Happy Holidays from the Lost Docs Team-

In addition to our usual monthly report, we at the Lost Docs Project Blog will from time to time revisit, check, and update posted document receipts that at the time of their corresponding monthly reports were still classed as fugitives. The following report focuses on the receipts posted April-May, 2010.

Report/Update

Of the 54 fugitive document titles from receipts posted April-May, 2010, 37(69%) of the titles have had records added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), as of this report. 17(31%) remain fugitives.

We are appreciative of those records that have been created and added to the CGP. Found documents can be viewed by looking at the blog posts with April and May, 2010 dates at http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and/or view a listing by visiting https://sites.google.com/site/founddocslisting/

Cataloging times

39% of the items cataloged from the April and May 2010 posted receipts were cataloged between 50 and 100 days. A more detailed breakdown is provided below. Note: 38 items are represented below, as one of the receipts was for both the electronic and print versions of an item/title. Both formats have now been cataloged.

less than or equal to 15 days
7(18%)

>15 days but less than or equal to 50 days
2(5%)

>50 days but less than or equal to 100 days
15(39%)

>100 days but less than or equal to 200 days
7(18%)

>400 days but less than or equal to 500 days
7(18%)

If you report a fugitive document to GPO, please 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 receive it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."

Note: This post is a longer response to a recent comments left on the LJ article written by Jim A. Jacobs and Melody Kelly.

Recently, Library Journal published a short article that Melody Kelly and I wrote (The Future of the FDLP: From Conversation to Confrontation). In such a short opinion piece, we did not have the space to document our arguments and expand on our reasoning. Since the article was posted, it has received a few comments. So we are using this post to expand on our LJ piece a bit and re-post here our replies to those comments.

As we said in LJ, the discussions about shared regional depositories have morphed from a conversation into a confrontation. This was our main point. As Daniel Cornwall said here recently, just as GPO needs to work with FDLP, so all FDLP libraries should be working with GPO, not working against it. We are concerned that the tactics adopted by ARL and many of the association's prominent members are more confrontational than cooperative and that such tactics may harm GPO at a time when it needs our support.

Some of the issues involved are complex and confusing and we imagine that many non-FDLP librarians -- and even some in the FDLP community -- find it difficult to follow the sometimes arcane, legal details of the arguments on both sides. This is particularly true when attempts are made outside the current GPO rules to redefine the scope or procedures of an existing Regional.

Because the FDLP is based upon federal law in Title 44 of the US Code, any changes in the role of the regional depository libraries would require legislative revision and will therefore be slow. As the FDLP community knows from past experience, legislative revisions to Title 44 must be carefully orchestrated, may take several Congressional sessions, will require the support of the entire FDLP community working with GPO and Congress, and is probably unlikely. But there is much that can be done, and done now -- by individual libraries and groups of libraries and by GPO that will move us all forward toward our shared goals of permanent no-fee access to government information regardless of format.

Moving forward together.

In comments to the LJ article, Bill Sudduth and John Burger said that the article has inaccuracies, innuendos, and fabrications. Mr. Sudduth says that we raise "narrow issues" and straw-man arguments and implies that we have irrelevant standards of "satisfaction." Strong words! But we believe that both Mr. Sudduth and Mr. Burger badly misinterpret our concerns. Here is our reply to their comments:

The comments of Mr. Burger and Mr. Sudduth imply that we object to the goals of the ASERL proposal, but we do not. We share their goals. We have expressed concerns about whether or not the ASERL plan will accomplish its goals. They have not addressed what we see as legitimate concerns.

As government information librarians who have for years been urging GPO and FDLP libraries to move to a digital FDLP, we support the goals of ASERL to improve bibliographic control of our collections and to provide digital access to older printed materials and we share the frustration of not being able to move forward more quickly. But as digital librarians who have created and managed government-information digital-library projects and who have a combined professional experience of over 40 years of designing, building, supervising, and evaluating digital library and digital preservation projects of all kinds, we also question some of the specific means ASERL is proposing to reach those goals.

The good news is that ASERL can accomplish the majority of its goals (create better inventories of their collections, increase and enhance cataloging, digitize documents to provide "additional access points") without GPO approval. They can also build their Centers of Excellence under existing FDLP procedures for Shared Housing Agreements.

The only thing they cannot do without GPO's (or, indeed, the Joint Committee on Printing's) consent, is weed the existing print collections in the regional depositories. Although Mr. Burger says that ASERL does not "advocate" "wholesale weeding" or replacing tangible copies with digital surrogates, we believe the plan will permit just that. Indeed, the ASERL Implementation Plan explicitly allows for "the region" to have "at least two complete cataloged sets of print publications." To us, this explicitly permits a reduction from twelve copies to two. Although the Plan allows for the possibility of retaining more than two, it does not require more than two nor does it justify how only two copies might be adequate.

We are further led to this conclusion because for years we have read how ARL libraries advocate weeding their collections, minimizing the number of paper copies, and using digital surrogates to replace paper. (See for example Burger; Schonfeld Documents for a Digital Democracy; ARL; Russell 2003; and Russell 2004.) Now that ASERL has a concrete proposal that could apparently do just that, we are concerned that the plan lacks the necessary safeguards that would ensure it can meet the needs of users for both paper and authenticated digital copies.

We suggest that ASERL continue to move forward now on its project goals that do not require GPO's approval, and simultaneously work with GPO and the entire FDLP community to resolve the legitimate, long-term issues regarding digitization and national collection preservation. This will benefit not just ASERL but all FDLP libraries and all users of government information, both now and in the future.

--Posted by Jim Jacobs on December 18, 2011 07:45:40PM

Concerns about weeding.

As noted above, we are concerned that the ASERL proposal in particular will result in weeding from regional depositories. One of the issues we raised in LJ was that we do not yet have adequate information to justify reducing the number of paper copies in the FDLP system. We believe that we need to be cautious about weeding and should determine how many paper copies are needed to ensure both preservation and access. There are studies that address this issue (e.g., Schonfeld What to Withdraw, Schottlaender, Yano) but we believe there are two reasons that they do not provide adequate information to apply them to our FDLP paper collections.

First, these studies mostly focus on substituting digital surrogates for paper journals articles. While scholarly journals are a relatively homogeneous body of literature about which we can make generalizations, government publications present a very heterogeneous body of literature about which it is difficult to generalize. By focusing on journals, they do not address the particular qualities of government publications and our ability to produce even adequate digital copies of them. These qualities include:

• We lack adequate bibliographic control and granularity of descriptive information for much of our collections making it more difficult to control, preserve, and provide access to digitized collections;
• Government publications come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes and bindings (and non-bindings) and types and have many serials and multi-volume sets and looseleaf updates making them difficult to digitize adequately at a reasonable cost (GPO, 2004);
• Many publications are old and have brittle and yellowed paper which will be more difficult to accurately digitize;
• Many publications have tables of statistical information which is difficult or expensive to digitize accurately. (See below for more information about this);
• Many publications also have charts, graphs, photographs, drawings, models, and other types of images and too little is known about how to digitize them accurately.

Second, these studies rely on having a perfect digital copy as a preservation copy. For reasons we explain below ("concerns about digitization"), we believe it is premature to assume we can create such digital copies for government publications.

When we consider weeding our valuable collections we need to consider access as well as preservation. It is not just about keeping an emergency copy-of-last-resort in a vault or about Title 44 legal requirements. It is about keeping an adequate number of working, usable, loanable copies geographically near their users. We do not think this is a controversial position. Even Mr. Burger says libraries need to retain an adequate number of paper copies for direct user examination. So the issue is, How do we determine what "an adequate number" is?

To summarize, we believe we should be cautious about weeding and discarding paper copies. We do not believe this is a contentious issue, but we do believe that any given project that involves any weeding of Regionals (which were, after all, established to guarantee preservation and access of these materials) should have adequate accountability and be approved by GPO. We believe that we should move cautiously so that we avoid actions that we will regret later. We are reminded of what Judith Russell, the chair of the ASERL Deans FDLP Steering Committee, said when she was Superintendent of Documents at GPO:

"Many years ago GPO turned over its historical collection to the National Archives and almost immediately we began to regret the absence of a tangible collection. We have decided to re-establish a comprehensive collection of tangible and electronic documents as a collection of last resort for the program, and the new organization will dedicate staff resources to that effort." (Russell, 2003)

Concerns about digitization.

Another concern we expressed in the LJ article was that we do not yet have enough research to guarantee we can make accurate, usable digital copies of government publications.

We are particularly concerned with the accuracy of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of the many statistical tables in government publications. The key study of this issue was done at Yale (Green, Linden) and demonstrates the difficulty and expense of accurately digitizing statistical tables. Shafait has studied the difficulty of just locating tables during scanning. Bicknese noted the difficulty of OCR scanning of tables and so excluded tables from a sample in testing the accuracy of Making of America OCR scans. In trying to determine OCR accuracy, Blando found that many tables were illegible and generally useless. In a 2004 study, Joseph examined quality of images and figures in journals scanned by Elsevier after removing paper copy journals to a remote location. He found that 73.6% of the issues had at least one image with unacceptable quality. In a test of OCR accuracy for searching only, the Harvard LDI team excluded 19th century materials because they assumed that failure rates would be higher for them because of the lower contrast of older printed pages. Schonfeld, in a study of "What to Withdraw," notes that too little is known about the share of the intellectual content of charts, graphs, data tables, photographs, drawings, models, and other types of images that is captured by existing scanning and format standards. And Tanner looked at the OCR accuracy of "groups of numbers" in scanned online newspapers, and found the accuracy only 64.1% for 19th century newspapers and only 59.3% for 17th and 18th century newspapers.

(It is important to understand that digital images of statistical tables -- if legible to the eye -- will probably serve the needs of many users and are welcome as an additional access point to government information. Our concern here is not about adding an access point that is at least as good as, but no better than, the paper copies. That can be done now without the approval of GPO. As noted above, we do have concerns about that, too, because even that low standard often results in illegible images (GPO 2004, Joseph) which means that users will need to have paper copies to consult and libraries will need paper copies to re-digitize to fix errors. But we are expressing a separate concern here.)

Our concern here is with the accuracy of the actual numbers if a user wanted to (for example) cut and paste those numbers. Our concern is that the tables contain a wealth of metadata about the numbers themselves and this information is rarely captured and associated with the number in a usable way. Searching for statistical information can be greatly hindered without accurate information about the numeric information.

In short, if all we want is to make simple images of our documents more available, then almost any legible scan will suffice. But, if we want to do more than create surrogates for paper, if we want to turn paper into usable and re-usable, machine-actionable digital objects, if we want to go beyond replicating paper in the digital world, we can only do so if we have a reliable way of creating accurate, functional digital objects -- and we do not yet have a single, reliable, affordable way of doing that (Green). That means that any scanning we do today will have to be re-done sometime in the future with new technologies that are capable of better, more accurate conversions of documents to usable digital objects. (This is not a hypothetical concern; we have already seen that the National Archives digitized documents as recently as the 1990s using then-current technology that makes them difficult to read online. [Marks]) And that means that we need to account for digitizing at least twice (and possibly multiple times) and we have to make sure we have enough usable print copies around for those re-digitizations. Saving enough copies to ensure we can do this is essential because several digitization methods, particularly high-quality digitization, effectively destroy the documents and older, more brittle documents are at a greater risk of destruction with any digitization.

In summary, we believe that digitization projects should account for preserving an adequate number of paper copies for re-digitization with better technologies in the future and for direct user examination when digitization is flawed or inaccurate. And we believe that, as we work toward a fully digital FDLP, we must aim for fully functional digital objects and not be satisfied with simple digital surrogates of paper.

Concerns about authentication.

Being able to authenticate digital documents is very important and not something that can be ignored until later or done retrospectively. It should be relatively easy for GPO to work with the FDLP community to create a Superintendent of Documents Policy Statement ("SOD") that would provide authentication credentials in the form of Preservation Description Information (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) when an FDLP library digitizes a legally deposited paper document (GPO 2004). Such a SOD could specify chain of custody and provenance through a documentable workflow, consistent metadata standards, and a digital signature. It could also specify that participating libraries would sign on as "digital partners" with the GPO and be recognized as such. Standards such as these would provide documented assurance to users of the authenticity of digitized documents and would provide the participating FDL host institution a framework for a continuing commitment to funding and staffing to ensure these digital collections are maintained as technologies evolve.

Moving forward now.

As noted above, there are many things that libraries can do today.

ASERL, for example, can enhance bibliographic access and improve its inventory of its existing collections without asking permission from GPO;

Libraries can scan documents to provide an additional access point today and many are doing so. (See the Digitization Projects Registry at the FDLP web site;)

Existing procedures allow libraries to house documents in shared facilities using "Selective Housing Agreements" (GPO, 2011);

GPO can work with the FDLP community to add and modify Superintendent of Documents Policy Statements to account for digitization, authentication, and digital deposit; and

The FDLP community can use existing studies that examine replacing print with digital surrogates as a starting point and contribute to this knowledge base by systemically researching the issues specific to our older, paper collections.

We can do all this without turning GPO into an adversary. To repeat what Daniel Cornwall said here on this same issue:

We at FGI yield to no one in our desire for a fully functional digital FDLP. We have been advocating that for seven years and are just as anxious -- if not more so -- as anyone to move forward to the next phase of the FDLP. Over the years, we have criticized GPO and its policies -- and will continue to do so when we believe such criticism is warranted. But our intention has always been to challenge GPO to do more and to do better, and to work with FDLP libraries, not work against them or arrogate responsibilities from them. Just as we want GPO to work with FDLP libraries, we want FDLP libraries to work with, not in opposition to, GPO. We at FGI believe that the future of the FDLP will be most secure if GPO and FDLP libraries work together to a common end.

We all in the FDLP community share a common set of goals and beliefs about the value of government information. We can do this together.

-- Melody Specht Kelly – Documents Librarian University of North Texas Libraries 1974 – 2001; Associate Dean of Libraries, 2001 – 2009. Adjunct Professor College of Information, 1984 – present: “Government Information Services.”

-- James A. Jacobs. Librarian Emeritus University of California San Diego 2006- present; Center For Research Libraries, Technical consultant for digital library certification and long-lived repositories 2008- present; Instructor ICPSR Summer Program "Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation," 1990- present; Data Services Librarian, University of California San Diego 1985-2006.

---

endnotes

Association of Research Libraries, "Future Directions for the Federal Depository Library Program." (December 2008).

Bicknese, Douglas A., Measuring the Accuracy of the OCR in the Making of America, Ann Arbor, Mich.,: University of Michigan, School of Information (1998)

Blando, Luis R., Junichi Kanai, Thomas A. Nartker, and Juan Gonzalez, "Prediction of OCR Accuracy."

Burger, John, Paul M. Gherman, and Flo Wilson, ASERL's Virtual Storage/Preservation Concept, ACRL Twelfth National Conference, Minneapolis, MN (April 2005).

Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System, (OAIS) CCSDS 650.0-B-1 BLUE BOOK, January 2002. CCSDS Secretariat (2002).

Green, Ann, Sandra K. Peterson, and Julie Linden. Supporting Economic Development Research: A Collaborative Project to Create Access to Statistical Sources Not Born Digital, A Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. New Haven, CT: Yale University (2005).

Joseph, Lura E., "Image and Figure Quality: A Study of Elsevier’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Electronic Journal Back File Package" Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 30 (September 2006), 162-168.

LDI Project Team. Harvard University Library, Measuring Search Retrieval Accuracy of Uncorrected OCR: Findings from the Harvard-Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf Digitization Project. (August 2001).

Linden, Julie, and Ann Green, "Don’t Leave the Data in the Dark", D-Lib Magazine, 12 (2006).

Marks, Joseph. "National Archives' first Wikipedian in residence to bring more holdings to the public", NextGov (07/11/2011).

Russell, Judith. Remarks by Judy Russell, 142nd ARL Membership Meeting, 142nd ARL Membership Meeting, Federal Relations Luncheon (May 15, 2003).

Russell, Judith C. Preservation And Authentication Of Government Information: Are We Ready For The 21st Century?, IS&T Archiving Conference, San Antonio, Texas, (April 23, 2004) The Society for Imaging Science and Technology.

Schonfeld, Roger C., and Ross Housewright, Documents for a Digital Democracy, Ithaka S+R (December 17, 2009).

Schonfeld, Roger C., and Ross Housewright, What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization, Ithaka S+R, (September 29, 2009).

Schottlaender, Brian E.C., Gary S. Lawrence, Cecily Johns, Claire Le Donne, and Laura Fosbender, Collection Management Strategies In A Digital Environment, A Project Of The Collection Management Initiative Of The University Of California Libraries, Final Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. University of California, Office of the President, Office of Systemwide Library Planning (January 2004).

Shafait, Faisal, and Ray Smith. "Table Detection in Heterogeneous Documents", 9th IAPR Workshop on Document Analysis Systems, DAS'10. Boston, MA, USA, (June 2010).

Tanner, Simon, Trevor Muñoz, and Pich Hemy Ros, "Measuring Mass Text Digitization Quality and Usefulness", D-Lib Magazine, 15 (2009).

U.S. Government Printing Office, Office of the Superintendent of Documents. Legal Requirements & Program Regulations of the Federal Depository Library Program. Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office (June 2011).

U.S. Government Printing Office. Report on the Meeting of Experts on Digital Preservation: Metadata Specifications, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (14 June 2004).

Yano, Candace Arai, Z.J. Max Shen, and Stephen Chan, Optimizing the Number of Copies for Print Preservation of Research Journals, Berkeley, CA: University of California Berkeley, Industrial Engineering & Operations Research (October 2008).

Update: Jim Jacobs made some small changes to the above item for clarity on January 2, 2012.

Amidst the turmoil of GPO Public Printer Bill Boarman being forced to step down after not receiving a vote on his confirmation, there's this news that GPO's 2012 appropriations have been drastically cut.

While Boarman's approval did not go through Congress, GPO's fiscal 2012 funding did, in a spending bill approved by the House and Senate, known as an omnibus because it consolidates a majority of individual spending bills. The bill secured Senate passage Dec. 17 in a 67-32 vote a day after the House approved it 296-121. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

The bill funds GPO at $90.7 million in fiscal 2012. The budget authority is almost $45 million less than GPO's fiscal 2011 funding level of $135 million, and close to $48 million less than the White House's fiscal 2012 budget request of $148.5 million. GPO will also get $500,000 to its revolving fund for information technology development, according to a report (.pdf) accompanying the bill.

House Appropriations Committee's majority spokesperson Jennifer Hing said language in an earlier House version of the bill requiring the Government Accountability Office to conduct a feasibility study on GPO operations stands.

In July, the House legislative branch appropriations bill, H.R. 2551 (.pdf), highlighted the need to modernize GPO programs. In the report (.pdf) accompanying the bill, lawmakers said they had "some concern about the future of the GPO as a viable printing operation for the federal government." It also suggested GPO might be privatized, since it already contracts out more than 90 percent of its printing requisitions.

Committee members said a GAO report should examine whether the General Services Administration could take over printing duties for the executive branch and the remainder of the GPO could be privatized. Such a plan would involve transfer of the Superintendent of Documents program to the Library of Congress.

Via INFOdocket.com

From The Washington Post:

The head of the Government Printing Office is out of a job — and he says he doesn’t know why.

Nobody on Capitol Hill or at the White House has told William Boarman why senators didn’t vote to confirm him before they left town over the weekend. President Obama granted Boarman a recess appointment earlier this year, after an April 2010 nomination to lead the agency responsible for printing government documents, training manuals, passports and maps.

By law, recess appointees not confirmed by the end of the next Senate term must step down. In November, two GOP senators dropped a hold on Boarman’s nomination and seemingly assured his eventual confirmation. But Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said late Saturday that fresh concerns with the nomination meant it wouldn’t happen.

Read the Complete Washington Post Article

See Also: News Release from the GPO

Bill Boarman has been honored to serve as the 26th Public Printer of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) for the last year. Having been nominated originally 20 months ago, having been reported out of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee unanimously twice, and not having been permitted to learn and respond to the nature of the objection to his confirmation, Boarman is disappointed in the result of Saturday’s Senate action. Nevertheless, he is proud of GPO's accomplishments this past year as the digital information platform for the Federal Government.

See Also: Comments by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Published in Congressional Record (December 17, 2011)

REPORT

For November, we posted 6 reports from librarians to GPO reporting documents that had seemingly fallen through the cracks of the cataloging process. The reports were originally sent to GPO during November 2011.

This month, of the 6 reported documents posted by us, one has been cataloged for the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), and 5 remain listed as "fugitive documents." To find out more about these fugitive titles visit the Lost Docs Project Blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and view those posts with November 2011 dates.

The one cataloged title is…

Legislative proposals to determine the future role of FHA, RHS, and GNMA in the single- and multi-family mortgage markets [electronic resource] : hearing before the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing, and Community Opportunity of the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, first session, May 25, 2011. Y 4.F 49/20:112-32

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo14993

Please remember that our listing of "fugitive documents" reports is only as complete as you make it.

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.

FYI readers. GPO announced today that their legacy system, GPOAccess, is soon to go archive only. This has been a long and involved process to build FDsys, move content from GPOAccess over to the new platform and now finally sunset the older system. This has been a real community effort with much work by GPO staff as well as continuous beta testing and other input from the FDLP community.

On Friday, November 4, 2011, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) draws one step closer to shutting down GPO Access. Once the Friday editions of daily updated content (e.g., Federal Register, Congressional Record) have been uploaded, GPO will cease updating GPO Access in terms of both database content and HTML pages. This will mark the start of the archive only phase of GPO Access and new content will only be loaded to FDsys. During this phase, GPO Access will remain publicly accessible as a reference archive.

In order to make the switchover from GPO Access to FDsys as seamless as possible for users, GPO is in the process of creating one-to-one redirects from GPO Access content to the FDsys equivalent. This will ensure that bookmarks, Web links, URLs in print publications, and other GPO Access references point to valid Web resources. Once this has been completed, GPO Access will be taken offline. A date has not yet been established for the final shutdown of GPO Access; however, it is slated for fiscal year 2012.

Libraries should take this opportunity (if they have not already done so) to review their Web sites, presentations, brochures, and other materials that reference GPO Access and work to update or replace these materials. This includes imagery and URLs.

• Download FDsys logos
• View instructions on how to create links to FDsys content
• Download or order FDsys brochures

Thank you for your patience and assistance while we make this transition.

Via INFOdocket.com

The full text of a letter dated November 2, 2011 from Joyce L. Ogburn, ACRL President to William Boarman, Public Printer of the United States and Mary Alice Baish, Superintendent of Documents is now posted on the ACRL Insider blog.

Before sharing the full text of the letter, Ogburn writes:

We recognize that there are members who fall on both sides of the issues as recently stated by other associations and consortia. Over the past few weeks we have been considering how to proceed – reviewing the current situation, what ACRL has done in the past, and giving careful thought to approach we should take.

We decided that ACRL needs to lend its voice to the conversation and that we have precedent to guide us. Our past actions and letters urged GPO to look to the future and work with libraries to develop collaborative models for managing federal documents. We believe the best approach is to continue in the same vein, an approach that is quite reasonable and measured, as ACRL is known to be.

Here are Two Paragraphs From the Letter Sent to Boarman and Baish:

ACRL believes that the future of libraries will be based in innovative uses of technology and intensive collaboration across geographic boundaries. The multi-state models for managing federal documents that libraries have developed address the pressing issues of the economic climate, the imperative for wider collaboration, and the improvement of access to these critical resources. We view these as necessary and viable partnerships that will sustain library collections and services and will create enduring programs of access and preservation.

[Clip]

We understand that many people in the library community are concerned about the long-term quality of government information services, and ACRL is convinced that the quality of services associated with collaborative efforts will be stronger than stand alone efforts. ACRL urges the GPO to work closely and openly with depository libraries to explore and establish new models. It is essential that we leverage the possibilities inherent in 21st century practices to serve our citizens now and well into the future.

Direct to Complete Blog Post (incl. Letter)

REPORT

For October, we received and posted 7 reports from librarians to GPO reporting documents that had seemingly fallen through the cracks of the cataloging process. The reports were originally sent to GPO during October 2011.

This month, of the 7 reported documents posted by us, one has been cataloged for the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), and 5 remain listed as "fugitive documents." One was a "false positive". To find out more about these fugitive titles visit the Lost Docs Project Blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and view those posts with October 2011 dates.

Please remember that our listing of "fugitive documents" reports is only as complete as you make it.

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.

An online petition in support of GPO has been created by Suzanne Sears and Starr Hoffman at the University of North Texas. Of most interest is the question at the end of the letter: "If you are a selective in the FDLP, are you interested in working with other selectives in your state to share regional services in the absence of a regional?"

Along these same lines, for your reading pleasure, here's the running tally of documents surrounding the ASERL Plan for Managing FDLP Collections in the Southeast and the proposed MOU between University of Minnesota Libraries and Library of Michigan/Michigan Department of Education. Please let us know in the comments if there are other documents that should be listed.

• CRS Memorandum Nov. 6, 2007 (scroll down to Congressional Research Service Memo)
• ASERL Reply to GPO Oct. 21, 2011
• ASERL/GPO letters
• ARL Letter (There are other letters of support linked off of this page. The ASERL and CIC responses are both there)
• ASERL Support of ARL Letter Oct. 17, 2011
• CIC Support of ARL Letter
• GWLA Support of ARL letter
• Regional Letter signed by 31 of 47 regionals
• Suzanne Sears' posting to GOVDOC-L in response to the ARL letter dated October 2011
• Back from the brink! Recent discussions and the future of the #FDLP. Free Government Information, 10/6/11
• Library Journal articles:
  • 31 Regional Coordinators Protest FDLP Decisions. Library Journal, October 24th, 2011
  • Government Printing Office Slams Brakes on Overhaul of Southeast's Federal Depository Library Collections. Library Journal, Oct 21, 2011

TO:

Members of the Joint Committee on Printing
William Boarman, US Public Printer
Mary Alice Baish, Superintendent of Documents

We, the undersigned, wish to state our strong support of the Government Printing Office (GPO) in its Congressionally-mandated authority of administrating the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), which operates under the specific legal parameters of Title 44 U.S.C. Chapter 19. All government agencies must operate within legal parameters and limited funds assigned to them, and GPO is no different.

While we acknowledge that there are long-standing problems with the FDLP and the Title 44 legislation, we believe that the current administration of GPO is making a concerted effort to rectify these issues while adhering to the current legal parameters. On Thursday, October 20, 2011, the current Superintendent of Documents, Mary Alice Baish, announced a plan to gather information from all libraries currently participating in the FDLP to begin the process of Title 44 reform. Previous attempts at revising the legislation for the FDLP has revealed three factors critical to successful reform: clear vision of what needs to be changed, consensus among the community, and members of Congress who support the legislative changes. The announced plan would be the first step in getting a clear vision of the major issues that need to be addressed according to a consensus of the community.

We understand that the situation that regional libraries find themselves in appears to be dire. Libraries across the nation are suffering from a lack of adequate space, funding, and staff. The responsibilities that Title 44 places on regional libraries are not insignificant. However, they are necessary to ensure a strong FDLP. These responsibilities are crucial to maintain no-fee permanent public access to government information and to ensure geographic distribution of comprehensive collections. Geographic distribution is essential particularly for the guarantee access of individuals with limited connectivity or who live in rural areas.

We fundamentally disagree with the statement that there is no flexibility within the existing FDLP. Any regional library that finds itself unable to fulfill its assigned duties of receipt, retention, and oversight of selective libraries has the option to drop its regional status and become a selective library or drop from the program entirely. The FDLP is designed so that selective libraries may maintain depository status and receive federal documents while being tasked with fewer demands on their space, staff, and fiscal resources. Selective libraries are an integral part of this program and are the face of government information for a wide portion of the U.S. population, particularly in rural areas. Libraries can continue to serve their patrons with the same level of high-quality service and collections whether they are selective or regional. Innovative solutions involving selectives have been successful in sharing regional services within a state, like in Oregon, where four institutions work together to share collections and services to provide regional services for the state.

We are concerned with the number of libraries dropping status, but there has historically been fluctuation within the program. The FDLP has survived these fluctuations for over 150 years. In the 2009 Biennial Survey, only 6 regional libraries indicated they were considering dropping their regional status. If the current economic climate necessitates these regional libraries and others dropping their status, then it will be a lamentable loss to the program and to the nation. However, if the remaining libraries in the program are fully committed to the program then the mission of no-fee permanent public access will still be maintained.

Recent letters and public statements may give the incorrect impression that the entirety of the government documents community is represented by those statements. We believe it necessary to draft this statement of support for GPO and the existing FDLP because our opinions are not supported by the letter signed by 31 of 47 regional libraries or the letters written by major academic library consortia. There are over 1,200 libraries in the FDLP. Some of those libraries are not as well funded, organized, or vocal as the larger academic libraries. This petition is an opportunity for FDLs not represented by those statements to demonstrate our support for GPO in its efforts to continue to lead the Federal Depository Library Program forward into the future.

1. Your Signature and Location
Your Signature and Location Name
Position (optional)
City/Town
State

2. If you are a selective library in the FDLP, are you interested in becoming a regional?
If you are a selective library in the FDLP, are you interested in becoming a regional? YesNo

3. If you are a selective in the FDLP, are you interested in working with other selectives in your state to share regional services in the absence of a regional?
If you are a selective in the FDLP, are you interested in working with other selectives in your state to share regional services in the absence of a regional? YesNo

We've been following with much interest and concern the ongoing and unfolding saga going on between the GPO, Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Association of Southeast Research Libraries (ASERL) (under the heading "future of the federal depository library program"). This post to Govdoc-l from Suzanne Sears (AUL for public services at University of North Texas and former chair of Depository Library Council) on October 20, 2011 is in response to the ARL Statement on Recent USGPO Decisions Concerning the FDLP dated
October 2011 (released October 12, 2011) and attempts to add context and correct some inaccuracies in the ARL statement.

From: Sears, Suzanne
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:00 AM
To: Discussion of Government Document Issues
Subject: RE: ARL Statement on Recent USGPO Decisions Concerning the FDLP

I have been reading over and over the statement released by ARL that Larry so kindly posted for everyone on GOVDOCL and feel strongly that there are inaccuracies in some of the statements that need to be addressed. The following is solely my opinion and not meant in any way to offend anybody, just my concern that some things are not quite right and need to be cleared up.

Point 1 refers to long standing precedent for the approval of multi-state regionals. In the meeting this week, Bernadine Abbott Hoduski spoke on this issue. Prior to 2008, there was no legal opinion on the multi-state regionals. In September 2007, then Acting Public Printer William Turri sent a letter to the JCP seeking approval of the Kansas-Nebraska proposal http://www.fdlp.gov/home/repository/doc_download/49-letter-from-acting-p.... The response letter from the Honorable Robert Brady to Public Printer Robert Tapella in February 2008 http://www.fdlp.gov/home/repository/doc_download/50-letter-from-the-hono..., states that the JCP sought legal guidance on this issue from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It further states "CRS concluded that neither the language nor legislative history of 44 U.S.C. 1914 supports GPO’s interpretation of the statute. After careful review, the Joint Committee finds the CRS analysis persuasive; if the Public Printer may not authorize shared regional depository libraries under 44 U.S.C.1914, the JCP cannot approve such action." Now that a legal opinion exists, GPO cannot simply ignore it.

In point 2, there is a quote from Title 44 regarding the authority of Senators to designate regional libraries. Part of that quote is "within the areas served by them." I am no lawyer, but I do know that Senators serve states, so the areas served by them would be the state that elected them. To me this means that Senators are not authorized to choose a library from outside their state to serve as a regional for their state. This is my opinion.

In point 3, the discussion of regionals and retrospective collections are brought up. The opening third paragraph makes it sound as though the requirement regarding comprehensive collections was decided within the last nine months. This is inaccurate. I served on the Depository Library Council from October 2008-July 2011. In a presentation given by Cindy Etkin at the Fall 2009 DLC meeting, she stated the following "regionals are required to retain what’s distributed to them and there is not an obligation to go back and collect materials prior to when they became a regional? As I’ve shown, it’s been in the guidelines and brought forward; and even as it is today, the regional itself does not have to hold the materials." She also discussed how the Depository Library Council developed guidelines around 1973 that recommended regionals collect retrospectively. After the meeting, the DLC asked Ric Davis to investigate this issue was it required or just a guideline. We were told during a phone conference call that the Legal Counsel's opinion was that it was a requirement. This was in 2009, not 2011.

I have to admit that point 4 totally confuses me. I do not understand where the legal opinion that multi-state regionals are not supported in the language of Title 44 precludes collaboration across state lines. GPO encourages collaboration among depositories. The Digitization Projects Registry is just one of the many tools GPO has developed to help foster collaboration between depositories, both selectives and regionals. Although the FDLP community may not be used by everyone, it is an attempt by GPO to bring depositories together to collaborate on topics.

Point 5 refers to "new unfunded mandates and requirements, especially without consultation." I am extremely confused with this point. I have had discussions with several individuals at the DLC meeting this week and the only thing I can figure out that point 5 is referring to is the new document that GPO released in June 2011 "Legal Requirements and Program Regulations of the Federal Depository Library Program." This document was released by GPO after consultation with the Depository Library Council. The DLC had been requesting GPO clarify the legal requirements since the Spring 2009 DLC meeting in Tampa. We had heard from the community that the FDL Handbook was too cumbersome to go through to pull out the regulations and that a more compact publication containing only the legal requirements was needed to discuss with our directors and deans. GPO created this document with feedback from the DLC and published it in June 2011. To be clear, these are long standing legal requirements and regulations that have been compiled into a new publication.

My issue with point 7 can be considered more an opinion rather than fact, based on my three years on DLC and my 27 years working with depository collections. I feel that GPO spends considerable time and effort on ways to engage and facilitate partnerships with the community for expanding the digital content. They are restricted in what they can do because of budget and law. They operate within strict legal parameters. For instance, the community has requested that GPO offer grants for digitization. GPO has no legal authority to do so, therefore they can not help in this way. The Digitization Projects Registry is improving due to constant consultation between the community and GPO. It is a tool for libraries to use to collaborate on digital efforts and to avoid duplication of effort.

I do understand the issues facing depositories, both selectives and regionals, regarding their individual institutions needs and the demands on budgets, staffing, and space of a depository collection. Like everyone in the depository community, I am desperate to find a successful solution to these problems to ensure the viability of the program. I am hopeful that the day long discussion Thursday will result in some positive solutions within the framework of Title 44. I want to echo my colleague Dan Cornwall's statement in his blog "Back from the Brink" http://freegovinfo.info/blog/17, developing a model for the future of the FDLP is going to require cooperation from libraries in the program and GPO. Now is the time we need to pull together and find a common ground for a workable solution. We need to work together to clear up misinformation, rumors, and innuendos that are causing several members of our community to feel personally attacked. As a community, we have disagreed many times over the years on what is the best solution to many problems, but we have never brought it to the point that it is now. I am extremely concerned that the contentious situation we find ourselves in is going to create an atmosphere among Legislators that the program is not worth spending tax payer dollars on and considerably effect the appropriations for vital services like FDSys and the FDLP.

Suzanne

Suzanne Sears
Assistant Dean for Public Services
University of North Texas Libraries
1155 Union Circle #305190
Denton, Texas 76203-5017