GoPIG Minutes
May 10, 2002
Penrose Library, DU
In attendance: Louise Treff-Gangler (Auraria), Gary Morell (FRCC), Susan Simmons
(MDEPL, Broomfield), Sharon Partridge (JCPL), Julie Jones-Eddy (CC), Chris Brown
(DU), Carol Perkins (DU Law), Judith Rice-Jones (UCCS), Mark Anderson (UNC), Doug
Ernest (CSU), Leanne Walters (CU), Joan Harms (DPL), and Tim Byrne (CU) presiding.
2. Tim showed us a newspaper with his picture holding the destroyed "Surface Water"
USGS CD-ROM. The picture was published in a Japanese newspaper called the "Mainichi
Daily Newspaper."
1.& 9. & 10. Our tour included the different parts of the library that contain
documents; reference, maps, microfiche and documents. The processing area is in
technical services but the documents department is semi-autonomous. The staff of
two full-time support staff does cataloging, data base manipulation, processing
and shelving, without any students. Chris also works at the reference desk. They
catalog their retrospective collection as the pieces are handled for reshelving.
Chris showed us the URLs he's added to the cataloging for US topo maps. He was
able to use the existing cataloging and by creating a table with a calculation
to figure the latitude and longitude of the CENTER of each quad, to create a hot
link for each quad to that same quad in Microsoft Terra Server. You can see an
example if you go to the DU catalog
and search for . Chris said he thought
the quality of the maps at Topozone
was better.
Tim then showed us the Colorado Geological Survey CDs that he has loaded on
a snapdrive and made available via the web. He has added the URLs for these
titles to their catalog records (which show up in Prospector) and created a
page on his CD-ROM LAN menu:
All of the Colorado Geological Survey CDs that are in PDF format have been loaded.
These titles are not available on the CGS website.
In Tim's ceaseless search for Rocky Flats information, he noticed that the GAO
website under "Find GAO Reports" has GAO reports in full
text back to 1975 while GPO Access only has them back to 1995. He also noticed
that some of the post 1995 reports are NOT on the GPO website because they had
been restricted when they were created and now that they've been released, GPO
doesn't add them since they aren't new. (In other words, use the GAO site
instead of GPO.)
2. Julie announced that McKinley Seilaff will be the new documents librarian
at CC and that Monica Davis has a new job at Penrose Public Library as a
Reference/Senior Outreach librarian. Tim pulled out a bottle of champagne
for a toast to Julie's retirement. We all had a decorous amount and it
enlivened the meeting. Julie told us some of her plans including her forthcoming
FBI investigation (you should have been here).
3. The minutes from April need to be corrected to show that Katherine Sayer
and Cathy EASON are at the United States Courts Library, 10th District. It
should also be noted that only 25% of their collection will be in boxes but
it will all be accessible.
4. June 7 CU - including another round of discard list checking - try to arrive
by 9:00 if you are planning to help
July 26 - UNC
Sept. 13 - Wyoming State Library and State Archives
Oct 17-20 is the first meeting of the combined CLA and CEMA= CAL
Nov. 1 - Front Range
Dec. 6 - Broomfield
Jan. 10 - JCPL
5. Depository Library Council - We appreciated Susan Tulis publishing her
notes so quickly. Highlights include naming Pueblo to be the GPO Access
mirror site. The Biennial Survey shows that 9.5 million people use depository
libraries to access government information. GPO Sales have decreased by 50%
and there will be more bookstores closing (probably not Denver). There will
be an article published during the next six months with results of a survey
asking why libraries leave the FDLP. The integrated library software for GPO
should be in place within a year. They have narrowed the field to three companies.
GPO has been filing positions including some of the cataloging vacancies. There
is a new search engine that offers intelligent suggestions
for ways to refine your search. The online bookstore is offering email alerts by
subject. You can sign up on the bookstore website .
By signing up, you will know about print publications when FDLP is only distributing
electronic versions. There was a workshop on the value of the FDLP and how to
convey that information to a director. There was another one on electronic
competencies. You can reach the handout at www.library.ucsb.edu/ala/gitco/ecomps.html.
The Nuclear Regulatory Agency, DTIC and the USGS presented a program on Post-9/11
Dissemination. The USGS talked about 5 levels of restriction from the first with
no restrictions to the last where there is an externally imposed restriction.
All the nuclear power plants have been removed from the National Atlas. The
agencies are struggling with Bush's "unclassified but sensitive" category since
it hasn't been defined. Tim remembered a similar attempt for this type of secrecy
in 1983 but it failed. The Defense Technical Information Center has removed 6,600
documents from a database of 2 million. They are offering a publication called
"Current Focus" to registered users. It will contain documents about homeland
security etc. but Tim wasn't sure if libraries could join or, if they could, could
give the information to patrons. Larry Romans did a presentation on positioning
your website. He encourages using SHTML for easier coding and update. Chris presented
a program on batch additions of URLs to your catalog.
6.Andrea Sevetson, chair of the Depository Library Council, had breakfast with the
Public Printer nominee, Bruce James, and was impressed with his enthusiasm and ideas
and that he admits not knowing much about libraries.
7. There wasn't much to say about OMB Circular M-02-07. GPO will oppose the circular
through administrative rulemaking procedures. There have been two similar attempts in
the last 15 years to end the requirement that executive branch agencies use GPO for
their printing. In each case, Congress was convinced that it was more cost effective
for agencies to go through GPO.
8. Tim emphasized that when he includes a URL in the agenda, he'd like us to look at
the site BEFORE the meeting. He wanted to discuss the article on Cybersecurity at
. This fascinating
article from The Bridge, by the National Academy of Engineers points out how vulnerable
our computerized lifestyle/information system is. The part that really alarmed Tim
was "we have virtually no research base on which to build truly secure systems" and
" No one knows how vulnerable we really are because the most costly attacks have not
been made public." Tim suggested the scenario of the Interior Department's site
being attacked and the judge's order being created to explain the recovery. There
was much teasing about a serious problem. The National Academy of Engineers calls
for real research.
Tim talked to the California State Library about a new product called a Mekel
Machine. It can scan 75 microfiche at a time and creates .pdf files that can be
burned into a CD or emailed. It costs $50-60,000 and Tim might be calling on us
to write support letters for grant applications.
Tim talked to the sales rep from Cambridge Science Abstracts about the changes
in the NTIS database. Will CSA be making the changes to their product to allow live
links? The answer was "Not until after the third quarter of the year, at the soonest."
11. Sharon reported that she would not be able to present the CAL program on gov
docs for K-12. Joan Harms enthusiastically stepped in to replace her and will present
the program.
12. Rob Richards passed on information about a project done in New Jersey by Susan
Lyons. They assigned different agency websites to the documents librarians in the
state and told them to search for fugitive documents about New Jersey. It was very
successful. Tim asked if we'd be interested in doing something similar. JCPL will
do Defense and UNC asked for Education. Get your bids to Tim before you get stuck
with some yucky agency that bores you to tears.
Auraria's Collection Development librarian, Terry Leopold, will be retiring. They
are looking at network printers. Docs has removed the catalog records for missing
pieces.
JCPL - Sharon urged everyone to try to attend the Nicholette program on "safety in
the library" that JCPL is sponsoring at CAL.
DU Law is continuing to send books to Penrose as they box for their move.
DPL is getting ready to integrate its first batch of gov docs records into the main
catalog. Denver City Council has 11 members leaving and they are discussing where
they'd like to leave their archives.
UNC loaded 10,000 Marcive records that were later suppressed. They are gradually
reappearing. Mark has another 110,000 records to be loaded. There was some discussion
about how many records can be loaded at once without crashing the system. Anything
between 10-20,000 is almost guaranteed to cause a system failure.
DU -Chris has finished his book! It's a bibliography of UN economic development
publications including many that are only available in Japan.
FRCC - The Rocky Flats cataloging project continues and interviewing has begun for
a new Reference Coordinator.
CSU is running out of space and Doug wanted feedback on weeding the military field
manuals (60 linear feet of them!) and the Trademark and Patent Gazetteers.
Suggestions were made on libraries that might want the discards.
CU has hired Susan Xue as the new state and foreign docs librarian. They've
started the wireless network in Norlin. Tim is buying the catalog records for
all of the CIS Executive Branch Documents microfiche collections. They are loading
the records in parts. The first four parts of the pre-1909 records are available
now. Tim is working on the pre 1964 technical reports collection, all the
acquisitions by the Technical Reports Center that was created in 1963 with an
enthusiastic librarian who did lots of retrospective collecting. He's looking
at individual cataloging or creating collection records for the holdings.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:30
Respectfully submitted,
Sharon Partridge, secretary