In December 1999, the Heads of Government Publications sent a statement of
interest to the participants in the CIC VEL Summit held at Northwestern
University. This document outlined the ways in which several government
publications-related projects are relevant to the proposed creation of a VEL
Digital Collection. One of the proposed projects, digitization of the 300+
volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), has already
been started. The CIC Heads of Government Publications would like to thank Ken
Frazier and the staff at the University of Wisconsin for taking the initiative
on this project.
Progress is continuing on several other Government Publications projects. These include:
1. Floppy Disk Project
Housed at Indiana University, this ftp site (http://www.indiana.edu/~libgpd/mforms/floppy/floppy.html)
provides access to information originally distributed to federal depository
libraries on floppy disks (5 1/4" and 3 1/2"). File testing is underway.
Discussions are being held with GPO to designate this site as an official
partnership, thereby permitting individual depositories to withdraw materials in
these formats.
2. Supplementary Software Project
An outgrowth of the Floppy Disk Project, this initiative is geared towards
preserving supplementary software distributed with federal depository materials.
A preliminary list of titles has been developed and was distributed at the San
Antonio meeting.
3. CD-ROM Documentation Project
The CIC Government Publications group continues to work with the Government
Information Technology Committee of the ALA Government Documents Round Table to
provide a single source of information on CD-ROM products distributed by GPO.
This project will culminate in a regularly maintained database with annotations,
technical documentation, user guides, alternative access points, and cataloging
data. This project will also provide the data needed to determine which CD-ROM
resources are in particular need of permanent, networked access as the
technology in libraries changes.
4. Virtual Reference Workshop and Conference
The CIC Heads of Government Publications will be coordinating a session on
virtual reference at the Fall 2000 Federal Depository Library Conference.
Initial planning for this session has begun. The group is also hoping to plan a
CIC Government Publications conference focusing on future directions for
developing virtual reference and research services for government information.
5. Numeric/Spatial Data Access Projects
Group discussions regarding the best methods for providing access to
essential numeric and spatial data distributed on CD-ROM have shifted from the
original idea of cross-institutional networking of CD-ROMs to the concept of
migrating the data to the WWW and creating user-friendly front-ends for them. A
pilot project based on ICPSR data has been discussed.
6. Census Projects
The Heads of Government Publications are also interested in working with the
Census Bureau on the issue of permanent access to their electronic publications.
Staff from the University of Michigan have held discussions with representatives
of the Census Bureau regarding this issue. As data products from Census 2000
will be distributed primarily via the internet and CD-ROM, this issue has broad
ramifications across the CIC. Several possible avenues for broad CIC
participation in this effort are currently under discussion.
7. Cataloging of Pre-1976 U.S. Government Documents
One of the charges to the original Government Publications Task Force was to
address the issue of providing cataloging for pre-1976 U.S. government
documents. While many of the records are in OCLC, there is no easy way to locate
them and they are often missing such critical information as SuDoc numbers. The
staff at the University of Iowa have taken the initial steps on this project,
conceptualizing the work which needs to be done, working with OCLC to arrange
for the creation of a set of records, and then starting the actual work of
creating the database needed for OCLC to make a reasonable pull of pilot agency
records from their database. Work on this project has stalled temporarily; a
proposal for assistance in the completion of this work is currently being
developed.
As is obvious from the above, the Heads of Government Publications have made good progress on several important initiatives. The conceptualization and subsequent planning of these projects occurred at a series of formal meetings of the CIC Government Publications representatives. We believe our ability to continue to make such strides will be negatively affected by meeting only at ALA Annual and Midwinter. Indeed, this is a particularly important time for the group to meet in a separate session dedicated to CIC business: as a new, larger group, we need to incorporate the new members into committee business, determine and redefine areas of common interests and strength, and develop new projects. This is quite difficult in the short blocks of time available at ALA Annual and Midwinter or at various other national meetings.
Therefore, the Heads of Government Publications would like to maintain the support and momentum achieved during these sessions by continuing to meet at least annually at Big Ten Headquarters. Thank you for your consideration of this request.