Tag Archives: FDLP

DLC Conference

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DEPOSITORY LIBRARY COUNCIL MEETING
ARLINGTON, VA
OCTOBER 16-18, 2017

Valery King

• Enjoyed keynote presentations from:
o Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress
o Ms. Jane Sanchez, Law Librarian of Congress
o Mr. James LaRue, Director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom
• Participated in collaborative, informative, and interactive meetings and events.
• Attended educational sessions presented by GPO, other Federal agencies, and depository library staff.
• Networked with GPO staff and fellow depository librarians from across the Nation during morning coffee, lunch breaks by library type, and after hours.

The conference theme this year was “Safeguarding Government Information Access for All.”

The conference was free, as it always is, and GPO provided lots of breakfast pastries and coffee every day.

All handouts are online, and the meetings held in the two ballrooms were live-streamed and recorded. Slides & handouts: https://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/outreach/events/depository-library-council-dlc-meetings/2017-meeting-proceedings/2017-dlc-meeting-and-fdl-conference

The really BIG issue before Council this year is the proposed amending of Title 44, the section of the US Code that establishes the FDLP. Council and GPO talked an entire day about changes to Title 44, but I didn’t go to any of those meetings—they were all recorded and I do plan to review some of them. The document with FDLP community proposals is found on the conference site, link above. Here’s the direct link to the PDF of the memo: https://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/outreach/events/depository-library-council-dlc-meetings/2017-meeting-proceedings/2017-dlc-meeting-and-fdl-conference/2929-dlc-recommendations-to-gpo-director-for-revisions-to-title-44-u-s-code-chapter-19

There was remarkable consensus from the library community on issues of concern. My highlights from the Memo on this important action (I’ve bolded the ones I think will be most useful for us):
• Important to change the language to redefine “government publication” to include all formats, to insure that it continues to be available, BY LAW, to the public
• Change language to make sure all branches of government are REQUIRED to deposit “authenticated electronic publication” with the GPO
Amend sect.1904 to let the Supt. Of Documents develop a mechanism to allow libraries to select ONLY those publications they want and need (currently we have to take some stuff we would rather not get, in order to get the stuff we really want)
• Amend withdrawal rules, to make it easier for selectives to withdraw docs especially if they don’t have a Regional library to ok it
Allow regional depositories to share collections and services ACROSS STATE LINES. (This would let us to partner with some Washington and Idaho libraries and maybe get them to take some maps we’re currently required to keep but would rather get rid of)
Allow authenticated electronic copies to be considered as the official depository copy for Regionals (again, the maps issue—all those topos are available online, but we are required to retain them)
• Allow GPO to make grants to libraries (just like any other agency); this could help libraries partnering with GPO on projects to get some costs taken care of

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
We had great keynote speakers each day.

Day 1: Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress,
Dr. Hayden reaffirmed the mission of the LC and GPO: keeping Congress (and the rest of us, too) informed. Like GPO, LC provides RELIABLE, TRUSTED, AUTHENTIC documents and information. She reviewed how we all (LC, GPO, NARA, and depository libraries) work together. She discussed some plans LC has for online collections; something many researcher will LOVE is that they will be putting the ENTIRE non-partisan Congressional Research Service reports online! CRS is like the “special forces arm of the Library of Congress.”
Libraries are the front line, making sure the information gets to the people. The public still trusts us; what we do matters. LC still has 30 million items remaining to be digitized, but they are committed to doing this. (She has a sign in her office: “You’re a librarian—you’re in it for the glory!”)

Day 2: James LaRue, Director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom
HOW LIBRARIANS SAVED CIVILIZATION
I mostly just listened to this one and took only a few notes. He was a very entertaining speaker. His slides (on the website) are worth reviewing. One thing he talked about was Timothy Snyder’s excellent book, ON TYRANNY, and pointed out some things on Snyder’s list that librarians excel at doing: Defend institutions; remember professional ethics; believe in truth; and INVESTIGATE.

Day 3: Jane Sanchez, Law Librarian of Congress
LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: PERMANENT PUBLIC ACCESS TO ALL CONGRESSIONAL MATERIALS
I took a lot of notes from this, since she was going over all the things that the Law Library of Congress has and what it does for us out here on the front lines. Lots of exciting things are being digitized and provided FOR FREE; their goal is to publish as much law material online as they can, and make it searchable. This includes FEDERAL REGISTER, STATUTES AT LARGE, UNITED STATES TREATIES, and they have a special collection on World War I online now. They’re committed to putting all the Congressional Hearings online from 1901-2006, and there was a cheer when this was announced (me, too; our Hearings are a bit of a mess). Their website also has a lot of great Research Guides available.
On the digitization horizon…
• U.S. Code 1925-1993
• U.S. Reports 1754-2003 (these are Supreme Court documents)
• Code of Federal Regulations 1938-1995
• Congressional Hearings 1901-2006
• NTSB Advance Decisions 1977-1981
• Serials Set
• U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs

SOME OTHER SESSIONS ATTENDED
I attended more than these, but these were what I considered most useful or interesting.

Tending the Commons at the American Folklife Center
Todd Harvey and John Fenn
Natalia and SCARC might be interested in downloading these slides.
AFC lives at https://loc.gov/folklife/
They have an awful lot of cultural history stuff here, in multiple formats! Harvey and Fenn were enthusiastic presenters, and covered a lot of their collections. They also talked at length about their Veterans History Project (https://www.loc.gov/vets/) -interviewing thousands of vets, crowdsourcing the project to get as many interviews as possible. SCARC, has your oral history project fed anything into this? Or have anything suitable that we could contribute?

Hidden Treasures: Art and Other Cultural Collections of U.S. Federal Government Agencies
Presenters were from the Dept. of the Interior Library. I’m including because this is something most people never think of when thinking about government agencies. I actually did not make it to this presentation (a conflict), but their slides/handout is amazing! Jane, Natalia, and other Humanities people, check it out! It is very surprising how many agencies have art collections!

When Women Didn’t Count: Gaps in Federal Statistics
Robert Lopresti, Western Washington Universities
This presentation was based on Rob’s new book (we have it, btw, HA214.L67 2017) and is probably essential for anyone doing historical research into women, especially in the labor force. Just shocking the different ways women were counted in various Censuses, when they were counted at all. There was no continuity between one to the other. One shocking fact was that, in the 14th Census, when the officials found women were recorded as holding “unusual” jobs, they often “corrected” the sex of the subject! I wonder how much information about women pioneers in the labor force was lost in this way?

Some brief information from other sessions I went to that might be of interest:
The National Transportation Library has established ROSA-P, a repository and open science access portal. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/ Apparently, it pulls in a lot of historic information previously only available by ftp!
NASA talked about their Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Program, which has 100 years of research and technical publications available free online (there’s a lot of restricted stuff we can’t get to, of course, but it’s really a great resource). Great slides, if you’re interested. Some of this stuff is complicated, and the slides really help. https://www.sti.nasa.gov/ is the home page; NASA research documents are available at https://ntrs.nasa.gov, the NASA Technical Report Server.

There were many other sessions, some that I attended and some I did not but am downloading some of the slides to review later on.

OTHER TAKEAWAYS

FDLP eXchange is now live; this is a new tool for doing Needs & Offers between the depository libraries. Our regional librarian Arlene Weible says she’s not sure we’re going to use it for Oregon Regional lists, since we have a system that works pretty well already and eXchange may not be adaptable enough.

CRS (Congressional Research Service) reports soon to be free from LC! There was much rejoicing.

In all, a very useful and interesting conference! I got so much out of attending in person that I would have missed if I’d only done the online sessions from here.