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FDLP biennial survey due tomorrow. Here’s my comments. What are yours?
If you’re like me, you’ve waited until the last minute to submit your 2015 FDLP Biennial Survey. Since this is the season of sharing, I thought I’d post the comments I submitted with my library’s survey. I’d love to hear what others commented. What issues and ideas were most on your minds? If you’re able […]
Hundreds of libraries waiting for digital deposit
The Government Printing Office (GPO) presented an update of their recent work to a Mid-Winter meeting of the American Library Association last week in San Antonio. As part of that update, Superintendent of Documents Judy Russell made partial results of the biennial survey of federal depository libraries public. Ms. Russell shared the results of two questions related to digital deposit of federal electronic publications, based on 987 responses to the biennial survey. There are approximately 1250 libraries in the program, so at least 261 libraries have not yet been heard from. By law, all depository libraries must complete this survey, so I expect full results later this spring. On to the questions themselves and their results. Question 65 was related to current depository efforts at local collection of federal electronic publications. Currently there is no distribution mechanism, so depositories have to actively gather and store materials.
65: My library systematically downloads, stores online publications identified from GPO Access or through GPO-created PURLS, and makes them accessible to the general public from local servers. This past year my library downloaded the following number of digital publication files (this does not include shipping lists, Web pages, or datasets): 0 = 823 libraries 1-25 = 90 26-100 = 25 101-500 = 26 501-1000 = 7 1001-5000 = 11 More than 5000 = 4Even in the absence of a distribution system for federal electronic publications from GPO, 163 libraries are storing local copies of federal pubs. Based on a depository community of 1,250 libraries, this represents 13% of all depository libraries. One in ten libraries are already doing more than what GPO is asking of them. The other "digital deposit" question asked libraries how many digital documents they might be willing to store and serve locally, if GPO provided them. No distribution mechanism was proposed.
66. My library is willing to receive Federal digital publication files on deposit from GPO, store them, and make the accessible to the general public from local servers. My library is willing to receive the following number of digital publication files per year (this does not include shipping lists, Web pages, or databases): 0 = 652 libraries 1-25 = 176 26-100 = 56 101-500 = 41 501-1000 = 26 1001-5000 = 14 More than 5000 = 21This question tells me that 334 libraries are willing to at least make a trial of storing and serving electronic materials locally. These libraries represent more than a quarter of the depository community. Surely this should be a call to establish a formal deposit system for electronic publications for depositories to try. Even without a formal digital deposit proposal, over a hundred libraries are willing to store and serve more than 100 documents per year. Even if these hundred libraries are the only ones to step forward, that's a far higher level of backup and redundancy than the current system has. I believe that's worth GPO committing to a system of local, distributed system of electronic deposit such as the one described in Government Information in the Digital Age: The Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program, today. Continue reading
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