Attending: Ken Orenic, Dominican University; Rita M. Koller, Lake Forest College; Shard Dysken, Chicago Public Library; Shenita Mack, Chicago Public Library; Kevin McClure, Chicago Kent School of Law; Deborah Taylor, University of Chicago; Gloria Hamilton, University of Chicago; Maria A. Szilagyi, University of Chicago; Trish Atkin, Oak Park Public Library; RoseAnn Vonesh, Oak Park Public Library; Michelle Stewart, Poplar Creek Public Library; Nanette Norton, Loyola University Law School; Pegeen Bassett, Northwestern University Law Library; Geoff Swindells, Northwestern University; Evelyn Cunico, University of Illinois Champaign, LIS student; John A. Shuler, University of Illinois-Chicago; Connie Fleischer, University of Chicago Law School, Julie Collins, Mt. Prospect Public Library; Robert Pruter, Lewis University; Lynne Smith, Northern Illinois Law School.

Hosts: Trish Atkin, Oak Park Public Library; RoseAnn Vonesh, Oak Park Public Library

Co-coordinators: Lynne Smith, Northern Illinois Law School; Robert Pruter, Lewis University

Minutes: Robert Pruter

Round Table Reports

Ken Orenic, Dominican University—reported he was hired about a year and a half ago, and the school is getting a new library director in July.

Rita Koller, Lake Forest College—reported that a student helper has recently completed a major weeding of their collection.

Sarah Dysken, Chicago Public Library—reported that she and Sherita Mack, are new hires just out of library school; Ms. Mack also reports that the Chicago Public Library has put up a new improved web page, providing greater usefulness to patrons.

Kevin McClure, Chicago Kent School of Law—reported that the library’s UN and GPO collections are rapidly being catalogued. He adds that having a full time student during the summer to help out is going to speed up the process considerably.

Gloria Hamilton, University of Chicago—reported that they have purchased MARCIVE for cataloging, and it is helping tremendously in cleaning up records, to remove duplicate entries, etc.

Connie Fleischer, University of Chicago School of Law—reported on the construction of the automated source retrieval building. This involved a ton of work putting a lot of materials in storage, and sending the Serial Set to the University of Hawaii, and the school’s Hearings set to Tulane University. There is a lot of new construction on the south side of the campus.

Julie Collins, Mt Prospect Public Library—reported that she has started a new blog, “Notes from the Reference Desk,” which provides news and information items on government documents for the community of Mt. Prospect. She said that the Library Board is committed to GovDocs and that in early May she will give an information presentation to the public services staff. Her blog is posted on the NIDL Wiki. Recently she appeared on a Comcast Cable news piece, discussing the Mt. Prospect PL art collection.

Trish Atkin, Oak Park Public Library—reported that the depository has pulled the 2000 census from the collection, and that timely GovDocs information is being provided on the OPPL website.

Michelle Stewart, Poplar Creek Public Library—reported that the library is expanding to twice its size. As a part of achieving this end, government documents had to be sent to off-site storage, as well as being subject to a major weed. The entire library will have to empty from the old building on May 12, and will relocate to a temporary location in early June.

Nanette Norton, Loyola University Law School—reported she is brand new to the job, and is in the process of still learning the collection and it operation.

Pegeen Bassett, Northwestern Law School—reported that there has been a recent reorganization, in which the law school library has been merged with IT to form a new department, Information Services. Also, the acting head of the law library, Jim McMaster, has now been appointed permanent director. The law school depository working with the Northwestern University library is digitalizing a collection relating to Progressive Era social reformer Florence Kelley and creating a website concerning her work. The law school library and the university depository have also jointly purchased the Lexis-Nexis digital Serial Set and Hearings Set.

Geoff Swindells, Northwestern University—reported that he is the new director, and comes from the University of Missouri. He reports that the depository is engaged in a large 20-year space planning process. He notes that planning that far in the future involves a great deal of guesswork. The depository is also engaged in new digitalization project on HUD from Chicago and on their WPA collection. They are also now looking at their World War II collection, pointing out that it is in perilous condition, due in part because of the low quality paper used during the war year. He also reported that he and John Shuler constitute two of four librarians from Illinois that are on the Depository Council.

Evelyn Cunico, graduate library student at University of Illinois, Champaign—reported that she is doing her practicum at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, where she is digitalizing the collection there for their library website.

John Shuler, University of Illinois, Chicago—mused that this is his 25th year as a document librarian, and he is serving it as the last living GovDocs librarian at his institution. There is now no depository department, which has been dismantled. He said the jury is still out, on whether it was the right way to go.

The decision has been made, he said, to integrate our collection—SUDOC, ILLDOC, and CHIDOC—into one run. Processing of GovDocs at UIC is happening in the cataloging department. The UIC role in supporting the Department of State website is continuing. We are also discarding for the first time. Our CIC is digitalizing subject collections relating to urban planning.

Shuler also reported on working with the OPPL to put on a public program, describing the No Child Left Behind act and its impact on the local community. They discovered that there was meeting fatigue in Oak Park. The Engaged and Informed Citizen program again is planned for this fall, which will be sponsored by OPPL and Dominican University GSLIS.

Shuler taught cataloging this semester at Dominican for the first time, and was engaged in writing in different areas, notably a paper on the Burnham Plan.

Robert Pruter, Lewis University—reported that the library has been awashed in academic politics, that the Dean of Arts and Sciences has been involved in a power struggle with the Director. As a result the Dean formed a Library Task Force committee from among the faculty to make a report on how the library needs to respond to the future growth. Pruter faulted the committee for making an inadequate report, due in part from minimal involvement from the library staff. He reported that the committee, however, smartly engaged a consultant to evaluate the report, and said that the consultant made it a point to interview the library staff. Pruter hopes that the consultant will address the deficiencies of the Task Force report. He also reported that the Dean is leaving at the end the term to take on responsibilities of provost at the St. Xavier. He also reported that Lewis University is once again is engaged in “super-study,” in which the library is opened 24 hours, Saturday through Thursday, for two weeks.

Lynne Smith, Northern Illinois Law School—reported that they are a 12 percent depository. The law school library is in the process of hiring a new reference librarian, and that the regular Northern Illinois library will be getting a new permanent director in July. She also noted that in the Northern Illinois Library Mary Grosch is currently the acting head of government documents.

Illinois State Library Report

Lynne Smith read the Illinois State Library report, which was sent in by Kathleen Blomberg, the Illinois State Library coordinator.

“For general news about the Illinois State Library and its programs, I encourage NIDL-ites to subscribe to "isl-announce" e-mail list—the best way to get State Library information. A weekly e-newsletter is distributed every Friday, and special announcements about grant programs, etc., are made as needed. To sign up, contact the editor, Patrick McGuckin, at pmcguckin@ilsos.net. E-news includes a paragraph each week about government documents information, written by the E-news editor.”

“The Illinois State Library has a new strategic plan, and of particular interest to the documents community, is the following:

Strengthen Government Documents Program.

• Hire State and Federal Documents Coordinator.
  
• Establish a section in Library Operations to focus on government documents collections and services.
  
• Provide permanent public access to electronic government publications."
  

Kathleen would let the Illinois depositories know when a permanent coordinator is hired. Her other comments as follows:

“Staff news includes the following: Fred Hicks, long-time federal documents cataloger, retired Dec. 31, 2007. And in an effort to increase public services staffing, several staff members transferred from Technical Services to Reference earlier this year. DeeAnn Powless (federal documents cataloger) and Laura Large (state documents cataloger) still have cataloging responsibilities along with public services duties."

“John Shuler sent out a great recap of the Kansas City documents meeting earlier this month. It was great to see several NIDL libraries represented at the meeting. And it is great to have another Federal Depository Library Council member representing Illinois, with Geoff Swindells at Northwestern. Even though a few terms are expiring later this year, four council members are from Illinois. In addition to John and Geoff: Denise Davis (ALA) and Mark Sandler (CIC)."

“Your input is needed on discard lists. E-mails were posted to several the isl-fed-dep and ILLINET Depository Library Council e-mail lists earlier. Responses were somewhat limited—and mixed. Some libraries are very interested in an easier, more efficient way to discard large runs of print materials. One or two libraries like things the way they are. What are your thoughts?”

“Lastly, please feel free to contact me with any questions. If I don't know the answer, I will try to find out.”

Responses to the Illinois State Library report

John Shuler suggested that those NIDL members who have not provided any input on the discard list, should respond accordingly.

Kevin McClure suggested that what would help the Illinois State Library would be the adoption of a Wiki.

Geoff Swindells pointed out that in Indiana and Missouri the procedure is to send discard lists to the Regional. He also suggested looking at the way Kansas does it, in which each depository sends their discard lists to the Regional, which in turns sends an integrated list to all the depositories.

Robert Pruter remarked that for several years on just about every list he got responses from Fred Hicks of the Illinois State Library looking to fill up gaps in the collection.

Michelle Stewart noted that Kathy wanted some response on the GODORT survey. She said that the ILA GODORT has ceased to exist. In the past several years, only three or four people were involved.

Gloria Hamilton pointed out that she had little interest in what GODORT was doing at the ILA, because generally only one program was devoted at the ILA conference to government documents.

When John Shuler asked the NIDL attendees on whether the ILA GODORT should be saved, only a handful of hands went up.

Kevin McClure added that the national GODORT is going through the same sort of situation, and John Shuler said that membership has dropped from 1,500 to 800 in the last seven years.

A discussion of the decline in government documents librarians then ensued, in which John Shuler and Geoff Swindells both pointed out that they teach government documents classes on the assumption that very few will be GovDocs specialists. Single purpose government document libraries are on the way out.

Sherita Mack suggested that GODORT should develop a basic 101 course for public reference librarians.

Robert Pruter Report on His Census Module for the Training Team

Pruter related that he promised to join the Training Team in the previous fall’s NIDL meeting, and that he would work up a Census Module. He points out that what he is passing around is a printout that provides basic information on the census and provides the click path to various census documents searches. The NIDL presenter uses the printout as a guide in his presentation, and the patrons can take the printout back with them and use it as a guide for their census searches.

His module covered the following areas—basic background on census, the Statistical Abstract, American Fact Finder, Early Census information, and the Economic Census.

Julie Collins responded and asked if Pruter had contacted the Training Team on this module, and suggested that he post the module on the Training Team page of the WIKI. He replied that he hadn’t contacted the Training Team on the module, and agreed that posting the Census module would be a good idea.

Kevin McClure’s Update on GODART

McClure related that GODART is spending a lot of time on how to encourage membership and participation. There has been much discussion on virtual membership through online conversation and Wiki. GODORT is looking at new ways to make participation easier. ALA GODORT's Federal Documents Task Force is still recruting for its agency liaison pilot project. The project is looking for "virtual members," who although members of GODORT would not be required to attend ALA's Annual or Midwinter meetings in person in order to participate in the project.

ALA GODORT's Federal Documents Task Force is still recruting for its agency liaison pilot project. The project is looking for "virtual members," who although members of GODORT would not be required to attend ALA's Annual or Midwinter meetings in person in order to participate in the project

McClure reported that the ALA will be conducing a national library awareness day May 13-14 in DC. GODART has identified issues to get out to legislation. In the national ALA meeting at Anaheim in July, there will be a Library Resources Roundtable, which will discuss e-government documents. In addition, there will be a full day program on the November elections.

John Shuler added a mention of the GODART Strategic Plan. Meetings with GODART people and non-GODART people will try to determine where GODART should be going. “People are moving on, people are retiring, things are changing, it is ILA writ-large,” he said.

John Shuler’s Remarks on “GIO Ask a Librarian”

John Shuler talked about a new program, “Government Information Online—Ask a Librarian,” an online reference support program for patrons of government document information, which began back in the summer of 2004. It uses OCLC’s QuestionPoint virtual reference management service, which is tied to each participating institution. This software allows a patron to send an email question, and allows you talk in real time with your patrons. OCLC allowed use of this software for free. Shuler recruited a nationwide group of universities to participate in the trial program. He also asked Julie Russell whether the Depository System would be interested, and she said yes in the fall of 2006.

There was some opposition, and Shuler related that at a national conference, the GPO gave a presentation on Shuler’s project, which torn it down saying it couldn’t work.

It was determined that 465 dollars a year from each library could sustain the program. John approached the CIC and GPO for support, and put out an appeal in 2007 for participation from member librarians. CIC reference opposed this, arguing against interlibrary cooperation.

By the fall of 2007, there was enough support garnered to break even, with 19 institutions willing to put up a link for a relaunch “GIO Ask a Librarian.” It debuted on February 11, and since that time there have been 1,800 interactions with the public. GPO is getting more involved, noted Shuler, and more pages will have links. Each of the participating institutions volunteers two hours a week, taking questions and queries.

John Shuler added that “GIO Ask the Librarian” has recently secured more financial resources, which will allow them to lower the entry fee, from 465 dollars to 365 dollars. And they are up to 25 institutions. Hours for the service nationwide is limited 8-6 M-Thu, 8-5, Friday. Superintendent of Documents considers it a “critical component of the federal depository program.”

Questions and Comments on Shuler’s Presentation

Pegeen Bassett asked what the level of services was, and asked does it involve the scanning of documents? John replied that it is up to the individual librarian, and that GIO Ask the Librarian is still establishing protocols and standards.

Robert Pruter asked about quality control, and Shuler replied that it involved “shared followup—we share the questions and we share the answers.”

Training Team and ALA 2009 Issues

Julie Collins presented the issue of the inactive Training Team. They haven’t met since last year, and there is an interest for a basic GovDocs101 presentation on government documents from the ILA. She related that Larry D’Urso, an active member of the ILA, asked her if NIDL would be interested in doing a program or two for the GODORT Forum at the ILA 2009 conference. Collins pointed out that the Training Team needs to get together and come up with a GovDocs 101 presentation.

Lynne Smith reemphasized Ms. Collins’ remarks and said the Training Team needs to get together if they want to do something at ILA, urging that NIDL should actually do something. She said, “We either have one, or not one.”

Regarding the upcoming ALA conference in Chicago in 2009, Kevin McClure said there might be a joint NIDL-GODORT effort to have a preconference meeting. He said a local committee is looking for space for 100-150 people, but noted that there is “no real urgency now.”

Time and Place for Next Meeting

Lynne Smith asked for an institution to host the fall 2008 NIDL meeting, but met with no response. Koller mentioned that at the last meeting Walter Baumann from DePaul had mentioned something about wanting to host. Co-coordinator Smith said she would followup via email with Walter Baumann and others to work out a host, and a day for the meeting.

Trish Atkin gave a tour of the Oak Park Public Library at the conclusion of the meeting.