New on FDSys: October 16, 2005
This weekend, Free Government Information starts a new feature: notes on new activities on GPO's web site for the Future Digital System (FDSys). Although FDSys has its own blog, I recently found out the hard way that not everything new at FDSys shows up on their blog. So, as a service to those monitoring the progress of the development of the Future Digital System, FGI will begin tracking new items added to the FDSys web site and mentioning any items of interest each Sunday or so. Since we just began tracking the main FDSys web site, we're not sure these are really new files, but offer them for your consideration without further comment:
Open WorldCat – A way to add value to government documents
WorldCat is a like a giant library catalog to the holdings of 9000 member libraries worldwide. For years librarians and savvy library patrons have depended on this resource to find out-of-town materials. Recently as part of a strategy to bring the power of librarianship to the Web, OCLC introduced Open WorldCat, which has opened the catalogs of the world's libraries to major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This allows book results to pop up along side web search results. By entering their zip code, a patron can quickly and easily find the nearest library that holds the book. This month Open WorldCat went a step farther. They invited users (not just librarians) to add Amazon-style reviews and other details like table of contents. OCLC doesn't say whether this content will become searchable, but hopefully it will. I believe that this opens up some great opportunities for depository libraries. Especially ones with volunteers or many student assistants! We can immediately start adding value to the so-called legacy collection AND have those items appear in search results. Continue reading
Fall 2005 Depository Library Council Meeting October 16-19, 2005
Free Government Information is once again providing "grassroots proceedings" and audio recordings of sessions from the Fall 2005 Depository Library Council meeting in Washington, DC at the Hyatt Regency Washington. The meeting will begin Sunday, October 16, 2005 and end on Wednesday, October 19, 2005. This meeting is especially important because there will be many discussions about the vision for the future of the FDLP! If you are either attending or presenting at this conference, we want to hear from you! If you are interested in providing notes or audio recordings of any of the sessions below, please drop me a line at dnlcornwall "at" alaska.net. If you will be presenting at the Fall DLC Meeting, we would be honored to host any handouts you have. Just e-mail them to dnlcornwall "at" alaska.net with a note of which session your handout(s) belong to and we will post them within a day of receipt. Continue reading
Daniel’s Take: Managing Collections and Delivering Content
The comments below reference the Managing Collections and Delivering Content section of the September 2005 Depository Library Council publication The Federal Government Information Environment of the 21st Century: Towards a Vision Statement and Plan of Action for Federal Depository Libraries. Discussion Paper Prior comments on this discussion paper:
Of all the sections in the DLC discussion paper, Managing Collections and Delivering Content is the most disappointing. This was the place for a ringing endorsement of local, geographically disbursed, deposit of fully functional electronic files free of Digital Rights Management (DRM) that local depositories could make available on the Internet. I hope and pray that such a vision of the future can embrace such a simple, yet essential element. If not by the Depository Library Council, then by ALA GODORT or some other documents-oriented organization. Continue reading
Daniel’s Take: Deploying Expertise and Conclusion
September 11, 2005 / Leave a comment
The comments below reference the Deploying Expertise section of the September 2005 Depository Library Council publication The Federal Government Information Environment of the 21st Century: Towards a Vision Statement and Plan of Action for Federal Depository Libraries. Discussion Paper Prior comments on this discussion paper:
- General comments
- Library Roles in the Non-Exclusive Environment
- Adding Value
- Managing Collections and Delivering Content
The Deploying Expertise section of the DLC discussion paper has much to recommend it. It acknowledges that the web hasn't made our expertise obsolete and offers a number of practical ways we can reach out of the "documents ghetto." Continue reading →Continue Reading →