Meeting Minutes - May 7, 1999

NIDL Meeting Minutes
May 7, 1999

Northern Illinois University
Founders Memorial Library
DeKalb, IL 60115

Linda Chia, Chair
Paula Contreras, Secretary
Earl Shumaker, host

Present: Sandra Fritz, Bryan Blank, Marjorie Bengston, Lynne Smith, Emily Vescogni, Linda Chia (chair), Walt Baumann, Becky Byrum, Sally Holterhoff, Kathy Hathaway, Anne Abramson, Patrice Stearley, Roberta Palen, Edward Grosek, Bryan Harger, Earl Shumaker

I. Welcome by Dr. Lorraine Haricombe, Associate Director for Public Services, NIU Libraries

II. Dr. Brian Harger, Director, Illinois State Data Service, NIU: Dr. Harger works for the Center for Governmental Studies at NIU, and serves as coordinator for the Business Information Data Center and the State Data Center. Brochures for the Business and Industry Data Center Network and the Illinois State Data Center Cooperative were distributed, as well as a list of resources made available by the Center for Governmental Studies. Examples of the center's products were passed around (the "community profiles" were a particular hit with the crowd). Dr. Harger's background is in the private sector. The Center for Governmental Studies is the contract research arm of NIU -- they produce products for private entities, the government, and provide internal consulting for university departments.

III. Approval of minutes from November 20, 1998 meeting: Minutes approved pending the removal of an unwanted "c" in Earl Shumaker's (not Schumaker's) name.

IV. Report on Federal Depository Library Conference from Attendees:
Roberta Palen reported that this was a particularly interesting/useful FDLP conference. New websites from federal agencies were highlighted, and many presentations/discussions were focused on the cataloging of electronic information. Arlene Weible's presentation on PURL's was discussed, as well as a presentation on disaster planning. One library at the FDLP Conference reported that they were beginning to scan pamphlets, and were indexing them by subject and Sudoc number (Becky Byrum said that she would supply interested parties with this URL). GPO also reported that they would be offering more training sessions for GPO Access.

IV. Round-Robin Discussion of Library Happenings: Earl Shumaker has begun cataloging depository CD-ROM's in Sudoc. All current federal depository items are cataloged, and Northern Illinois is now working on retrospective cataloging of depository items and is beginning to lend items. Depository items are currently manually circulated. Northern is looking at purchasing Marcive tapes and is hoping to eventually have everything cataloged. Northern is also busy preparing to get on board with the DRA serials module.

Northern's Documents Department was also recently recognized by the cities of DeKalb and Sycamore, and Earl was invited to speak at his local AARP chapter. Since Earl has recently joined the organization, he has now been asked to serve in an official capacity regarding legislative outreach.

Paula Contreras reported that life has been a constant adventure with the UIC/State Department DOSFAN project (http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/), particularly during times of political turmoil.

Brian Blank is a new librarian at the Oak Park Public Library. Oak Park is working on cataloging their documents collection. Brian notes that he has been receiving many tax questions!

Marge Bengtson reports that the University of Illinois at Chicago Library subscribes to Marcive, and that it can sometimes prove to be a bit of a headache!

Lynne Smith says that much of her time at the NIU Law Library has been spent working on getting their holdings on DRA (slated for this fall). A large shift is planned for this summer.

Emily Vescogni at Illinois Valley Community College claims that they are also spending much time smoothing out DRA problems - although a positive result is the opportunity to clean out the collection. The library is currently down to two librarians.

Walt Baumann reports that the DePaul Law Library has a new name - the RINN Law Library. DRA issues are proving to be time-consuming, although they are still cataloging on Innovac.

Becky Byrum has been at Valparaiso for one year. They are working on updating their web page and generally having fun with html. They are also paring back their depository selections to 40%.

Sally Holterhoff has been working with 170 first-year law students in a legal research class. She has been involved with AALL, and reports that many directors of law libraries are inquiring about dropping their depository status.

Kathy Hathaway reports that Poplar Creek Public Library has been wrestling with how to handle documents that only exist on the web. Census documents are a particular concern. Kane and DuPage county tax caps are also crunching the library's budget, which prevents them from getting the funds needed to purchase new equipment. Kathy reports that the library is now fully staffed.

Anne Abramson from John Marshall was interested in the AALL listserv discussion regarding law libs dropping their depository status. She is in the process of completing their self-study and is working on a major weeding project. The John Marshall library is short of space. They have just acquired a set of the Chicago Legal News.

Patrice Stearley says that Northeastern is struggling with DRA. They have now cleared up all KNOWN errors. Once again, the DRA issue forces a reexamination of the collection and continual weeding projects. Northeastern has now weeded 9 drawers of GAO documents. They are currently using INNOPAC for serials checkin.

Roberta Palen of Chicago Public says that Barbara Ford (the new CPL director) is very energetic and very interested in government publications. CPL will be shifting all of their paper documents into compact shelving this summer. Microfiche will also be shifted. They are also down two librarians. CPL will be undergoing new performance evaluations. Roberta reports that fixing the owls on the roof will cost $30,000. CPL is also looking into Marcive.

Ed Grosek at Northern Illinois works with the UN collection. He is working on creating a roadmap of all important sections of the UN. Ed is also working on locating missing General Assembly and Security Council publications through ILL and photocopying and binding them.

Linda Chia says that Loyola is currently restructuring. Their department is all manual (including a paper shelflist). Their library will be migrating from Notis to Endeavour.

VI. Sandra Fritz presents the News from Springfield: With the last election, Illinois now has a new State Librarian - Jesse White. The new director of the State Library is the former head of Public Services, and the old director has moved on to work for the Governor's office. Jesse White held an inaugural party in the library and personally introduced himself to everyone.

There is a new Illinois Legislative Services web page. The new site contains the Compiled Statutes, Public Acts, and House and Senate bills and resolutions. Since the Administrative Code is privately produced by West, Sandy doesn't know if or when it will be made available on the website. The Public Acts on the site include the current and last legislative sessions. Tim Rice of LIS will be at the ILA Godort meeting in May to discuss the page in greater detail.

ILA Godort will be held on May 20th in Springfield, and the Federal Documents
Meeting will be held the following day. There will be no statewide meeting. The agenda will include Connie Frankenfeld, Anne Craig and the digitization project, and a CIS demonstration. Lunch will be ordered out through the Feed Store.

Sandy reported that those who had not yet heard about their self-studies should not be concerned due to backups at GPO. GPO will be performing inspections until the end of October. Only new facilities and those asking to be inspected will be inspected.

It was reported that the new mailing list for federal discards was working well. Please let Sandy know if there are problems.

The State Library is up and running on DRA, and trying to contend with being down two staff members. There are no plans for any State Depository inspections.

VII Committee Reports: There were no reports from the web page committee or legislative district committee.

The Nominating Committee reported that a new Secretary and Coordinator-Elect would be elected in the fall. Earl Shumaker will be the new coordinator. Contact Patrice or Bryan if interested in any of the positions.

VII. Meeting adjourned: The next meeting will be held at Walt Baumann's - the new DePaul Law Library in early November.

Tours were offered of the NIU Law Library and Founders Memorial Library Govt. Publications Department