Ralph Szymczak introduced the first speaker, W. Michael Havener, Director and Associate Professor, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies.  The topic of  Professor Havener's presentation was "Teaching about Government Information: A Faculty Member's Viewpoint". His homepage is www.uri.edu/artsci/lsc/wmhhome.html

Professor Havener mentioned that GODORT has recommendations for teaching students who will work in depository libraries, but he is also concerned about those not working as government documents librarians.  He wants people to be aware of what the government is producing and where to find it.  In his classes he covers some state, local and international documents but mostly United States federal documents.  One of his objectives is to raise the level of awareness of government documents and to show how they are changing.  His assignments include: a major paper and presentation on an agency; a subject bibliography to emphasize how scattered information is, that it can not be found using one or two finding aids; awareness activities intended to enforce where they can go for help.  He will be offering his government documents course mostly on the Internet.

Professor Havener asked the audience what they thought were important things for students to know.  Some of the responses were:

Process and organization of Congress
Keep aware of what is happening in the world by reading newspapers.
Legislative history
Practice reference interview
Difference between state and federal
How Our laws are Made document
Legal citations
Difference between laws, bills, regulations
Commercial publishers often have better tools
Free web sites for research outside of library
Become involved in government documents librarians organization
Statistics and how to manipulate data
Understanding of SuDoc classification system
OCLC/WorldCat for fugitive documents

The next speaker was Erhard Konerding from Olin Library at Wesleyan University where he has been the documents librarian since 1972.  He is the author of World War II Trivia Quiz, volumes 1 and 2, and Vietnam War Facts Quiz.  He appeared on the television program Jeopardy in 1994, and will appear on the History Channel's History IQ program on May 15 of this year.  Erhard gave a report on his experience at the April 1-4 Depository Council Meeting in San Antonio.

There were no contentious issues at the meeting, but there was a "cloud" over the meeting because of the uncertainty of who will be the new Public Printer.  A common theme in the sessions was the increasing aspect of electronic program.  61% of new publications last year were online.  There was a proposal to change the format of  the basic materials a library must have to online.  GPO has teamed with a company, Akamai, to increase the speed of retrieval on GPO Access. GPO is looking for volunteers for partnerships. Volunteers would keep track of electronic resources on the web.  Future House documents will not be funded/printed by GPO, but by the House itself.  American Factfinder will be main place to find census.

The next Federal Depository Council meeting will be held in Alexandria, Virginia October 14-17.  Bette Siegel highly recommended the Association of Public Data Users (APDU) workshop on using public data which she attended after the Federal Depository Council meeting last fall.
 

The business meeting was called to order at noon.

The minutes from the March 2001 meeting were approved.

Pam Hays gave the treasurer's report.

CD Account - $1,020.25
Savings Account - $   809.86

Nominating Committee, Bette Siegel and Len Adams, announced the following nominations:
Chair - Linda Johnson
Vice Chair, Elizabeth Febo
Secretary - Len Adams
Treasurer - Pam Hays

The nominations were accepted.

Ralph told us that Chris Amherst of the Boston branch of MISER said that he would be willing to give us a detailed presentation on American Factfinder at one of our meetings next year.

Bette Siegel and the group thanked Ralph for his work as Chair.

Jim Walsh announced that there will be a pre-conference at ALA on historical documents.  Also NEMO (North East Map Organization) will be holding a meeting on June 7 at Mt. Holyoke.
 

The meeting was adjourned at 12:10.

Attendees:

Sonia Ensins, Boston College
Len Adams, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Nancy Peluso, Connecticut State Library
Jim MacDonald, Connecticut College
Frank Notarianni, Rhode Island College
William Gamzon, Eastern Connecticut State University
Erhard Konerding, Wesleyan University
Betty Febo, Wellesley College
Jacqueline B. Fitzpatrick, Wellesley College
Bette L. Siegel, State Library of Massachusetts
Al Palko, Connecticut State Library
Deborah Mongeau, University of Rhode Island
Jim Walsh, CIS
Steve Batt, University of Connecticut
Pam Hays, Harvard University
Bill Thompson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Ed Lonergan, Springfield City Library
Ralph Szymczak, Brandeis University