Minutes of the Government Publications Librarians of New England Meeting

Minutes of the Government Publications Librarians of New England Meeting – March 2, 2001 United States Courthouse, Boston, Massachusetts

Ralph thanked Kristie Randall, Deputy Circuit Librarian of the United States Court of Appeals Library for hosting the meeting and then introduced Daniel O’Mahony, Coordinator of Government Documents and Social Sciences Data Services at Brown University. Dan gave a presentation on "Past is Prologue: What’s in store for the FDLP during the 107^th Congress?" Dan spoke about some of the issues and trends affecting the Federal Depository Library Program such as the rapid rate of change; proposals to move the program from the legislative to the executive branch; the history of the House of Representatives trying to cut GPOs budget; and the attempts to privatize some government materials.

Dan presented the group with some facts about the FDLP.

The FDLP budget has decreased 8% in the last six years.
Last year the House proposed cutting the FDLP by 62%.
Of print, microfiche, online and CD-ROM formats, the format with the largest percent in 1999 was online with 46%, microfiche 37%, paper 17% and CD-ROM less than 1%. In 1995 40% paper and 60% microfiche.
26 million documents were downloaded from GPOAccess in October 2000. In October 1995 it was less than 8 million.
There is no one agency that is responsible for long term access to electronic documents. There is no mandate requiring any agency to retain documents for any length of time. GPO has tried to ensure access to online documents and has worked with partners such as the University of North Texas to capture web sites that no longer exist (i.e. OTA).

Dan also discussed a proposal by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee called e-Government: an Experiment in Interactive Legislation, which proposes ways to present, structure, categorize and code government information. Senator Joseph Lieberman from Connecticut is one of the main proponents. Librarians have been in touch with the committee and have been well received. Dan suggested that other librarians review the site and contact the Committee. The web address is http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/egov/description.cfm

Dan did not have any predictions for the future other than "more of the same": cuts in tangibles and more materials in electronic format. He recommended that we contact our representatives to educate them about the issues.

We next had a tour of the Courthouse given by Dermot Luddy of the Court and Public Education Project. The courthouse, on Fan Pier, houses the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. It was designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and opened in 1998. The building is open to the public and has ongoing exhibits.

Ralph called the business meeting to order at 12:08PM.

The minutes of the December meeting were approved.

Treasurer’s report

The Certificate of Deposit has $1,020

Savings has $806.11

$43.50 was spent on a book gift for Sheila McGarr

The next meeting will be in early May.

The business meeting adjourned at 12:15pm.

Attendance

Sonia Ensins, Boston College

Vida Margaitis, Harvard University

Gail Fithian, Boston Public Library

Barbara Mento, Boston College

Kathaleen Brearley, Massachusetts State Library

Bette L. Siegel, Massachusetts State Library

Gordon Pow, U.S. Courts Library

Betty Febo, Wellesley College

Ralph Szymczak, Brandeis University

John Fobert, Roger Williams University

Jim Walsh, CIS-Lexis-Nexis

Kristie Randall, USCA Library

Julia Tryon, Providence College

Pam Hays, Harvard University