GPLNE October Meeting
Boston Public Library – Boston, Massachusetts
Friday, October 31, 2008
Attendance
Naomi Allen, State Lib/MA
Deborah Angelo, Providence College
Betty Febo, Clapp Library/Wellesley College
Gail Fithian, Boston Public Library
Jacqueline Fitzpatrick, Clapp Library/Wellesley College
Kate Flynn, Hampden Law Library
John Fobert, Roger Williams University
Pam Hays, Becker College
Sarah Hogan, Boston College
John Lewis, Salve Regina
Betsey Lippmeir, Boston PublicLibrary
Nancy Lodleski, LexisNexis
Vida Margaitis, Harvard University
Deborah Mongeau, URI
Roxanne Palmatier, Northeastern University
Barbara Preece, Boston Library Consortium
Connie Reik, Tufts
Bette Siegel, State Lib/MA
Julia Tryon, Providence College
Jim Walsh, Readex/Newsbank
Susan Wells, Hampden Law Library
GPLNE October Meeting Agenda
Twenty-one GPLNE members met at Boston Public Library with Barbara Preece, the Executive Director of the Boston Library Consortium. There has been a year-long relationship between the Boston Public Library and the Open Content Alliance Digital Project/Internet Archive (IA). Google’s latest digitizing agreement with the book industry was discussed briefly and members wondered what impact that will have on United States libraries and how much of their collections will be digitized. Barbara stated that the BLC members have had a long history of sharing and our membership has grown (there are now 20 members).
The important question --- How will the BLC members improve the sharing of materials? IA has come to the rescue with its Open Content Alliance principles, and it has been scanning titles since 1996. India has had a Million Books Project in effect since 2003. There are four important aspects to these projects:
Mass screening
Image processing,
Archival storage
Continuing technology development
IA Goals: Free to read – Free to crawl – Rehosting
It is open for research and computation. There is new digitization plus an ingestion of previously digitized works. Bibliographic accuracy is a “must,” and there is an increased usage of “hidden collections.” The digitization cost is now at ten cents per page. There are a number of scanning centers in operation, and the BPL facility is know as the Northeast Regional Digital Scanning Center. The IA team first met in August of 2008 and only 1% of the collection project ideas have not come to fruition. The Centers can scan microfiche and microfilm, as well as print titles. Barbara feels the money raising component is actually working well. The BPL location has been in operation since September 20, 2008, and there are workshops on the titles’ selection process. Ten “scribes” in two daily shifts work at fold-out machines. There is a salary and a benefits package for these employees.
There are finished books available at the IA site. You can view them by going to the BPL Home Page.
Bette Siegel talked about the State Library’s collaboration with UMass Boston and Amherst and what they have digitized. Richard Johnson’s presentation at the BPL, “Why We Need a New Approach to Putting Library Collections Online,” was mentioned, and Barbara urged those in attendance to view it @
http://www.blc.org/news/BLC_summit_white_paper_9-29-08.pdf
Vida asked Bette how they prioritized the titles selected to be digitized. Bette said that the Bird Books, legislative profiles and the Massachusetts Acts and Resolves have been the first three choices to go online. They can be viewed @
The Web page tells users exactly what has been digitized.
Election Statistics and Vital Records were done in cooperation with UMass/Amherst.
Gail Fithian explained that the Government Documents Digitization project has received $250,000, but the money is to be used for Federal government titles, not Massachusetts documents. They have worked on the large 1954 collection of the House Un-American Activities, including the McCarthy Hearings, and the Organized Crime Hearings on Jimmy Hoffa, conducted by Robert Kennedy. Google has already done the Law Library of Congress Hearings (1970-1996) but not all are freely available. Northeastern has donated their Watergate Hearings plus some Uniform Crime Reports and State Department titles. There is also a genealogy feature from 1911-1948 and some copyright entries. A future goal is to scan pre-1938 hearings. The BPL, which did not become the New England regional depository until the 70s, does not have hearings from 1938-1983, but Harvard has those pieces.
MacArthur and Sloan money has been contributed to the Heritage Library digitizing effort, and libraries are “dumping” paper copies as titles become available online. Many libraries have serious space considerations and are willing to remove titles that are held by other institutions. The BLC has stated a two copy per title rule for its members; additional paper versions can, then, legitimately be removed.
Before our tour of the Scanning Center, a few of the members who attended the annual GPO Conference, discussed this year’s newsworthy events. Debbie Mongeau talked about the future of the FDLP, updating of the ten year old, Ben’s Guide, the growing availability of e-versions of the CRS Reports, the MARC e-records of over 400,000 ERIC titles from Marcive, and the presentation by her former intern, Rebecca Blakeley, on the damage and rebuilding process after Hurricane Rita struck the McNeese State University Library in Louisiana.
Betty Febo felt that the GPO is moving forward on many of the previously stated goals we have heard about at the last few conferences. Ric Davis told those in attendance that the GPO has put out a RFP for the digitization of the retrospective collection. The proposal does not involve funds, but the winning bidder may have the files as long as GPO can retain the original copies. Once the Federal Regulatory information is available on the FDLP Desktop, Betty will inform GPLNE members. She also noted the decision by the USGS to rely on the National Map Atlas. What, if any of it, will be archived? Before the conference ended, she checked on the completeness of electronic committee hearings. If a depository deselects that committee ‘s paper titles, is everything available online? She was told that the only way to get everything is to choose a tangible format. The GPO will produce a digital copy if they receive one, but if the committee hasn’t digitized a title, GPO will not digitize it, either.
Before the meeting ended, Betty suggested spending time at our Spring meeting discussing WorldCat Local. If WorldCat local is the default, Government Documents Marcive records may not come up. Is there a solution to this problem? OCLC is making a one-time offer to add deficit records to WorldCat.
Roxanne Palmatier noted the common theme of downsizing collections, collaboration efforts among institutions, and the changing role of Government Documents librarians.
Time was set aside to tour the Scanning Center and observe the ten scribes working at the fold-out machines. It is an interesting set-up, and each shift goes through large chunks of printed material each day. The manager, Paul Nguyen, told the group if they had other questions, we could contact him directly. His e-mail address is:
Before ending the meeting, Jim asked for suggestions for our next GPLNE meeting in February. Any ideas can be sent to Jim @
Minutes submitted by Jacqueline B. Fitzpatrick
November 10, 2008