Depository Library Council
Recommendations and Responses
Sept. 28-30, 1981
Alexandria, Virginia

RECOMMENDATION 1: The Depository Library Council requests that the Public Printer communicate to the Census Bureau the importance to the library community, and to the public at large, of having the text and statistical tables of the 1980 Census Tracts, Block Statistics, and Detailed Characteristics available in paper copy.

RESPONSE: The Public Printer did communicate to Mr. Chapman, Director of the Census Bureau, the concerns of the Council as expressed in this resolution. Mr. Chapman responded, noting the severe budgetary pressures faced by the Census Bureau. He stated that the census tract reports will be paper as originally planned; but he does not see a likelihood of paper for other reports for which only microfiche is planned. His complete response is included in your notebooks for your information.

RECOMMENDATION 2: In order for depository libraries to identify and retrieve government publications, Council reiterates (see Council resolution 26, Fall 1980, and resolution 16, Spring 1981) that it is essential that bibliographic records for all government publications (including scientific and technical materials) appear in a common data base available to library bibliographic utilities. To fulfill its statutory responsibility to provide a comprehensive master catalog of U.S. government publications and to achieve economy in the provision of bibliographic records, Council advises the Government Printing Office to actively pursue this objective. Until a common data base for government publications is realized, GPO must assure the depository libraries that the Government Printing Office will provide a full bibliographic record for all depository publications which will facilitate the retrieval and use of these depository materials.

RESPONSE: We are pursuing the goal to include all Government publications, including scientific and technical materials, in our cataloging data base. Our primary area of concentration at this time is to pick up bibliographic records of the technical reports published by or through the National Technical Information Service, the DOE Technical Information Center, the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Center, and the Defense Technical Information Center. Our approach is to develop the capability to receive machine readable bibliographic records from these agencies automatically. We do not intend to duplicate the work they are already performing.

The standardization of data elements is a necessary step toward automatic transfer and GPO is now in the middle of a project to compile a Data Element Dictionary (DED) encompassing the data elements each agency uses in its bibliographic processing. The purpose of such a dictionary is twofold: first, to provide to the four technical report processing agencies a tool to guide their efforts at further standardization to improve their own processing: secondly, to provide to them, GPO and the Library of Congress a mechanism by which to explore avenues of cooperation in the bibliographic processing of all Federal documents. GPO is furnishing the computer support for developing this Data Element Dictionary and has developed the necessary computer programs. We have given each of the agencies requirements for submitting a magnetic tape to our computer center, defining their formats and data elements. We have asked that this be furnished as soon as possible. These will be processed under the data element dictionary capability in our data base management system and output products will be produced to allow for review to see what the relationships are and to determine how and what data elements would be transferred automatically.

Jay Young has a set of the system requirements here if you would like to see that.

Keep in mind that, overall, this is a long-range project and extremely complex. To our knowledge, no one has taken a COSATI record and transferred it into a MARC data base before. In the meantime, we will continue to catalog technical publications received through our normal GPO channels that are distributed to depository libraries.

RECOMMENDATION 3: Council recommends that as the Government Printing Office now begins to fulfill its role in providing bibliographic control for all government publications, it investigates the feasibility of providing free access for depository libraries to unclassified bibliographic data bases produced by federal agencies. The feasibility study should evaluate free access to at least the following data bases: NASA, DOED, ERIC, and MEDLINE.

RESPONSE: Our General Counsel advised us that under the current provisions of Title 44, the Government Printing Office is not required to provide access to bibliographic computer data bases belonging to Federal agencies to the depository libraries. The complete opinion is attached for your review.

While the opinion is negative in terms of access to data bases, this in no way precludes our continuing efforts to work with Federal agencies for cooperative bibliographic control. At present there are several ongoing projects with federal agencies to improve access and availability of documents for the Depository Library Program which will be discussed later today by members of my staff.

RECOMMENDATION 4: Council recommends that when errors which would affect identification or retrieval are discovered on microfiche headers, the Government Printing Office supply corrected microfiche.

RESPONSE: We will supply corrected microfiche whenever this occurs for fiche which we produce. For microfiche originated by other agencies, we will contact the agency, but can provide no assurance that the fiche will be replaced.

RECOMMENDATION 5: The Depository Library Council commends the Government Printing Office for its initiative in developing a cost-saving combined shipping/claims form. The Council believes it is important that the form be reproducible on a standard office photocopier.

RESPONSE: We appreciate the Council's commendation on our development of a combined shipping list/claims form. We began using the form on November 9, 1981. It has received considerable praise from Depository Librarians and has made claims processing a more efficient operation.

RECOMMENDATION 6: Whereas, the Federal Government Budget is undergoing reduction and all reasonable economy is encouraged, and Whereas, the 1980 Census block maps would be costly to produce and distribute in hard copy, and

Whereas, the Census Bureau has assured GPO that they will provide an adequate original for reproduction, and

Whereas, the Depository Library Council has determined that the 1980 block maps are useable in microfiche,

The Depository library Council recommends that GPO distribute in microformat or hard copy to Depository Libraries all the 1980 block statistics they select, with the following specifications for maps in microcopy:

1) That the maps be reproduced one per fiche in a common reduction ratio so that hard copy produced from the fiche can bc combined into a single paper copy;

2) That clear and adequate header information appear on each fiche to facilitate use.

RESPONSE: Every effort is being made to provide users of Census Block Statistic Maps with usable high quality reproducible microfiche. There will be one map per fiche with a reduction ratio of 12X. Header information on each fiche will include: SuDocs class numbers, Census accession numbers, as well as Geographic Area and Map numbers.

RECOMMENDATION 7: The Depository Library Council recommends that the following categories of publications be added to the Standard Reference Works listed in the "GPO Guidelines for Microfiche Conversion, Part II":

-Administrative Decisions

-Abstracts

-User Manuals and Finding Aids

In addition, the Council recommends that GPO utilize the attached annotated copy of List of Classes as a guide to the types of materials that would entail a hardship on library users were they not distributed in paper. This list is not intended to be exclusive or final, but to provide examples.

RESPONSE: We have carefully studied the Council's recommended additions of Administrative Decisions, Abstracts, User manuals, and Finding Aids, to the Standard Reference Works listed in "GPO's Guidelines for Microfiche Conversion, Part II". We agree with your recommendations and with few exceptions these categories of publications will be distributed in paper format. The annotated List of Classes has been most helpful as a guide.

RECOMMENDATION 8: Responding to the Public Printer's support of Council's resolution 1 of April 1981, Council recommends that the Public Printer proceed to encourage the development of state plans for the Federal Depository program. Such plans would provide a cost-effective means of enabling states to share the responsibility for the development of collections and the provision of services. Council has developed two examples of state plans and an initial list of the elements recommended for inclusion. The examples and the list of elements are intended to ensure that individual state plans provide a comprehensive mechanism of addressing the need for free public access to government information. Council requests that this concept be publicized and that the material describing and illustrating state plans be disseminated within the depository community and to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies. An Ad Hoc Committee of the Depository Library Council has been appointed to assist in developing materials to describe and publicize the state plan concept.

RESPONSE: The Chairperson of the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) was contacted prior to their October meeting in Santa Fe; and the issue of State Plans was placed on their agenda. At that meeting, Barbara Weaver and Sandy Faull explained the significance of State Plans and contact persons for each state. State librarians not responding with names of contact persons at the COSLA meeting have since received two letters from GPO regarding State Plans.

To date, thirty-five states have advised us that they have named contact persons. Two additional states have responded saying they do not need such plans. Some states have begun to report on their activities.

One of the plans submitted has been carefully reviewed by GPO's General Counsel which has provided us with an opinion of the proposed State Plan for Missouri. The opinion indicates that the Plan basically fulfills the requirements of Chapter 19 of Title 44 and allows the State to organize its depository system without the benefit of a regional depository. The General Counsel recommended some amendments to the Plan which are included in the memo attached to the resolution response.

The key is that the Plan, its amendments, and any actions taken to implement it must comply with all the applicable provisions of 44 U.S.C $$ 1901-1914. If there is any conflict between those statutory provisions and the State Plan, Chapter 19 must take precedence. Contingent on incorporation of the recommended amendments to the State Plan, we concur and the Plan may be implemented. We shall transmit this in writing to Missouri when we return to Washington.

RECOMMENDATION 9: Council requests that GPO communicate to NTIS and DOE the need for including in Government Reports, Announcements and Index and Energy Research Abstracts the SuDocs classification number and item number for depository publications.

RESPONSE: We have communicated to NTIS the desirability of having the SuDocs class number appear in Government Reports, Announcements and Index (GRA and I). NTIS agreed with the idea, but felt that such enhancements would be best accomplished if the information were included on the tapes submitted by the report processing agencies for inclusion in GRA and I.

We immediately began working with NASA and DOE, to this end. NASA is now inputting the SuDocs class numbers for several major series in the report number field of its cataloging records for Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR). NTIS will print these classes in GRA and I as soon as they begin appearing on the STAR tape.

The Public Printer has written to the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy requesting inclusion of the class number in records in Energy Research Abstracts (ERA) and in the headers of microfiche produced by the DOE Technical Information Center. As in the NASA project, the appearance of this data on the ERA tapes would trigger its presence in GRA and I.

We also plan to communicate with the other scientific and technical agencies regarding the inclusion of the SuDocs class in their data bases.

We have not addressed inclusion of the item number in our work with the agencies because we feel that the class number is the key element and we did not wish to further complicate the issue at this time.

RECOMMENDATION 10: Council urges GPO to provide the depository library community as soon as possible with the DOE scientific and technical reports that they currently have in-house regardless of age, and with the 8,000+ publications offered by DOE to them for distribution this year.

RESPONSE: Since very few of the DOE scientific and technical publications are obtained in paper copy through GPO and DOE microfiche are not produced through GPO, the Public Printer wrote to the Secretary of Energy requesting that DOE comply with Title 44, U.S.C. and provide GPO with microfiche of technical reports for distribution to depository libraries. The depository requirement was an average of 375 libraries for each of the approximately 17,000 publications produced a year. The letter proposed that the microfiche for depositories be produced by the DOE Technical Information Center at the same time as DOE copies are made and indicated that the GPO would pay the Technical Information Center to make the distribution to depository libraries.

The Assistant Secretary of Energy for Management and Administration responded to the Public Printer's letter stating that the cost for the microfiche would be approximately $1 million and that such funds were not available. This letter has been referred to the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing for whatever further action he deems appropriate.

To attempt to handle even half of this large volume of 17,000 publications in any other manner than we propose would result in duplication of effort and would be totally inefficient and non-cost effective to the Government. Considering that just half of the D0E reports is equivalent to about one-third of our total microfiche output, for us to attempt this workload would mean either greatly increasing our micrographics staff or causing great delays in getting other material to you, if the DOE reports were added to our regular micrographics workflow. Neither of these alternatives is viable.

Until an arrangement can be worked out for the DOE Technical Information Center to handle the production and distribution of DOE technical publications in microfiche for the Depository Program, we will distribute only those publications that are current and are obtained through the main GPO or a GPO Regional Printing Procurement Office.

Originally input Oklahoma State University