- and in light of the creativity and thoughtfulness evident on forums like this one -- I think we would quickly see radical change in the library technology arena. Instead of being technology followers, I venture to say that libraries might once again become leaders. Let's add to the pool some talent from beyond the U.S. -- say 20 libraries in Canada, 10 in Australia, and 10 in the U.K. put staff into the pool. We've now got 150 developers in this little start-up. Then we begin pouring our current software support funds into regional collaboratives. Within a year or two, we could be re-directing 10s of millions of dollars into regional technology development partnerships sponsored by and housed within the regional consortia, supporting and extending the work of libraries. The potential for innovation and rapid deployment of new tools boggles the mind. The resources at our disposal in this scenario dwarf what any software vendor in our small application space is ever going to support. And, as is implicit in all I've said, the NGC is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Thanks OSS4lib list!]

None of us can keep track of everything by ourselves. It takes a community to maintain vigilence about creeping secrecy. So a HUGE tip of the FGI hat to Ian Campbell of The Gov Doc for bringing this item about an effort to gnaw at the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) via the federal farm bill, of all things:

If you toil in the fields of government information, you may be interested to know that an urgent campaign is underway to strike language from the Senate version of the Farm Bill which would create a substantial new FOIA exemption and severely restrict public access to important information about farm animal health under a National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
OpenTheGovernment.org has written a letter to Senators expressing opposition to the non-disclosure language in the Senate version of the bill, and the American Library Association, Special Libraries Association, and American Association of Law Libraries are among the 28 organizations to sign on. Please see the letter at:
http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/farm_bill_letter.pdf
As the letter states, Section 10305 of the Livestock Title of the Farm Bill approved October 25 by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee gives the Secretary of Agriculture broad authority to restrict and control disclosure of NAIS information, and imposes "disproportionately harsh penalties for press activities protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." The letter seeks to strike Section 10305 from the bill.

Thanks for the heads up Ian!

This just came through "In other news...," the FGI news aggregator. Mike Wash on Federal News Radio - On October 25, Mike Wash, Chief Information Officer for the Government Printing Office (GPO), discussed FDsys and the information technology challenges facing GPO on Federal News Radio. To get a better understanding of FDsys listen to the program online. Let us know what you think.

Know a deserving government documents librarian doing good work to further the profession? Then you'll want nominate them for a Movers&Shakers award. Marylaine Block, writer and internet librarian, has asked me to forward this announcement far and wide regarding nominations for this year's Library Journal Movers&Shakers award. If you know someone deserving of this honor, please consider nominating them. And if you happen to have already submitted a nomination, please go back to the form (link below) and resubmit it because LJ had a little technical snafu and lost all submissions done before November 5. Marylaine tells me that the deadline has been extended to November 28.

Once again I am the primary writer for Library Journal's Movers and Shakers issue, and we are now soliciting nominations for this honor. Could you help spread the word to both govdocs librarians and radical librarians?  Here's the announcement:

It's time once again for nominations for Library Journal's Movers and Shakers issue. This supplement to the March 15, 2008 issue will profile "50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference" in the profession.

If you've ever wondered, "Why aren't they profiling more [fill in the blank: sci-tech librarians, archivists, library consortium staff, independent information professionals, library marketing staff, local history librarians, library consultants or vendors, library program directors, or whatever your own specialization is"], keep in mind that we can only write about people who get nominated in the first place!

As most of you that work in academia may know, the Fall quarter/semester is often the busiest of the academic year.  The incoming freshmen need lots of help getting their way around campus and the library.  They are often overwhelmed  by everything they see around them.  Then there are the requests to do a workshop for their program/course, the training of new students workers and welcoming back the returning student workers.  All of a sudden the library is alive again with smiling faces ending the slowness and boredom of the summer.

All the activity spurred by the first few weeks of school makes you feel like your mind is zooming at the speed of light.  Usually that means setting aside certain things in order to get other things done.  I tend to put things in piles (this is a trait that I have noticed in others who have been trained as historians).  For some reason, I just have to put things in a pile.  Of course, at some point that pile is going to topple.  A while back someone gave me a copy of an article called In Praise of Cluttered Desks which made me feel much better about my unique style.  I have it taped to the door of my office.

Evergreen has a unique way of doing things.  Instead of separate courses, you have interdisciplinary programs where several topics are merged to create a unit.  For example, a program on Mt. Rainier could possibly tackle geography, geology, anthropology, and art.  You will have 2 - 3 faculty teaching the program and most programs last 2 quarters.  You stay with the same students throughout those quarters.  On the administrative level, the consensus form is the one that is encouraged the most.   Faculty and staff meet together and everyone is included in the decision-making.  Everyone has the opportunity to voice their opinions and, hopefully, come up wth solutions.

Since I am the only permanent staff in GovDocs/Maps, I depend heavily on my five student workers to help me maintain the colletion.  We just had a meeting yesterday where I reminded them of some tasks that needed to be done but I also asked them if there were any challenges.  Nothing of major consequence was brought up which is good but I did have to alert them to a couple of things that are quirks to our collection and due to the success of the use of a couple of webpages on our website.  

The first quirk is our Coloring Books hot topics page.  When the idea of this page was created a couple of years ago, I never imagined how popular it was going to be.  The page has managed to find itself linked to a number of freebie message boards, homeschooling sites, and, of course, library sites.  It is the number one page on our site according to our StatsCounter account.  I really never imagined how popular this page would be.  Well, as a result, we get phone calls from all over the country asking us to provide them with a 1,000 coloring books or 2,500 coloring books.  Of course, I have to explain to them that we are not the publishers of the coloring books but that they can download them since they are already on .pdf and print them out themselves.  Of course, that means, they would have to spend a lot of money to do so.  Then I refer them to the agency that published the coloring book and hopefully they will receive tangible editions of the coloring books.  Who would've thought it?

The second quirk has to do with our webpage on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  When the law was passed pertaining to the creation of this new cabinet-level department, I immediately created page that would trace the transfers from other departments.  Not long after this page was created, we began receiving calls asking us if we were the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Mostly, they were calls for the department's phone number since at the time of their creation they didn't include a phone number on their website only an email form.  I also received some calls and letters from people who wanted to report someone to DHS who may have illegal aliens hiding.  Well, I managed to find the phone number by using the U.S. Government Manual.  I also had to redesign the page in order to add a disclaimer at the top of the page so folks would know that we weren't DHS.  Since then, the number of calls have gone down some but every once in a while we still get calls from people who think we are DHS.  I have to warn my student workers of this so they don't hang up on them thinking they are crank calls.  I always tell them to be attentive and find out what they really need to see if we can find the information they need.

Of course, these sort of things bring a smile to your face and makes the work environment a lot more fun.  It balances out all the meetings you have to attend and figuring out what needs to get done, where to put what and a ton of other decisions that come our way.

I am really appreciative of my student workers.  I don't know what I would do without them.  In the almost nine years I have been working at the library, there have only been a couple that didn't quite workout well.  Most of them manage to stay two or three  years...until they finally graduate.  So, to them, I would like to say "Thank You" (of course I make sure to tell them as often as possible).  I really value their input and their hard work.  Without them, I don't think I could've gotten the space arrangement of our collection for the library remodel, or gotten one of them to coordinate the shift of the collection, or have another one help create a gov. docs. display that was on a window at the college's student union.

We can learn so much from each  other.  Our varied experiences gives us an opportunity to learn from each other and, hopefully, in the process create better service fo our patrons and an opportunity to grow professionally.  I would consider myself a failure if my student workers left my tutelage without learning anything new in the process.  My wish for them is they leave me with more than what they came in.

Take a look at my current and former student workers and you will see what I mean.

Copyrights -- Do They Have a Future in the Internet Age?
There was a talk recently about the future of copyright (ok, October 24, 2007, 12:15 - 1:45 pm) from an economist and a writer.  Click on the link above to access the audio of this panel. Their perspectives inform the overall copyright debate currently being hashed out in lots of different communities.
 
Copyrights have been one of the main mechanisms for financing creative and artistic work for centuries. However, the development of digital technology and the Internet has brought about growing legal and practical challenges to copyrights. This debate answered the following question: "Are copyrights still useful or should we look to alternative mechanisms to support creative and artistic work?"
 
With Gerard Colby, President of National Writers Union, and Dean Baker, Co-director of Center for Economic and Policy Research. Moderated by Jo Freeman, of UAW Local 1981/ AFL-CIO and Washington, DC chapter of the National Writers Union.

The White House released a "National Strategy for Information Sharing" at the end of October. It sets up "fusion centers" to share information.   No, not share government information with citizens, but "terrorism data" with all levels of government and the private sector.  It's mission: to "facilitate the production of Federally-coordinated terrorism information products intended for dissemination to State, local, tribal, and private sector partners." But the strategy evidently does not define "terrorism" and thus endangers civil liberties:

• Strategy refines fusion centers' role, by Ben Bain, Federal Computer Week, November 5, 2007. "An expanded scope for the centers alarms privacy groups who fear misuse of data"

A recent CRS report notes that "less than 15% of the fusion centers interviewed for this report described their mission as solely counterterrorism" and also says:

There are several risks to the fusion center concept -- including potential privacy and civil liberties violations, and the possible inability of fusion centers to demonstrate utility in the absence of future terrorist attacks, particularly during periods of relative state fiscal austerity. Fusion centers are state-created entities largely financed and staffed by the states, and there is no one "model" for how a center should be structured. State and local law enforcement and criminal intelligence seem to be at the core of many of the centers. Although many of the centers initially had purely counterterrorism goals, for numerous reasons, they have increasingly gravitated toward an all-crimes and even broader all-hazards approach. While many of the centers have prevention of attacks as a high priority, little "true fusion," or analysis of disparate data sources, identification of intelligence gaps, and pro-active collection of intelligence against those gaps which could contribute to prevention is occurring.

To me, this seems like more of what we have seen lately: a proclivity by government to want to cast a net over everyone hoping to find terrorists while labeling these surveillance activities as "terrorist surveillance" or, in this case, the sharing of "terrorism-related information." The fact is that, even if the term "terrorism" was well defined, the design of this program is to share all kinds of information -- not just "terrorism-related" information -- on all kinds of people -- not just "terrorists." This is further complicated by the government getting information that it is not permitted to collect by getting it from the private sector and possibly sharing information that the private sector would normally have no legal method of obtaining with the private sector.

In a related story, the government is continuing to fight for the right to get personal telephone, e-mail and financial records without a judge's approval (Feds fight ruling on information requests, by Larry Neumeister, Associated Press / USA TODAY,November 5, 2007).

Background On Fusion Centers

• Fact Sheet: National Strategy for Information Sharing, White House, Office of the Press Secretary, October 31, 2007. "New Strategy Builds On Progress To Establish Integrated National Capability For Terrorism-Related Information Sharing Among Federal, State, Local, And Tribal Officials, Private Sector, And Foreign Partners"
• NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR INFORMATION SHARING: Successes and Challenges In Improving Terrorism-Related Information Sharing (PDF) National Security Council October 2007
• Fusion Centers: Issues and Options for Congress, by Todd Masse, Siobhan O'Neil, and John Rollins, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL34070, July 06, 2007
• A Summary of Fusion Centers: Core Issues and Options for Congress, by Todd Masse and John Rollins, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL34177, September 19, 2007. "Summarizes the main points of CRS Report RL34070, Fusion Centers: Issues and Options for Congress."

A story in the Intelligencer, Wheeling News Register, Public Shut Out of Records, published November 4, 2007, details how West Virginia's public records law has not aged very well:

West Virginia’s FOIA law originally only contained eight reasons why a government agency could withhold information from the public. These exemptions mirrored several in the open meetings law, and also covered such areas as trade secrets, internal documents and “test questions, scoring keys and other examination data” used by schools and licensing agencies.

But the number of exemptions doubled in 2003 as lawmakers sought to protect “information that could be used in a terrorist act that would have a detrimental effect on public safety or public health.”

“The reaction to 9/11, and perhaps the reaction to identity theft, seem to be more of a knee-jerk reaction,” said Patrick McGinley, a West Virginia University law professor who has helped state residents pursue FOIA requests in court. “The question in those cases really ought to be, is there a compelling reason to make these things secret.”

One of the original eight exemptions shields “information specifically exempted from disclosure by statute.”

Armed with that provision, legislators have peppered other sections of state code with 68 additional exemptions, the AP’s review shows.

This commentary on West Virginia was part of a 50-state study conducted in part by the National Freedom of Information Coalition. They found sad results nationwide:

Better Government Association and National Freedom of Information Coalition give 38 out of 50 states "F" grade in overall responses to FOI requests. Read more here.

America deserves better.