The GPLNE December 7, 2001 meeting came to order at 10:00am. Brief

reports were given by Bette Siegel, Betty Febo, and Deborah Mongeau on the

Depository Library Conference. It was noted that Fran Buckley, the

Superintendent of Documents stated that 60% of federal documents are now

in electronic format while 40% are in physical format.

First Gov, which was funded through private means for its first three

years, is now in a position of losing funding because there is was no

money appropriated for it in the federal legislative budget.

The Commerce Business Daily is being replaced by an electronic version Fed

Bis Ops(?). GSA will oversee it and it may not be free.

Vital and health statistics rainbow series will be changing and migrating

to an electronic environment.

Resources in Education (RIE) will be ceasing in paper and moving online.

The Census Bureau's GO 2000 will use "Allocate" software on its CDs and

DVDs.

The Department of Energy has put up a new website, Energy Citations

Database, going back to 1948. OSTI oversees its operation.

GODORT had a session on electronic competency for depository libraries.

They are attempting to develop competency levels for librarians. GODORT

and GPO will be working on this together.

Some information now contained in STAT-USA will be migrating into BuyUSA.

This new website, http://www.buyusa.com, is a partnership between the

Dept. of Commerce and IBM. Some information on the website is free while

other information a fee will be charged. In the future STAT-USA may no

longer be free to depository libraries.

Bette Siegel reported that GPO is becoming more realistic about the

self-studies. They have had a great loss in staff and many of the

previous studies still haven't been processed. GPO will now ask for

self-studies only when they can evaluate them.

Bette Siegel also gave a report on state plans. She suggested GPLNE

collect state plans for inclusion into the GPLNE web page. Work on the

Massachusetts state plan is being completed by Gail Fithian, Boston Public

Library. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine have state plans. Rhode

Island will be updating theirs due to the increase in electronic

resources. No one from Connecticut was in attendance to report on its

state plan.

Linda Johnson gave a report on the Regional Depository Conference that was

held at the University of Maine at Orono, October 30, 2001, entitled "Will

There Be or Not Be Federal Depositories in 2006?"

Duncan Aldrich spoke from the point of view that with the development of

electronic formats in five years there will be no need for depositories as

we know them now. We are in a transition phase. However, he did advise

against giving up depository status.

Gil Baldwin spoke in favor of the depository system. There are many

reasons why the depository program will continue to be important even in

an electronic environment. It offers great opportunities for

partnerships, networking, and assistance. Electronic versions may not

always be complete and may disappear. Depositories care for and make

accessible important historical collections of the federal government. It

is important to have and retain staff with technical experience and a

knowledge of the collections.

There were breakout sessions in the afternoon, but there didn't seem to be

enough time to do meaningful work.

There was a final follow up session where nothing was formally decided

although there was general feeling that the depository program is still

very important and attendees wanted more meetings with networking and

hands on training within their region.

The University of Maine is the regional for Maine, New Hampshire, and

Vermont. Maine has 12 depositories, New Hampshire has 9, and Vermont has

7, which is an enormous area for one regional to oversee.

One idea that was suggested was that the regional responsibilities should

be shared between other libraries.

The next agenda item involved a round robin discussion on how libraries

are dealing with the ramifications of increasing electronic materials in

public services. The discussion was lively and ranged from use of

electronic workstations to e-reference, virtual reference with chat rooms,

systems support, and staff training.

Bette Siegel reported that the Mass. State Library, working with the

Information Technology Division (ITD), will be sending a letter to state

agencies, informing them that they must notify the State Library if they

are going to remove a document from their web site so that the state

library can put it on their server. This is an issue that every state

should be concerned about.

The Massachusetts state home page has a prototype of a new web page called

Mass.Gov. It can be viewed at http://www.mass.gov/portal/

After a short break Linda convened the business meeting.

The minutes were approved.

Pam Hays gave the Treasurer's report: we have $1,020 in a CD. It will

come due in January 2002. It was decided to renew the CD for another

year.

We also have $820.23 in a savings account for current expenses.

The next meeting in March, 2002, will be hosted by John Fobert at Roger

Williams College in Bristol, Rhode Island. Ideas for the agenda included

a report on state plans, continue the round robin discussion with emphasis

on technical services reponses to the growing electronic environment, and

a Geolytics demonstration.

The May 10, 2002, meeting will be at the University of Massachusetts at

Amherst on the 2000 Census. Plans are being made for a demonstration of

the American Factfinder, presentations by state data centers, and perhaps

a talk by Pat McClamary of UConn on census map products.

Members were generous in their offers to contact possible speakers.

Jim Walsh with contact Pat

Len Adams will contact the UMass state data center and John Gaviglia to do

the presentation on American Factfinder. If John is unable to do it ,

then Chris Amherst at the Boston office of the state data center will be

contacted.

Linda Johnson will contact the Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and

Vermont state data centers.

Deb Mongeau with contact the Rhode Island state data center

Bette Siegel will contact John Kavaliunas at the Bureau of the Census.

The meeting adjourned at 12:45pm.

Attendance:

Len Adams University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Tim Hays U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, New England

Pam Hays Harvard University

Betty Febo Wellesley College

Joel Burdette St. Anslem College

Mark Scott State Library of Massachusetts

Bette Siegel State Library of Massachusetts

John K. Lewis Salve Regina University

Deborah Mongeau University of Rhode Island

Jim Walsh LexisNexis

Beverly Presley Clark University

Linda Johnson University of New Hampshire

Katherine Horrigan University of New Hampshire

Meredith Ricker University of New Hampshire

Bobbie Brooke University of Massachusetts Medical School

Barbara Winrich University of Massachusetts Medical School