Tag Archives: document discovery

Report/Update

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 from January, 2010. They were reported to GPO between August 2008 and January 2010, the majority between December 2009 and January 2010.

Of the 85 fugitive document receipts posted January 2010, 29 (34%) of the titles have had records added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), 21 of these have been added since the January 2010 monthly report. Two of the titles we identified as “Preservation Needed”.

While the low percentage of those cataloged is disappointing, 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 January 2010 dates http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and/or view a listing by visiting https://sites.google.com/site/founddocslisting/

One note, if you pull up the found or fugitive documents on the blog, you may notice that some are marked as both fugitive and found. This means that the receipt was for two formats of a document (usually electronic and paper), and a record has been added to the CGP for one of the formats.

For this report we are also providing a breakdown of cataloging times. 36% of the items cataloged from the January 2010 posted receipt titles were cataloged between 200 and 300 days. 15% were cataloged within less than 100 days and 15% between 100 and 200 days. A more detailed breakdown is provided below. Note, these numbers and percentages include those titles with two versions reported. Both versions are represented in the figures below, 33 total.

less than or equal to 100 days
5 (15%)

>100 days but less than or equal to 200 days
5 (15%)

>200 days but less than or equal to 300 days
12 (36%)

>300 days but less than or equal to 400 days
4 (12%)

>400 days but less than or equal to 500 days
4 (12%)

>500 days but less than or equal to 600 days
1 (3%)

>600 days but less than or equal to 700 days
1 (3%)

>1000
1 (3%)

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 get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains “lostdocs submission.”

Report

In addition to the Lost Docs monthly report we at the Lost Docs Blog will also frequently issue different reports and updates. The report that follows focuses on the departments and agencies which are represented by the GPO receipts collected thus far. For future reports we hope to provide more in depth analysis including that of cataloging times.

Of the 696 fugitive document receipts ( “false positives” excluded, those with records in the CGP at the time they were reported) the top five departments and agencies, ranked according to the number of receipts received, are as follows, with the department listed and then any agencies within that department for which we received a sizable number of receipts.

Please remember that the reporting here is based only on those GPO receipts forwarded to the Lost Docs Project Blog. Our numbers are not based on the total number of fugitive documents reported to GPO.

1. Department of Health and Human Services…..194 (28% of total receipts)
   National Institutes of Health 151 (78% of total HHS receipts,including NCI)
   National Cancer Institute (NCI) 112
   Other agencies and offices within the department 43

2. Department of Justice………125 (18% of total receipts)
   Bureau of Justice Statistics 13
   Office of Justice Programs 10
   FBI 7
   Other agencies and offices within the department 93

3. Department of Interior…..80 (11% of total receipts)
   Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (formerly MMS) 29
   (36% of total Dept. of Interior receipts)
   National Parks Service 23
   Bureau of Land Management 22
   USGS 6

4. USDA…….43 (6% of total receipts)
   US Forest Service 7
   Other agencies 36

5. Department of Commerce…..37 (5% of total receipts)
   NOAA 34 (92% of total Dept. of Commerce receipts)
   Census Bureau 3

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.

REPORT

For August, we received and posted 4 reports to GPO from librarians reporting documents that had seemingly fallen through the cracks of the cataloging process. The reports were originally sent to GPO during August 2011.

This month, of the 4 reported documents posted by us, none have been cataloged, and these 4 items remain listed as “fugitive documents.”

No documents reported to GPO appeared to already have public CGP records. So there were no “false positives” for the month.

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.

Report/Update

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 from November-December 2009.

Of the 149 fugitive document receipts posted November-December 2009, 49 (33%) of the titles have had records added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), 26 of these have been added since the November and December 2009 monthly reports. Three of the cataloged titles had not been assigned a PURL (Persistent Uniform Resource Locator) so we also marked these as “Preservation Needed”. While the low percentage of items cataloged is disappointing, we are appreciative of those records that have been created and added to the CGP. A list of cataloged items, based on the posted receipts, can be viewed at https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjA1ChZ8rDu5dGw0VllsRHpqSk1HcXctM1dMQVlBMWc&hl=en or visit the Lost Docs Project Blog and view the “found” items with November-December 2009 dates. We have highlighted a few of the document titles cataloged since the 2009 monthly reports, they are listed below.

Read you Loud and Clear!: The Story of NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network (EL)

Mineral Investigations in the Bristol Bay Mining District Study Area, Southwest Alaska (EL)

Nuestros hijos, nuestra responsabilidad (EL)

Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe (EL)

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.

Lost Docs Project Blog Team
Meredith Johnston
Jeffrey Hartsell-Gundy
lostdocs@freegovinfo.info

REPORT

In July 2011, we received and posted 16 reports to GPO from librarians reporting documents that had seemingly fallen through the cracks of the cataloging process. The reports were originally sent to GPO between May and July 2011.

This month of the 16 reported documents posted by us, 3 (18%) have been cataloged and are in the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) as of this writing. See these records for yourself by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with July 2011 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

From July, 13 items remain listed as “fugitive documents.”

No documents reported to GPO appeared to already have public CGP records. So there were no “false positives” for the month.

Two of the 3 cataloged documents had not been assigned a PURL. So these were classed “found” but with “preservation needed.”

Please remember that our listing of “fugitive documents” reports is only as complete as you make it, since GPO does not yet publish any statistics we’re aware of on fugitive documents/document discovery.

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.