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Questions and answers about the future of FDLP
Roger C. Schonfeld, the Ithaka S+R Manager of Research, asked us several questions in a comment to a post here last week (Who Do You Serve and What Do You Do?: Defining Your Role to Defining Your Role to Ensure the Future of Our FDLP). These were good questions and we welcome the opportunity to spell out some specific ideas we have here at FGI about the future of the digital FDLP. Roger, Thanks for your comments and your questions. (And thanks for noticing that broken link! I fixed it.) Here are few quick responses to your questions. (I'll answer the question about libraries holding overlapping or even identical digital collections separately.) Q. Is your proposal that, as a condition of participation, every Federal Depository Library be required to hold locally at least some kind of sub-set of the digital/digitized collection? A. No: No more than we require every depository to have fiche. I do think, though, that it is not too idealistic to imagine a future when every FDLP library (or most of them, or hopefully at least hundreds of them) will have digital collections that include FDLP content. I think that digital deposit could become a standard part of depository status in a number of different ways, probably starting out slowly and building up over time. I think that the strength of the FDLP has been and will be its flexibility and a digital FDLP should have new kinds of digital flexibility. The design of exactly how to achieve that should be a process, not an either/or choice today. I would like to see us use a process different from the one we used to get microfiche into the FDLP because that process took years to implement. I would prefer to see a phasing in of digital deposit that would allow FDLP as a whole to move faster even as individual libraries moved at their own speed. I am not a lawyer, but I think that a simple change to SOD 301 to allow for digital materials to be deposited and for depositories to select digital format would be an easy first step. I would think that phasing in digital deposit would allow for the community as a whole to develop an infrastructure and skills and experience and a variety of models to accomodate different kinds of libraries and collections. Over time, I would guess, more libraries would develop the technical capacity to participate and would be eager to do so. Q. Or, do you see a complementary role for “virtual depository libraries” (see for example http://govdocs.library.arizona.edu/policy.html) and similar models that would rely on GPO and/or other libraries as collections providers? A. I would like to see a digital depository program that would be flexible enough to include all kinds and sizes of libraries. That will be its strength. I think the key to digital deposit is that a depository library would have physical control (in the OAIS sense) of the material. I would think that a digital depository system would be flexible enough to allow partnerships between libraries as well, so that "physical control" might include partnerships among libraries. That might mean, for example, that two library partners (libraries "A" and "B") might share physical control though a shared data center or a data center at one of the partners. The "control" would consist of their shared administrative decisions over what was in the data center, how that material is organized and described and preserved, and the methods of access to that material. I can imagine a single library participating in several different partnerships as well. For example, a library might be part of a national digital law library and a regional water-shed library, both of which might include FDLP materials. I do not think that any library can currently claim physical control over anything in FDsys or at any federal agency. I do think that there is a place for libraries maintaining links to digital materials not in their physical control and that this can enrich their services. But, since a) anyone can do that without being a depository library and b) the library has no control over the materials they point to, I don't think that providing such a service by itself is an accurate or useful way to characterize or define what it means to be an FDLP library. It might be possible to design a digital FDLP in which maintaining links to materials in FDsys (for example) would be one of many characteristics or even requirements of a being an FDLP library. I can also imagine, using the example above, that an FDLP library "C" might point to materials in the possession of libraries A and B as well as having its own digital collection. I can imagine a couple of things that GPO could do to make the just-pointing-to-FDsys "virtual depository" model a more reliable, more technologically sophisticated part of a fully functional twenty-first century FDLP: 1) GPO could make FDsys an "interoperable" archive (in the OAIS sense) that worked with FDLP digital repositories. 2) Once there are at least a few large FDLP repositories, the FDLP library community could become part of the GPO "succession plan" (in the TRAC sense of the term) so that materials that GPO could no longer keep or preserve or provide access for could be easily migrated to FDLP libraries for preservation and access. Individual FDLP libraries could also rely on GPO and, as we get more digital FDLP libraries, other FDLP libraries for their own succession plans. This would at least solve a bit of the problem of pointing to things not in one's control: you could be at least somewhat assured that they were in the possession of the FDLP library system and not at the mercy of a GPO budget cut or mandated mission change. Finally, in an FDLP with digital deposit, we could have something similar to what is possible with DOIs that would allow maintenance of pointers to more than one copy of any particular item at more than one repository. (http://freegovinfo.info/node/2947) Q. Now that GPO is making more of the digital content available for bulk download, I’m curious what success looks like from your perspective A. Bulk download is a great thing to have, but it is merely a useful method of delivery, not a system of or replacement for digital deposit. Almost certainly it would be a useful tool for a digital depository system, but it is not synonymous with or, necessarily, a precursor of digital deposit. The strength and importance and sustainability of a digital FDLP will be found in those things that FDLP libraries can do or guarantee that they will do that are not done or cannot be done by others. I would think that digital deposit would include more than the ability to download in bulk. For example, a digital deposit might involve the commitment by the FDLP library to maintain FDLP-specific metadata generated at the time of deposit. That might include identification of the materials deposited as officially depository items, when they were deposited, version information, original source url, fixity information, provenance, and so forth. It might involved participation in a shared DOI-pointer system as noted above. It might include shared, reliable union catalogs and inventories and full-text indexes that could be built and maintained across depositories because of the commitments made by the participants. Success of a digital FDLP would have to include: - Digital deposit of digital materials into the physical control of participating FDLP libraries. - Agreements between GPO and FDLP libraries, and, probably, among FDLP libraries, for preservation and access. - Accountability of FDLP libraries for preservation and access. - When fully implemented, a digital FDLP would, in the aggregate (across all participating libraries), guarantee that every Title-44 digital object would be in the physical control of the FDLP community in addition to or instead of the control of GPO. Success could also be measure by other benefits that would, I think, also accrue (to GPO, to the public, to participating libraries) once such a system was in place. For example, it would be easier to develop and enforce new publication and metadata standards that would make preservation and long-term usability easier. It would be easier to create publication processes to identify and distribute instantiations of content (an obvious example: Census summary files) rather than trying to scrape dynamic web sites (which is almost always incomplete and unsatisfactory). It would be easier for the public to find and rely on government information they needed. It would be easier for libraries to build and maintain complete collections of information for their designated communities. It would be easier to keep track of and preserve "fugitive" government information and non-Title-44 information. I don't want to minimize the tasks at hand to do what I am proposing. But I also urge you not to be overwhelmed by libraries and librarians and, particularly, library managers who think this is an impossible or never ending task. This isn't a unique situation. I saw a similar situation in when the "impossible/never-ending" problems were overcome and libraries embraced what they once did not: A couple of decades ago, there were very few numeric data collections in libraries, but today almost every ICPSR member is a library and there are many data libraries in libraries. The software for building digital libraries and trustworthy repositories exists and is being improved all the time. To mention just one specific example, the LOCKSS-USDOCS project is already working toward the model of a successful digital FDLP library that I describe here. Other events outside of libraries and overlapping with libraries (e.g. the open data movement, citizen mashup and tagging, new forms of scholarly publishing and open access publishing, institutional repositories, print on demand, mandated deposit of publicly funded data collections, the so-called data deluge, etc.) are beginning to affect libraries and their roles. Libraries already are embracing and building digital collections. While digital deposit might have seemed far-out and impossible in 1993, it is now within our reach. At FGI, we see digital government information as the canary in the library coal mine. If government information librarians work on and solve the digital ingest/preservation/access issues for government information, their libraries will be able to generalize those solutions to other digital library collections. That would be a HUGE benefit to libraries in general and a big incentive for libraries to continuing to participate in the FDLP. Everyone wins. Continue reading
Job Tracker Mashup
The AFL-CIO has a mashup that makes use of data from Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Notices, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Certifications, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Case Activity Tracking System (CATS) maintained by the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Department of Labor Enforcement Data website, the Department of Labor Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, CNN's Exporting America List, information from Local and National Newspapers, a database of news articles that report on companies exporting jobs maintained by The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, and others.
- Job Tracker. Find out which companies in your area are exporting jobs, laying off workers, endangering workers' health or involved in cases of violations of workers' rights. The database contains information on more than 400,000 companies nationwide. Enter your ZIP code to see the detailed information.
ALA Digital Libary of the Week: Homeland Security Digital Library
Digital Library of the Week: Homeland Security Digital Library, American Library Association (October 7th, 2010).
For the first time in its seven-year history, the Homeland Security Digital Library has opened a portion of its unique and unrivaled collection to the public. The HSDL is the nation’s premier collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy, and organizational management. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate (under FEMA) and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security, the HSDL is composed of homeland security–related documents collected from a wide variety of sources. These include federal, state, tribal, and local government agencies, professional organizations, think tanks, academic institutions, and international governing bodies. . Although largely comprised of reports, this specialized library also provides homeland security subject matter in other formats including videos, slide presentations, maps, databases, and statistics....Continue reading
The FCC, Net Neutrality, and Broadband Speed
Scientific American has an excellent editorial that ties together the strands of FCC regulation, the lousy broadband speed we get in the U.S., and Network Neutrality.
- Why Broadband Service in the U.S. Is So Awful And one step that could change it, The Editors, Scientific America (October 4, 2010) A decade ago the U.S. ranked at or near the top of most studies of broadband price and performance. But that was before the FCC made a terrible mistake. In 2002 it reclassified broadband Internet service as an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service." In theory, this step implied that broadband was equivalent to a content provider (such as AOL or Yahoo!) and was not a means to communicate, such as a telephone line.
Who Do You Serve and What Do You Do?: Defining Your Role to Ensure the Future of Our FDLP
October 7, 2010 / 2 Comments on Who Do You Serve and What Do You Do?: Defining Your Role to Ensure the Future of Our FDLP
The Defining Moment
As noted here recently, the depository community is into yet another round of trying to redefine the Federal Depository Library Program. (See: GPO contracts Ithaka S+R to develop sustainable FDLP models.)
This new project will question and evaluate the role that FDLP libraries will play in the lifecycle of government information. The definition of this role will determine whether or not FDLP libraries will deserve or get support from their constituencies. If they serve a useful function, they will get support; if they do not, they will not.
This is a defining moment. Libraries will not flourish or even survive because librarians like them, or because older people have fond memories of them, or even because we have a vague belief that they "should" survive. They will survive only if they fulfill a role in society that no one else fulfills as well -- or at all -- and if society recognizes and values that role.
Make no mistake about it: what is at stake is the survival of FDLP libraries. By defining the role of FDLP libraries, this project will determine whether or not there will be Federal Depository Libraries at all.
Defining the role of libraries
Typically, the roles of libraries are defined either in general terms of who the library serves or by enumerating specific tasks. You could call these the "who you serve" approach and the "what you do" approach. Each has advantages because each one can help focus our thinking and give us criteria against which we can evaluate our actions.
Since 1993, GPO has effectively defined a limited -- and shrinking -- role for FDLP libraries. The FDLP has always been a cooperative venture in which different partners (GPO, regional depositories, selective depositories) played different roles. But, since 1993, when The Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act (Public Law 103-40) was passed, GPO has arrogated to itself the role of permanent preservation of government information and essentially prevented FDLP libraries from undertaking that role by refusing to deposit digital materials with depository libraries.
But that is changing. Recent developments (for example, GPO collaborating with LOCKSS in the LOCKSS-USDOCS project) have demonstrated that GPO is open to sharing responsibility, is no longer committed to preventing libraries from participating in digital preservation, is open to "digital deposit," and is, in general, open to new roles for FDLP libraries. These "new" roles could look a lot more like the traditional roles of FDLP libraries. Yes, we need to change the FDLP for the digital age, but these should not be changes in our traditional roles (what we do: build collections and provide services for and stewardship of those collections) but changes in procedures (how we do these things using digital tools instead of paper tools). It is in those traditional roles that libraries have a unique value in society. The Ithaka/GPO project will define the role of FDLP libraries either in a way that will expand this new openness, allowing libraries to have the flexibility to participate actively, or in a limited and passive way in the mode of the 1993-2009 model.
1. Who do you serve?
In defining the general role of libraries (who a library serves), there is a popular tendency to focus on the parent institution. This is an easy role to justify and explain and it even lends itself to some degree of quantification and accountability. The recent report from the Association of College and Research Libraries, The value of academic libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report (by Megan Oakleaf, 2010) is a prime example of this view.
An alternative view is that libraries fulfill a larger role in society as a whole and thus serve more than their parent institution. The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians (by John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill, and Cindi Trainor, 2009) is one recent example of this broader view of the role of libraries in society. Barbara Fister, a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, has written eloquently about this. New initiatives such as the NSF's rules for sharing of data and creating explicit plans for managing data for the long-term are driving libraries to anticipate a larger role for libraries in fulfilling the societal need for long-term stewardship and curation of information of all kinds across the life-cycle of information. We can anticipate this as a coming major shift in focus and priorities from the local to the global role of libraries.
While these two different views need not exclude each other, in practice they sometimes do. It would be wiser to view these two ideas as complementary rather than incompatible. I would argue, in fact, that any definition of the role of libraries that excludes one or the other of these views will almost certainly be incomplete and fatally flawed.
The role of FDLP as a whole vs. the role of individual FDLP libraries
I would expect that most people in the depository community would assume that the role of FDLP must, by its very nature and purpose, reflect a society-as-a-whole mission and go beyond the missions of individual participants in the program. It will be hard for Ithaka S+R to suggest a model that avoids the big, societal role of the FDLP. But the details of how to fulfill that societal role is the issue. What specific tasks will Ithaka S+R define for depository libraries, on the one hand, and GPO and other (unspecified) "partners" (RFQ, page 5), on the other hand? These definitions will either open up the options for libraries or explicitly limit them.
Despite broad statements of the role of the FDLP as a whole, such as "create an informed citizenry and an improved quality of life" (RFQ, page 4), I think we may see considerable pressure to use a narrow definition of the role of the individual depository libraries. One reason for this is the recent history of GPO and the FDLP in which GPO took over complete control of long-term preservation and access to all digital information in the program and relegated libraries to a role of only providing customer service. Some will see this split of roles as a de facto standard that should be continued. I would argue that, while that split may have seemed appropriate 17 years ago, much has changed and libraries are now more tech-savvy and better equipped to take on digital challenges. Those who argue for the 1993 status quo are the true luddites. It is a time for change.
The pressure to limit the role of libraries will come, I think, from librarians who view the role of their own library as limited to fulfilling the mission of their own institution -- those who would like someone else to take on the big, societal mission. It will come from those who support the Oakleaf ACRL report and its institution-focus and emphasis on "return-on-investment, commodity production, [and] impact." It will come from library directors who, for legitimate but parochial reasons, want to weed depository materials from their collections and do not wish to invest in digital depository collections. It may come from Ithaka S+R itself whose Manager of Research, Roger Schonfeld, has already praised the ACRL report because it "clearly frames the purpose and value of the academic library in the context of the parent organization." And, it may even come from some at GPO, since it matches the model GPO developed in 1993.
But there are those who will be advocating a broader, more active role for FDLP libraries. Those of us who believe that a network of Congressionally-mandated libraries can provide a better, more secure, more robust, more flexible, more responsive system than GPO or GPO and a few commercial "partners" could provide by themselves. One way to do this is to focus on the specific tasks that those libraries might undertake.
2. What do you do? The specific tasks.
There are a number of options for the tasks and roles of libraries. Many of these have been been well articulated and tried with varying degrees of success. For example:
Defining our own future
Over the past two decades GPO has redefined the role that FDLP libraries play in the lifecycle of government information by reducing that role to one of providing service for collections held by GPO and others. FDLP Libraries have largely accepted this de facto redefinition of their role. Why? Because they have been caught in a perfect storm of inadequate budgets and staffing and training, demands from library administrators to reduce the size and footprint of paper collections, users who were quick to accept online access without demanding -- or even being cognizant of -- long-term preservation, and a GPO that promised it would single-handedly take on the pesky problem of managing and preserving a single digital collection for everyone while simultaneously providing "access."
That model is failing and GPO is now open to a new model that involves depository libraries as active participants again. We have an opportunity with the Ithaka/GPO project to take the lead in defining the future of our own libraries. In the last two decades, depository libraries have followed the lead of GPO and accepted a diminished role of providing services without collections. We have followed the lead of technologists and digital-pundits who like to call the Google Books project a "library" while simultaneously diminishing the importance of actual libraries that are accountable to their communities. In a chicken-and-egg situation, our diminished activities have made depository activities easy targets for budget cuts that further diminished our ability to provide adequate digital services. As the private sector steps into this gap, our services begin to pale in comparison. We have not adequately differentiated ourselves from the private sector and government digital services, preferring to piggy back on what they do, enforce their rights-restrictions and their privacy-encroaching policies. But that strategy has endangered the principles of the FDLP and reduced our ability to do what the private sector will not and the government cannot do alone. Now we have an opportunity to change all that.
Where GPO must have a one-size-fits all collection and service model, FDLP libraries can each focus on their own communities of interest. Where private sector companies limit access to those who pay and GPO is specifically authorized in the 1993 law to "charge reasonable fees," FDLP libraries are dedicated to providing information without charging. While the private sector, by definition, provides only those services that generate a profit, FDLP libraries are funded to provide services for their communities by leveraging the resources of the community for the benefit of all. A GPO-centered model of preservation is fragile because it has only a single budgetary authority and a single, monolithic "community." In contrast, a preservation model based on FDLP libraries has as many as 1000 budgets, 1000 communities, 1000 locations, 1000 systems, and 1000 reasons to survive and flourish. It is 1000 times more secure.
FDLP libraries can build new digital collections that combine Title-44-materials with non-Title-44 materials. GPO cannot do that. We can support our own communities-of-interest that need no longer be geographically based. GPO has to serve everyone and does not have the resources to focus on every potential community of interest. We can build services and functionalities for our collections that focus on our communities of interest. GPO must provide generic services and generic APIs. We can guarantee that we will preserve the information in our collections for as long as those materials are of interest to our communities. GPO cannot guarantee that Congress will continue to fund preservation for everything forever. In fact, the RFQ does not contain the words "preservation" or "long-term." We can assure our communities that we will preserve their privacy and provide information that is usable and without fees. GPO cannot make those guarantees. We can, collectively, do a better, more secure job of preserving government information for the long-term and assuring that it will be available and usable without fees than any single institution or agency can. Together, we can build a twenty-first century FDLP that will do for digital materials what the FDLP has always done: ensure long-term, free, public access to government information.
It should be clear to us that returning to a model in which FDLP libraries take an active role in building and preserving collections and providing services will provide clear benefits to users of government information. But the benefits go beyond providing access and services. A strong FDLP also benefits the participating libraries, and other non-participating libraries. GPO and the Depository Library Council are working to create a comprehensive list of benefits for libraries participating in the FDLP and benefits afforded to the public by having access to these libraries.
Start today!
While the Ithaka/GPO project provides an opportunity to turn the FDLP around and make it viable and useful in the twenty-first century, it is not at all certain that this will happen. As noted above, there are those who will argue for the status quo that limits the role of FDLP libraries to an unsustainable, unjustifiable service-without-collections model.
Ithaka S+R has already written a report with a model for the FDLP (Documents for a Digital Democracy: A Model for the Federal Depository Library Program in the 21st Century). In that report, it recommended that "GPO should develop formal partnerships with a small number of dedicated preservation entities -- such as organizations like HathiTrust or Portico or individual libraries -- to preserve a copy of its materials" (page 44, emphasis added). As noted above, Ithaka S+R is affiliated with Portico through their parent organization, ITHAKA. (For another take on a related Ithaka S+R study, see: Nyquist, Corinne(2010) 'An Academic Librarian's Response to the “ITHAKA Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies”', Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve, 20: 4, 275 -- 280.) Although Roger Schonfeld has assured us that this time Ithaka S+R recommendations "will not focus on specific brands, services, or products, including those provided by any part of our organization," it appears that we will have to convince him and Ithaka S+R that FDLP libraries, not just a "small number of dedicated preservation entities" like Portico, must play a significant role in the preservation of FDLP library materials.
Ithaka S+R has pledged that their work will include broad, vigorous community engagement and that their work will will rely on community input and advice to guide their research and define their recommendations. It is time for us to speak up. Here are some things you can do today:
- Participate in the discussion on the project web site.
- Participate in FDLP's work to create a comprehensive list of benefits for libraries participating in the FDLP.
- Work with your colleagues to create a list of benefits to your own library of being an FDLP library. Share this with your library management.
- Identify your own library's user-communities. Do you have subject collections that are used by people beyond your local geographic community? Would those collections be enhanced if they included government-produced information? Make the case to your communities and your library management.
- Do you already have digital collections? Do you have digital collection tools that you could apply to government information? Or would you like to develop digital collections and services with copyright-free, DRM-free digital materials? Develop a plan that will enhance your library's digital future by utilizing free government information content.
- Add your comments and ideas here to this post on FGI.
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