The Government Printing Office posted the following announcement to their FDLP-L list that seemed worth sharing:

From: Announcements from the Federal Depository Library Program On Behalf Of FDLP Listserv
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 8:50 AM
To: GPO-FDLP-L@LISTSERV.ACCESS.GPO.GOV
Subject: Training Sessions from the Six-State Virtual Conference Available

The six states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming recently held an online conference using the OPAL web conferencing software. Over 5 days, the Six-State Virtual Government Information Conference ran 17 different programs covering numerous topics of interest to Federal depository libraries and government information professionals.

GPO is proud to have provided technical support for this online conference and we invite the wider FDLP community to view 15 archived sessions of the conference in the OPAL Archives at their convenience at http://www.opal-online.org/archivegpo.htm.

The topics of the sessions vary greatly to cover both hot issues in depository libraries as well as training on Federal information products. Examples include: the Sunlight Foundation's address on open access, demographic and business information from the Census Bureau, tracking the usage of your online depository collection, moving to a more electronic collection, FDsys, and marketing depository collections and services, to name a few.

Be sure to visit the Web page the conference organizers developed to accompany the virtual conference. The page includes links to the PowerPoint presentations, audio clips from government information specialists, a Twitter feed, OPAL information, and more. See
http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/conference/6state/index.htm

In addition to the above, there is a program on using PACER, the federal courts documents system. I've got a lot to learn about PACER and this session seems like a great place to start.

We at FGI have often spoken of the need for GPO to partner with depository libraries to provide training to the wider community. We salute GPO, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming for making this conference a reality and for sharing it with the wider govinfo community.

If you attended the conference or watched the videos, we'd be interested in your impressions and comments.

Note: There was no report for June 2010 owing to scheduling difficulties. Reports sent to us in late May through July were posted in July.

REPORT

In July 2010, we posted 32 "lost docs" e-mail receipts sent by GPO to the librarians who reported these missing documents. These civic minded librarians in turn e-mailed us their receipts.

Of the 32 reported items that were posted to the blog in July, two items have been cataloged by GPO since the initial report. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with July 2010 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

This month we reluctantly concluded that two of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in July were already in the Catalog of Government Publications. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with July 2010 dates.

We say "reluctantly concluded" because of two factors. First, the people who made these particular reports have a reputation for checking the catalog before submitting their reports. Second, both of these reports were for electronic documents and it appears from the 005 Marc fields that the records were worked on after the date of the fugitive document report. This almost sounds like URLs were added to a preexisting record. Were this the case, then we'd class these two e-docs as "found" rather than "false positive". But since the most recently published GPO cataloging policy we're aware of says they create new records for every format, we can't say for certain that adding a URL to an existing print record is what happened.

If you have a good explanation for these records or are aware of a change in GPO cataloging policy, please let us know.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

A number of documents reported to GPO in May/Jun/July and posted by us to the Lost Documents Blog in July 2010 were related to oil spills. Mostly to the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but some reported documents went as far back as 2002.

For a full list of what we know about, visit http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/tag/oil-spills/.

This is being posted without judgment as to why these documents have not been cataloged yet. We are not asserting ill will or a coverup on part of any part of the government just because these documents have not made it into the Catalog of Government Publications.

Having said that, we at Free Government Information urge GPO to catalog these documents as soon as possible so they'll be easier to find in literature searches about oil spills and government response.

For those looking for it, the full July 2010 Lost Documents Report and Appeal will be published later today.

For several years now, a number of librarians have gotten together to do "Day in the Life" blog posts. These efforts are documented at the Library Day in the Life wiki. They are now up to Round 5. I noticed that this round has several documents/government information librarians participating. As of this writing, they were:

• Elizabeth Psyck - Government Documents Librarian/Liaison Librarian - Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan
• Lynda Kellam - data services & govt info librarian, uncg
• Shari Laster - Government Documents/Reference Librarian, University of Akron (Ohio)

If you're one of our non-librarian readers, I strongly encourage you to read one or more of these "day in the docs" blogs to get a feel for what government information professionals do.

If you're a docs librarian not on this list and the project intrigues you, there is still time to join. Please leave a comment here if you do.

Disclosure: I too will be participating in Library Day in the Life, although I'm not currently working in government documents and even though library work is only part of my current official duties.

REPORT

We have now gone two months on the Lost Docs Blog, without a false positive. None of the 33 reports made to GPO and posted by us were in the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) at the time the report was made.

Five of the 33 reported items that were posted to the blog in April have been cataloged by GPO since the initial report. You can see the cataloged items by visiting http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking for items with a May 2010 date. We are appreciative of these items being cataloged.

There were six instances where a record for the paper item was in the CGP, but there was no indication this item was also available electronic. To view these items, visit http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/catalog-eversion/ and look for items with a May 2010 date.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

As I was tardily working on the May 2010 Lost Docs Report and Appeal, I noticed a few of pre-spill Minerals Management Service (MMS) documents dealing with the Gulf of Mexico reported to GPO that have not yet been cataloged. I'm posting links here in hopes that people may find them useful in the "Before and After" comparisons that will eventually be made.

Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Slope Habitats and Benthic Ecology Study. July 2009
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/4/4842.pdf

Post-Hurricane Assessment of Sensitive Habitats of the Flower Garden Banks Vicinity. July 2009
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/4/4851.pdf

Foraminiferal Communities of Bathyal Hydrocarbon Seeps, Northern Gulf of Mexico
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/4/4833.pdf

Lest anyone get the idea I'm accusing GPO of hiding MMS documents, I want to acknowledge that GPO has cataloged most of the MMS items reported to it that we are aware of. See http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/tag/minerals-management-service/ for titles received by the Lost Docs Blog.

I've been going through documents from the Spring 2010 Depository Library Council meeting from last month and was giddy at finding the following section in the Spring 2010 Library Services & Content Management Update (Statistical findings not bolded in original).

DOCUMENT DISCOVERY (LOSTDOCS)

Locating all content that falls within scope of the FDLP that has not yet been incorporated into the FDLP is an important initiative. For about a year now, GPO staff have been examining how these documents are brought into the Program in order to track, measure, and improve our business processes.

In quantity, the monthly lost/fugitive submissions continue to rise. Last year, GPO was receiving an average of about 80 lost/fugitive document submissions per month. This year, so far the average is about 125 per month, an increase of more than 50 percent.

The number of submissions undercounts the titles, because some single submissions for documents can represent multiple publications—it is not unusual to receive an entire web page listing or a bibliography in one lost/fugitive request. GPO staff work to unitize the submissions, research them, and consider each title for possible addition to the CGP.

GPO staff are analyzing the current lost/fugitive document workflow, to better understand where a title may get stalled. To establish a baseline for how long it takes for a typical lost/fugitive document request to get through technical processing from beginning to end (with current methods) staff took a sample of records that were cataloged in the last three months. The entire technical process includes scope determination, research, brief preliminary record, classification, cataloging for the CGP, and creation of OCLC record.

Results from the study included:
• It can take as little as two days for the entire process, but there is a wide variation, depending upon the title, the agency, and other factors such as additional required research with the agency, requiring a new class, requiring management review, and identifying a title based on partial submissions, to name a few.
• 20% were completed within 20 working days.
• 40% were cataloged within 40 working days.
• Within 60 working days, about half went through the process, most within 40 working days.
• The other half took much longer, up to 100 to 120 working days (see 1st bullet).

GPO anticipates that this processing time can be reduced with new procedures. Staff will continue to monitor and track the lost/fugitive documents through the workflow to verify whether the new procedures are helping to move titles through the technical processing steps more quickly.

For some time, GPO staff have been looking at making a number of technical processing improvements including utilizing tracking and management reporting tools. We are

• Mapping the workflow;
• Creating new forms to more precisely identify these titles and to elicit more information that will reduce research time; and
• Identifying key points in the process when FDLP librarians may want status reports.

The goal is to generate management reports for GPO to be able to identify where in the workflow lost/fugitive requests are at any time, and how many requests may be waiting for some specific action in the technical processing workflow.

As a future step, GPO is looking at ways to utilize the askGPO system to track and report on all lost/fugitive submissions and serve as one point of submission.

As we undertake improving the LostDocs processes, we also want to improve communications with FDLP librarians and with federal agencies that help us locate content not yet incorporated into the FDLP system.

The input form for submissions from librarians will be revised. Clear definitions for what is considered lost/fugitive documents will be provided. The process for handling submissions will also be clarified. Additionally, GPO will identify key points in the workflow when librarians would like to receive feedback in the form of emailed status reports. GPO will also develop improved methods of outreach and documentation of agency information for staff to use.

As part of this revitalization, GPO will be changing the name of the LostDocs Program to “Document Discovery Program.”

To me, this is terrific news for a number of reasons:

• GPO has gone public about what has happened to a number of "document discovery" submissions.
• They've admitted that the current workflow is a problem and that about half of reported documents are taking many months to catalog.
• They''ve outlined steps that, if followed, will probably result in better document discovery.
• They seem to have committed to better public reporting of what happens to documents submitted to them.

We at FGI will be watching with eager anticipation to see how these steps are carried out and will encourage our readers and submission heroes to go by new guidance issued by GPO when it becomes available. We also await the new Document Discovery reports with anticipation and may have a few suggestions about them in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we just want to say THANKS GPO for taking a hard look at this problem, admitting the problem to the community and starting the process to make things better.

We'd also like to encourage people submitting links to publications pages to GPO to instead try to submit one askGPO report per document. At least identify your top 3-5 for cataloging and then make note of where GPO can find the other publications. There are more of us documents librarians and document enthusiasts than there are GPO acquisitions staff. We should do some of the title level separation work. Perhaps dividing huge publication pages into manageable amounts could be a multilibrary or library school project.

Do you have any reactions to this news? What kind of statistics do you want to see? What points in GPO's process should trigger and e-mail notice? Should titles submitted be posted publicly as soon as they're received. Leave a comment or drop a line to lostdocs AT freegovinfo DOT info.

In the course of my work of maintaining the Lost Docs Blog, I came across the following publication:

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. After an [suicide] Attempt: A Guide for Taking Care of Yourself After Your Treatment in the Emergency Department. (SMA 08-4355; CMHS-SVP06-0157), Rockville, MD:
Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006. Reprinted 2009.

I noticed it had this public domain notice that I've seen on some government publications:

Public Domain Notice
All material appearing in this publication is in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied without permission from SAMHSA. Citation of the source is appreciated. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed for a fee without the specific, written authorization of the Office of Communications, SAMHSA, HHS.

As a general rule, publications produced by the federal government are in the public domain and copyright free. There are exceptions that you can read about in our online library.

It is a fact that not enough people realize the public domain nature of most government materials and so my reaction to this notice was initially very positive. I instinctively like the idea of labeling govdocs as public domain so that people and organizations (Google, I'm talking to you!) would feel free to reuse and remix without fear of consequences and not lock up content not meant to be locked up.

On the other hand, if only a handful of agencies use such notices for public education, it is conceivable that an environment would be created where only govdocs with public domain notices would be treated as public domain. I'm not sure if that's a danger, but I worry. The possible danger would be less if a public domain notice was required governmentwide.

What do you think? Are public domain notices on govdocs a good idea? Are they a good idea whether done governmentwide or by a few agencies? Would we be better off if there was a governmentwide policy to label the minority of copyrighted material in govdocs?

---

Note: Thanks to Vicki Tate for reporting this document to GPO and sending a copy of her receipt to the Lost Docs blog.

[Update 5/9/10: Thanks to Debbie Rabina for sending me a copy of her article and allowing us to post here (PDF). On a side note, how long will it be until ALA goes open access with all of their publications? Librarians should be walking the open access walk!]

I'd like to briefly commend this article from the Spring 2010 issue of DttP: Documents to the People:

Rabina, Debbie. "Ted Kennedy's Speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention: Researching Pre-digital government information in the Digital Age." DttP: Documents to the People (2010) v. 38, no. 1: 18-22.

This article is notable for two reasons. It is a fine example of using current events to leverage interest in government information. The article also serves as a good "how-to" guide on evaluating factual claims past and present. Aside from these two main benefits the article demonstrates the continuing relevance of print resources while showing the usefulness of electronic resources. It rejects a "paper vs. electronic" version of the world in favor of a "both/and" approach.

As far as I can tell, this article is not available electronically, but could be acquired through interlibrary loan at your local library.

DttP: Documents to the People is aimed at government information librarians, but I believe it would be useful to transparency advocates and researchers of all stripes. Check it out if you can. I find it an important benefit of my membership in the Government Documents Roundtable of ALA.

Several observers at the recently closed Spring 2010 Depository Library Council conference reported that GPO staff are asking people to use the askGPO form available at http://gpo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/gpo.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php when reporting fugitive documents instead of the LostDocs form. The LostDocs form may be in the process of being revised.

We at the LostDocs blog want to do whatever we can to ensure accurate reporting that gets to the right people at GPO. So we encourage people to use the askGPO form after first checking the Catalog of Government Publications.

When you get to the askGPO form, be sure to select "Federal Depository Libraries" as a category, then select fugitive publications/lostdocs as a subcategory. Then provide as much as you know about the document like title, producing agency, URL if there is one, author contact if available and so forth. Give GPO everything you think you would need or want to know to locate a copy of the document on your own.

askGPO also sends out e-mail receipts. So if you make a report through askGPO, we ask that you forward your askGPO receipt to lostdocs "AT" freegovinfo DOT info, so they can be posted to this blog.

One particularly exciting piece of news that came out of the Spring 2010 DLC was that GPO may institute statistical reporting for fugitive documents/documents discovery. All of us at FGI hope that this is true. GPO could give out a more complete picture of what is happening to reported documents than we can. We're a flashlight in the dark that highlights some documents but not others. A fully transparent GPO reporting program on fugitive documents could be the full light of day that would benefit everyone.