Administrative Notes 

Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program

Vol. 27, no. 09-10 GP 3.16/3-2:27/09-10 Sept 15/Oct. 15, 2006 

1 

HIGHLIGHTS 

Federal 

Depository 

Library of the 

Year 1 

Library Meeting 

Attracts Varied 

Audience 3 

Redesign of 

Browse Topics 2 

Last Shipping 

List Numbers 3 

Remarks by Judy 

Russell 4 

Remarks by 

Ric Davis 8 

GPO Update 12 

Federal Depository Library of the 

Year Announced: 

Benton Harbor Public Library 

GPO officials present the Federal Depository Library of the Year Award to the Benton 

Harbor Public Library. From left to right, Ric Davis, GPO’s Director of Library Services & 

Content Management; Bruce James, Public Printer of the United States; Fred Kirby, Benton 

Harbor Public Library Director; and Judy Russell, Superintendent of Documents. 

The U.S. Government Printing Office has selected Michigan’s Benton 

Harbor Public Library as the 2006 Federal Depository Library of the 

Year. Public Printer Bruce James presented the award to library 

officials October 22 at the annual Federal Depository Library 

Conference. In presenting the award, James commended the library for 

providing the residents of its community with online access to 

authentic published Government information. 

“I am honored to present this award to the Benton Harbor Public 

Library. Our partnership with the Federal Depository Library is an 

example of how GPO and local libraries can help communities across 

the country access authentic published Government information,” said 

James. “I am especially glad to see the library using the far-reaching 

benefits of the Web to post Federal Government documents that 

residents can download electronically.” 
AN-v27-#09-10-10/15/06 

Benton Harbor Public Library is in an 

economically challenged area and used 

limited funds to ensure Federal 

Government resources are used to their full 

potential. Michigan’s United States 

Senators are proud of what a library in 

their home state was able to accomplish. 

“I commend the Benton Harbor Public 

Library staff not only for its commitment 

to providing citizens with access to a 

wide range of Government resources, but 

also for presenting these resources in a 

manner that so directly meets the needs 

of the community,” said U.S. Senator 

Carl Levin. 

“Great things are happening because of 

great people in Benton Harbor. I’m so 

proud to represent them,” said U.S. 

Senator Debbie Stabenow. “This 

award is very special and very well 

deserved. I want to congratulate Fred 

Kirby, our great director of the library, 

and his staff.” 

Michigan Governor Jennifer M. 

Granholm, in a letter congratulating the 

library on the award, noted that “the staff 

at Benton Harbor Public Library are 

showing your community how to 

navigate, use and ultimately leverage 

primary source materials where they can 

arguably do the most good and where--

without the commitment of the library to 

offer such materials--they would 

otherwise be unavailable to many people. 

This award is a testament to your library 

staff's passion for information and 

commitment to your community. On 

behalf of the people of Michigan, whom 

you serve so very well, please accept my 

congratulations and best wishes as you 

celebrate this much deserved 

recognition.”

Depository Library Meeting 

Attracts Varied Audience 

Five hundred nine depository librarians and 

other information professionals attended the 

69th Depository Library Council meeting and 

16th Federal Depository Library Conference, 

held in Washington DC on October 22-25, 

2006. Academic libraries were heavily 

represented, with 255 registrants, and staff 

from public, law, and special libraries, as well 

as other information organizations, made up 

the remainder. One-fifth of the participants 

were attending for the first time. 

Presentations by 64 speakers from the 

depository community and from government 

agencies covered many issues and 

developments affecting the Federal 

Depository Library Program. The conference 

proceedings are posted at 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pu

bs/proceedings/06fall/index.html

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Redesign of Browse Topics Web Site Underway 

GPO and Oklahoma State University (OSU) 

are pleased to announce that a redesign of the 

Browse Topics Web site is underway. This 

redesign continues GPO's and OSU's 

successful partnership to create topical 

pathfinders to electronic Federal Government 

information. The new Browse Topics Web 

site includes an updated list of topical 

pathfinders grouped by subject and allows 

users to search by keyword across all topics. 

The new site will also increase opportunities 

to contribute listings to a topic by eliminating 

the need to code the entries in HTML. While 

the redesigned Browse Topics Web site will 

be hosted on a GPO server, OSU will 

continue to act as the administrator of the 

service and the point of contact for all 

Browse Topics contributors. Barbara Miller 

of OSU and Karen Sieger of GPO 

demonstrated a beta version of the new site 

during Federal Depository Library 

Conference. The beta version of the new 

Browse Topics will be released to the Federal 

depository library community via FDLP-L 

shortly. The current Browse Topics site is at: 

http://www.library.okstate.edu/govdocs/br

owsetopics/

Last Shipping List Numbers for FY2006 

The Fiscal Year 2006 Shipping Lists end with the following numbers: 

Electronic 2006-0028-E 

Microfiche 2006-0303-M 

Paper 2006-0348-P 

Separates 2006-0035-S 

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Remarks by Judy Russell 

Superintendent of Documents 

Fall Meeting, Depository Library Council 

Washington, DC 

October 23, 2006 

I am pleased to join Bill [Sudduth, Chair of 

the Depository Library Council] in

welcoming you once again to our Nation’s 

Capitol and to this 69th meeting of the 

Depository Library Council. 

I am delighted that so many of you have 

made the effort to be here. As of Friday, there 

were over 490 people registered for this 

meeting, and another 30 registered on site 

yesterday, so we have an excellent turnout. 

And based on the “Council Aerobics,” we 

have a good representation of library types 

and sizes and various parts of the country. 

Nevertheless, I am (as always) conscious that 

many of our colleagues were not able to be 

here with us. I urge you to take home all that 

you learn from this conference and share it 

with others in your institution and in your 

community. It is important that we engage the 

entire depository library community and, in 

fact, the entire library community in these 

discussions since other libraries throughout 

the country rely on depository collections and 

services. We will be posting the GPO Update, 

the presentations and other handouts, and we 

are recording the sessions so we can make 

them available as podcasts, but your personal 

engagement will be the most important means 

to make sure that we are communicating 

effectively about the issues and ideas that are 

discussed here. 

We have heard from Bruce [James, Public 

Printer of the United States] about the 

progress of GPO and public access to US 

Federal information. We have been 

enlightened by Carol Tullo’s [Director of the 

Office of Public Sector Information for the 

United Kingdom, http://www.opsi.gov.uk/] 

description of how the UK is unlocking the 

potential of public sector information. We 

have been challenged by José-Maria 

Griffiths’ [Professor & Dean, School of 

Information and Library Science, University 

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] remarks on 

the cyber infrastructure and the future roles of 

librarians and information professionals in 

this new environment. All three speakers 

have given us a lot to think about and I am 

sure that many of the ideas they touched on 

yesterday will be part of our dialog over the 

next few days. 

We also had the opportunity to celebrate the 

accomplishments of our newest Federal 

Depository Library of the Year. For those of 

you that were not here yesterday, I would like 

to announce that the Benton Harbor Public 

Library in Benton Harbor, Michigan was 

chosen for this honor. 

We all know that many patrons come into the 

library seeking information, not necessarily 

knowing that their question can be answered 

using government information. I want to read 

a brief passage from the nomination that 

demonstrates how Benton Harbor Public 

Library addresses that issue: “In asking not 

‘What source might be useful?’ but ‘What 

government source might be useful?’, the 

library ensures that Federal government 

resources are used to their full potential to 

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help the local community.” Please join me 

again in congratulating Fred Kirby and Jill 

Rauh on the excellent job that they are doing 

serving their community. Benton Harbor 

Public Library exemplifies the very real 

contribution that a depository library with 

minimal resources and considerable 

dedication can make in a community. [The 

press release is available at 

http://www.gpo.gov/news/2006/06news30.p

df.] 

It is not too early for you to be thinking about 

your library or another library that you would 

like to nominate for the award next year. 

With me this morning is Ric Davis, Director 

of Library Services & Content Management, 

who is going to give you an update on the 

major projects that support the FDLP and 

Cataloging and Indexing program. He will be 

followed by Bob Tapella, GPO’s Chief of 

Staff, who is going to give you an update on 

key initiatives from other parts of GPO. 

As always, we have a full agenda – and you 

have lots of choices in addition to the Council 

sessions. There are agency updates, GPO 

operational open forums, and a variety of 

other educational programs. There are also 

some excellent tours on Wednesday 

afternoon. 

First time attendees are reminded that 

Council is an advisory body and, as such, its 

purpose is to advise the Public Printer and 

Superintendent of Documents. This is done 

primarily through the dialog that you will 

observe during the Council sessions. We 

reserve a portion of the time in each session 

for audience participation, and provide a 

variety of other means for the members of the 

community to share their points of view with 

GPO and Council members. We welcome 

that input and actively seek it, but the Council 

sessions are meetings of an advisory body 

and should be understood as such. 

This is my 8th, and final, meeting with the 

Council as Superintendent of Documents. 

Bruce and I have met with Council in Reno, 

St. Louis, Albuquerque, Seattle and four 

times here in Washington, DC (though I was 

only here in spirit for the meeting last fall 

because my mother was in the hospital). 

These meetings have been important 

milestones of my tenure as Superintendent of 

Documents, providing an opportunity to 

discuss our options, debate the issues set a 

course of action and assess our progress. 

There were 15 individuals already serving on 

the Council when I became Superintendent of 

Documents, and four additional classes have 

been appointed, including the one that begins 

its service with this meeting. (We have 

actually been putting them to work since their 

appointments were announced last spring.) 

These thirty-five individuals have invested 

their time, energy and expertise in a dialog 

with GPO and with the depository 

community on the future roles of GPO and 

federal depository libraries in public access to 

government information. If there are Council 

members from the earlier classes in the 

audience, please stand. Please join me in 

thanking the current and former Council 

members for their service. 

The primary theme in all of these meetings 

(and many others in which I have participated 

since becoming Superintendent of 

Documents) has been planning for the future, 

and this Council meeting is no exception. 

During the next few days we will continue 

the exploration of the issues and opportunities 

that we must address to make sure that the 

Federal Depository Library Program is as 

vital to the nation in the next hundred years 

as it has been for the past 200 years. Our 

common goal throughout this dialog has been 

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to reaffirm the important mission of the 

Federal Depository Library Program and seek 

to ensure that there continues to be a viable 

and vital program for permanent public 

access that acknowledges and utilizes new 

technologies to support democracy and 

inform our users. 

We continue to build on the foundation of 

common principles, acknowledging that the 

Federal Government has the obligation to 

disseminate and provide broad public access 

to its published information, as well as to 

guarantee the authenticity and integrity of this 

information. And, furthermore, that the 

Government has an obligation to preserve its 

information and assure permanent public 

access. 

Our common vision is to serve the public by 

increasing access to, and usefulness of, 

published Federal information. To provide, 

not just information, but (as the cartoon 

shows) clarification! I saw this cartoon at the 

ARL meeting last week. Others have used it 

as well as a humorous way to emphasize the 

essential role of the library – and its expert 

staff – to assist users who frequently find 

“good enough” information through Google 

and other search engines, but often need the 

expertise of our library staff to make that 

information meaningful and useful when it 

really matters. 

In the future, even more than it does today, 

the public will insist upon timely, continuous, 

permanent, no-fee access to published 

information from its Government. The public 

will rely on depository libraries for services 

that facilitate informed use of published 

Federal information in all available formats 

and to provide access to tangible collections – 

and the public will expect 24/7 access to a 

comprehensive online collection of published 

Federal information. The Future Digital 

System that is now under development will 

ensure such a collection, curated and 

authenticated by GPO, is available for 

permanent public access. (During the next 

session, Mike Wash, our Chief Technical 

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Officer, will update you on our progress on 

the development of this world class system to 

ingest, manage, deliver and preserve digital 

content.) 

By law and tradition, the Federal Depository 

Library Program has the mission to provide 

for the perpetual, free and ready public access 

to the printed and electronic documents, and 

other published information products, of the 

Federal government through the partnership 

between the U.S. Government Printing Office 

and the participating libraries. 

To paraphrase GPO’s Strategic Vision, 

“while this mission will remain essentially 

the same in the future, the introduction of 

digital technology has changed the ways 

Government information products and 

services will be created and how they will 

look and function to meet the ever changing 

needs of the Federal government itself and 

the way public users of Government 

information now prefer to access and use it.” 

It is the refocusing of the Federal Depository 

Library Program to meet the changing 

requirements for access to the published 

information of the Federal government that 

we continue to address as a community – and 

we have made significant progress in the past 

four years. Not only has GPO issued its 

Strategic Vision for the 21st Century, but 

together we have reviewed and discussed 

dozens (sometimes it seems like thousands) 

of briefing papers and white papers on a 

variety of topics of importance to our future. 

Tomorrow morning the Council will conduct 

a session on its vision document, culminating 

18 months of work by Council members and 

others from the community. It has been a 

labor of love and an enormous effort to pull 

together all the threads of this complex and 

rapidly changing environment and they are to 

be commended for their efforts. This 

document will be an important part of the 

foundation as we continue to work together to 

design, build and manage the Federal 

Depository Library Program of the future. 

As always, we have a lot to cover in the next 

two and half days, and I am looking forward 

to some lively and informative discussions. 

Many of these topics will continue to be on 

the agenda for the spring meeting in Denver 

(April 15-18, 2007). I hope many of you will 

be able to attend that meeting as well. 

There may be a new Superintendent of 

Documents with you in Denver, but whether 

or not my successor is in place, Ric and his 

very capable staff are well prepared to 

continue our progress on the near term 

initiatives that are already planned or 

underway as well as to continue the dialog 

with the Council and the community to 

determine what else needs to be done to 

ensure the future of permanent public access 

to government information. 

With that, I am going to turn the microphone 

over to Ric Davis. We will take your 

questions and comments after he and Bob 

Tapella complete their presentations. Thank 

you very much for your attention this 

morning, for your participation during the 

next few days – and especially for your 

support and assistance during the past four 

years. 

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Remarks by Ric Davis 

Director, Library Services and Content Management 

Fall Meeting, Depository Library Council 

Washington, DC 

October 23, 2006 

I want to first take the opportunity to 

welcome all of you to this year’s Fall 

Depository Library Council Meeting. It is so 

great to see so many familiar faces, as well as 

some new ones. 

I am Ric Davis, and I serve as the Director of 

Library Services and Content Management. I 

am entering my 15th year of Government 

service at GPO, and I am fortunate that most 

of that time has been spent working on issues 

related to the Federal Depository Library 

Program. 

As you know, the Federal Depository Library 

Program is integral to keeping the American 

public informed about their Government, and 

I want to commend you all on your continued 

dedication and commitment to this critical 

service. 

There are a lot of exciting initiatives 

underway in Library Services and Content 

Management, and today, I’d like to share 

some of them with you. I encourage you all to 

take this information home with you, and 

share it with your colleagues and patrons. 

As many of you know, we recently went 

through an extensive reorganization, and I am 

pleased to say that we have now filled all 12 

of our vacancies for Senior Managers within 

Library Services and Content Management. 

Many of these folks and others from the 

Library unit are here in the audience today, 

and I have asked them to sit on the front row 

so you may easily find them. 

In addition to the reorganization, we have 

also taken on an innovative and disciplined 

approach to project management. We have 

spent a significant amount of time reviewing 

and analyzing all of our initiatives and 

applying the principles of project 

management to each of them. 

Each project is now examined from the 

standpoint of stakeholders, objectives, goals, 

scope, and resources. For each new initiative, 

scope statements, project charters, risk 

management plans, and communication plans 

are carefully developed, and our staff 

members monitor the progress of these 

initiatives by following and modifying these 

plans closely. 

The project management approach helps us to 

better monitor our progress with each 

initiative, discover potential problems, and 

stay on track with project goals. The 

approach is also integral in assisting us as we 

collaborate with library partners and other 

federal agencies, in addition to other business 

units within GPO. 

Before I begin to address specific initiatives 

within Library Services and Content 

Management, I’d like to remind everyone 

about the GPO Operational Open Forums that 

will be held on Tuesday, October 24th. The 

first one will be at 8:30 am, and the second 

will take place at 3:30 pm. These sessions 

will give you an opportunity to ask specific 

technical and operational questions related to 

the FDLP and our services. In the past we 

have typically done one of these sessions, but 

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we want to give you every opportunity to ask 

operational questions through these two 

sessions. 

In referring to another session of note, GPO 

is working to devise a data migration strategy 

to ensure that the content of the CD-ROMs 

that have been distributed to depository 

libraries remains accessible. There will be a 

session on CD-ROM data migration this 

afternoon at 3:30. A panel will present 

information on projects to ensure continued 

access to content of CD-ROMs underway in 

several depository libraries. 

Now I’d like to take some time to mention 

key initiatives that are being addressed and 

worked on in Library Services and Content 

Management. 

First, we have made some GPO Access 

upgrades of note. We are finalizing a server 

consolidation as an interim resolution as we 

are working to replace WAIS. This is not an 

ultimate solution, but it should provide 

improved search functionality while we are 

working toward a permanent GPO Access

search solution through the Future Digital 

System. 

During this process, we certainly value your 

input, thoughts, and opinions. Each day, we 

are actively engaged in testing the GPO 

Access Web site, so that we may identify 

current issues and resolve them promptly. If 

you come across problems, either with search 

functionality or with the data that is retrieved, 

we ask that you submit an inquiry to us. 

We have also assembled a cross-agency team 

to collaborate on a re-design of the FDLP 

Desktop, GPO Access, and gpo.gov. This is 

part of a large-scale effort to improve the 

functionality and user-friendliness of all of 

GPO’s online services. This team is working 

together to modify GPO’s existing services so 

that they are as intuitive and useful as 

possible. 

At tomorrow’s GPO Online Services Open 

Forum at 10:30, an FDLP Desktop re-design 

will be demonstrated, as well as a re-design 

of the Browse Topics feature on GPO Access. 

The FDLP Desktop re-design was developed 

in an effort to improve the ease of use and 

functionality of the current site, and we really 

look forward to collecting your thoughts and 

impressions of the re-design. The Browse 

Topics re-design continues GPO’s and 

Oklahoma State University’s successful 

partnership to create topical pathfinders to 

electronic Federal Government information. 

The new and improved Browse Topics 

includes an updated list grouped by subject 

and allows users to search by keyword across 

all topics. The new site will also increase 

opportunities to contribute listings to topics 

by eliminating the need to code the entries in 

HTML. 

Regarding our efforts to more fully develop a 

disaster recovery site, GPO has awarded a 

contract in the past two weeks to Creative 

Information Technology Inc. to forward GPO 

Access data to the disaster recovery solution. 

The functionality of the failover site will be 

continually enhanced during the term of the 

six-month contract as applications are parsed 

and transmitted to the failover site. The 

critical feature of this contract is that it will 

migrate applications to a consistent dataset 

building on our current disaster recovery 

options. 

Not only are we working on various GPO 

Access upgrades, but we are also working to 

improve the way we collect and compile 

statistics to share with you. The Library unit 

uses performance metrics as a key part of 

project management. 

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A Working Group has been developed, and 

weekly meetings are held for the discussion 

of implementation issues and updates. Team 

members have been assigned defining terms 

and metrics calculations, and a reporting 

mechanism has been developed. Additionally, 

a database has also been developed to capture 

metrics, and statistical data is being captured 

from each office. Initial metrics reports have 

been produced and circulated, and currently, 

GPO staff are analyzing the feedback from 

the initial reports. 

We plan to make these metrics reports 

publicly available, and hope to release them 

within the next couple of months. 

You also may have noticed a larger number 

of boxes coming in lately from our 

Depository Distribution unit. We are pleased 

to say that we are now completely caught up 

on the backlog of what needed to be 

distributed. We are also in the process of 

bringing in four additional employees from 

our Laurel warehouse, to help with staffing 

and one additional vacancy is presently in the 

process of being backfilled. 

We have also made some exciting progress in 

our Digitization Demonstration Project 

efforts. GPO is currently conducting a 

demonstration project for the digitization of 

legacy publications. Priorities for digitization 

include legislative and regulatory material 

that expands the coverage of the most popular 

GPO Access databases. We will conduct an 

evaluation of this work that is being done by 

our Digital Media Services group at GPO in 

December and subsequently share the results 

with the library community. The key 

objectives of this are to validate our 

digitization specifications and demonstrate 

quality, accessibility, and permanence of 

content based on the specifications. 

Library Services and Content Management 

staff have participated in a number of 

outreach activities of note. 

Recently, our Director of Collection 

Management and Preservation, Robin HaunMohamed, presented at the International 

Conference on the Preservation of Digital 

Objects, held at Cornell University. She, 

along with Gil Baldwin from the Chief 

Technical Officer’s organization, spoke on 

the preservation of Federal digital 

publications. 

Staff in our Planning and Development group 

attended the first meeting of the Great 

Western Librarian Association and the Center 

for Research Libraries Federal Technical 

Reports Taskforce in Chicago at the Center 

for Research Libraries. The taskforce is 

conducting a pilot project to digitize and 

provide access to Federal technical reports. 

GPO was asked to share information on our 

digitization demonstration project and 

cataloging efforts. 

Library Technical Information Services staff 

have also given several presentations on the 

Catalog of Government Publications at the 

request of depository libraries. 

In relation to outreach, a new, distance 

learning tool is also on the horizon. GPO 

recently conducted a test of a live, online 

training session using OPAL (Online 

Programming for All Libraries). OPAL is an 

international collaborative effort by libraries 

of all types to provide Web-based programs 

and training for library users and library staff 

members. 39 librarians participated in the 

test, and GPO staff are evaluating the group’s 

comments and suggestions to engage in 

further collaboration with all of you and 

make decisions about the use of a Web-based 

training tool for the FDLP community. The 

value of such a tool would be in allowing 

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depository staff and others to participate in 

educational events which they could not 

otherwise attend, either during the live 

session or later, using the training archives. 

Events under consideration include 

educational sessions at the Federal 

Depository Library Conference and the 

Interagency Seminar, as well as sessions on 

specific FDLP topics and issues. 

Also relating to outreach, GPO extended its 

partnership with Case Western Reserve 

University and the Census Bureau through 

2011. This partnership ensures that electronic 

information products from the 2000 Census 

of Population and Housing (Census 2000) are 

permanently accessible under the auspices of 

the Federal Depository Library Program. 

Many of you have recently been inquiring 

about the new Federal Depository Library 

Handbook. Work is continuing, and chapters 

on GPO organization, public services, 

preservation, housing, staffing, partnerships, 

and disaster preparedness and recovery were 

posted for public comment on the FDLP 

Desktop. GPO staff are currently reviewing 

the comments, and these chapters will be 

finalized soon. Additional chapters, including 

regional services and federal libraries, will 

also be posted for comment in the near future. 

Next, I wanted to update everyone on GPO's 

pilot project to automatically harvest online 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

publications. This was a collaboration 

between the Chief Technical Officer’s 

organization, Library Services and Content 

Management, EPA, and two vendors. Our 

goal for the pilot was to learn about available 

methodologies and technologies for 

automated Web discovery, assessment, and 

harvesting of U.S. Government publications. 

The pilot recently concluded, and we are very 

pleased with the amount of knowledge and 

experience that was gained. Based on our 

explanation of the characteristics and 

parameters of online in-scope publications, 

the vendors wrote rules and instructions for 

the harvesting tools which first identified 

publications and then evaluated them to 

determine if they are EPA publications within 

scope of the FDLP. Accuracy in identifying 

in-scope publications improved greatly 

between the three crawls. We have numerous 

ideas on how to improve the accuracy rate, 

and we will continue to investigate automated 

harvesting in order to further develop 

requirements and specifications for the 

harvesting function to be implemented within 

FDsys. We are also currently investigating 

technical services workflow options to 

catalog and classify harvested EPA 

publications that have not already been 

cataloged. For a more in depth discussion on 

Harvesting, please attend the Council Session 

on Web Harvesting, being held today at 1:30 

pm. 

Regarding our Integrated Library System, we 

are near release on a significant enhancement. 

There are two parts to the enhancement, one 

for New Titles and one for New Electronic 

titles. These both provide dynamic, predefined searches to retrieve newly cataloged 

titles by specific time periods. 

The Library directory is under development, 

which is part of the Locate Libraries 

administrative module. This will allow 

libraries to input and edit their depository's 

library directory information. Libraries and 

the public will also be able to search directory 

information for all depository libraries. Phase 

2 ILS planning is underway, to include 

implementation of MetaLib (federated 

searching capability). 

I want to thank you for your time and 

attention today, and again encourage you to 

attend as many of our educational programs 

as you can. 

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[HANDOUT FROM FALL COUNCIL MEETING] 

GPO Depository Library Council Update 

October 2006 

2006 FEDERAL DEPOSITORY 

LIBRARY OF THE YEAR AWARD 

GPO has selected the recipient of the 2006 

Federal Depository Library of the Year 

Award. The chosen library will be announced 

at an awards ceremony on Sunday, October 

22 from 2:30 to 3:15 p.m. in the 

Ticonderoga/York/Valley Forge rooms at the 

Hyatt Regency, during the fall 2006 

Depository Library Conference and meeting 

of the Depository Library Council. A 

reception will follow the presentation. The 

award provides special recognition for a 

library that furthers the goals of the Federal 

Depository Library Program by ensuring that 

the American public has free access to its 

Government's information through: 

1. Outstanding service to meet the 

Federal government information 

needs in the library's service area 

2. Creativity and innovation in 

developing specific community 

programs for use of Federal 

government information or a dramatic 

increase in their community's usage of 

Federal government information 

3. Leadership in creating public service 

programs that can be emulated by 

other Federal Depository Libraries 

It’s not too early to be thinking of deserving 

libraries to nominate for the 2007 Federal 

Depository Library of the Year. The 

recommendation form will be made available 

in January 2007. 

INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEM 

(ILS) 

The Catalog of U.S. Government 

Publications (CGP) continues to move 

forward in providing public access to Federal 

government publications. As of October 2, 

more than 8,524,000 successful requests have 

been made of the CGP since its launch in 

March, for an average of 41,196 per day. 

GPO staff continue to work on Phase 2 

rollouts, including enhanced New Titles 

functionality; implementation of federated 

searching across Federal government 

information resources with Ex Libris’ 

MetaLib; setup of Z39.50 services so that 

depository libraries can search the Catalog of 

Government Publications (CGP) and retrieve 

bibliographic record sets; and completion of 

the development of the Locate Libraries 

administrative module, which will not only 

enable depositories to edit their directory 

information, but also provide a publicly 

accessible interface to search directory 

information for all depositories. Additional 

information about the CGP and continuing 

ILS initiatives can be found at: 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/cip

/index.html

FDsys UPDATE 

GPO is transforming from a print-centric 

agency to one that delivers Federal 

information products and services from a 

digital platform. The Future Digital System 

(FDsys) will enable GPO to better manage 

digital content and provide multiple outputs, 

including print. 

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AN-v27-#09-10-10/15/06 

On August 2, 2006, GPO awarded a contract 

for Master Integrator (MI) services. An MI is 

a contractor responsible for collaborating 

with GPO to design, develop, and deploy the 

technologies and applications that will 

comprise FDsys. As the FDsys MI, the 

contractor will integrate technologies and 

applications together to deliver a fully 

functional system. The MI will also assist 

GPO with system testing and training. 

In early 2007, the first internal system release 

will be launched. This will be a pilot of core 

capabilities, the primary purpose being to 

validate that the correct selection has been 

made for the Content Management System 

(CMS). 

The first public release of FDsys will be in 

August 2007. This release will build upon the 

capabilities of the pilot. In addition, it calls 

for both a primary hosting site and a backup 

site that are geographically separated. All 

content and metadata will be replicated from 

the primary site to the backup site. 

This past June, the FDsys team established 

the Interagency Council for Digital Content 

Submission (ICDCS) for Federal agency 

customers. The goals of ICDCS are to 

validate FDsys requirements, uncover new 

requirements, stimulate communication 

between the various departments within 

agencies that may be affected by FDsys 

(print, Web, and IT departments), and 

provide opportunities for beta testing FDsys 

components and interfaces. 

For more information on FDsys, go to: 

http://www.gpo.gov/projects/fdsys_docume

nts.htm

 

DISASTER RECOVERY 

GPO has awarded a disaster recovery contract 

that will result in the migration of all Wide 

Area Information Server (WAIS) data. This 

data consists of approximately 2,800 

databases across more than 40 applications. 

Objectives of the contract will include 

providing a complete backup system to assure 

availability to all of GPO's web services. 

GPO has completed the first phase of its 

disaster recovery project, which includes 

initial high availability and distributed 

content delivery for portions of GPO Access 

applications. 

This contract will migrate the remaining 

applications to a consistent dataset that will 

enable indexed searchable data in a nonproprietary format, as well as enhanced 

components and features for GPO Access 

applications. This also will assist GPO in 

developing a streamlined workflow using 

current search engine technology for its 

online data dissemination. 

WEB DISCOVERY AND HARVESTING 

GPO's six-month pilot project to harvest 

online Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) publications automatically has 

concluded. This was a collaborative project 

implemented by GPO, EPA, and two 

vendors. The goal for the pilot was to learn 

about available methodologies and 

technologies for automated Web discovery, 

assessment, and harvesting of U.S. 

Government publications within the scope of 

GPO's information dissemination programs. 

Overall, GPO has been very pleased with the 

amount of knowledge and experience gained 

during the pilot. The results of the pilot are 

still being analyzed, but they have already 

generated numerous ideas about how to 

improve upon the accuracy of the harvests. A 

paper on the results of the pilot will be 

published in November. GPO will conduct 

another pilot to continue development of 

automated publication harvesting tools and 

methodologies in preparation for full 

implementation within FDsys. GPO already 

13 
AN-v27-#09-10-10/15/06 

has all of the digital content from the pilot. 

Our goal is to catalog in-scope publications 

harvested from this pilot, starting with an 

investigation of the results of the automated 

comparison between the third crawl results 

with the EPA records in the Catalog of U.S. 

Government Publications. 

Preliminary 3rd crawl 

results 

Vendor 1 Vendor 2 

Documents determined to be 

in scope by harvester tool 

83,229 239,478 

• Documents as reported above are Web page files, which may consist of a complete 

publication, or part of a publication, such as a chapter or appendix. 

• The third crawl included the “surface Web” and 7 “deep Web” resources. 

To learn more about the pilot, please attend 

the session on Monday, October 23 from 1:30 

to 3:00 p.m. in the Ticonderoga/York/Valley 

Forge rooms. 

AUTHENTICATION 

GPO is engaged in a major authentication 

initiative designed to assure users that the 

information made available by GPO is 

official and authentic and that trust 

relationships exist between all participants in 

electronic transactions. This authentication 

initiative, which employs Public Key 

Infrastructure (PKI) technology, will allow 

users to determine that the files are 

unchanged since GPO authenticated them. 

GPO is procuring the necessary tools and 

capabilities to automate the application of 

digital signatures on Adobe Acrobat Portable 

Document Format (PDF) files. 

Approximately 85 percent of the content on 

GPO Access has PDF files available. A 

Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued in late 

2005, the resulting bids were evaluated, and a 

contract award was made in early October. 

Authentication will begin after the 

installation and testing of the tool. 

DIGITIZATION OF LEGACY 

PUBLICATIONS 

GPO is currently conducting a demonstration 

project for the digitization of legacy 

publications. Priorities for digitization 

include legislative and regulatory material 

that expands the coverage of the most popular 

GPO Access databases. GPO will conduct an 

assessment of its digitization pilot in 

December and subsequently share the results 

with the library community. 

For more information, go to: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/legacy/index.ht

ml

GPO is seeking donations of the following 

titles: Public and Private Laws, 101st and 

102nd Congress; and various U.S. Reports 

from 1990 to the present. To see a complete 

listing, go to: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/legacy/donations

.html

For publication donations or further 

information, please contact the Office of 

Archival Management at (202) 512-1187, or 

via askGPO at: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/help

FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY 

HANDBOOK 

Volunteers from the depository library 

community have worked diligently to create 

draft chapters for the new Federal Depository 

Library Handbook. This new Handbook will 

combine and update the existing Federal 

14 
AN-v27-#09-10-10/15/06 

Depository Library Manual and Instructions 

to Depository Libraries into one online 

document. The draft chapters are posted on 

the Handbook web page at: 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/ha

ndbook/index.html

Comments on draft chapters 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11 

and 14 are being reviewed and incorporated 

as appropriate. Chapter 12 was sent out for 

review by regional libraries and the 

comments are being reviewed. Chapter 15 

was sent to Federal libraries and the 

comments are being reviewed. GPO staff has 

nearly completed the edits for Chapters 5, 6, 

and 7. All chapters will be posted for 

comment as they become available. Please 

use the web form on the Handbook web page 

to submit comments. GPO’s goal is to post 

final versions of the majority of chapters by 

the end of 2006. 

CD-ROM DATA MIGRATION 

GPO is working with the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology (NIST) and others 

to devise a data migration strategy to ensure 

that the content of the CD-ROMs that have 

been distributed to depository libraries 

remains accessible. There will be an 

education session on CD-ROM data 

migration on Monday, October 23 from 3:30 

to 5:00 p.m. in Columbia B. A panel will 

present information on projects to ensure 

continued access to content of CD-ROMs in 

three depository libraries. 

LOCKSS 

Twenty-one libraries participated in the GPO 

LOCKSS pilot project that began in June 

2005. The final report on the project is nearly 

complete and should be released later this 

fall. Measures of success for LOCKSS 

include harvesting 10 e-journals from Federal 

Government Web sites, providing access to 

those e-journals via LOCKSS, and collecting 

information from pilot partners about their 

experiences with LOCKSS. 

For more information, go to: 

http://www.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/lockss

UPCOMING MEETINGS 

Annual Interagency Depository Seminar 

The 2007 Annual Interagency Depository 

Seminar will be held July 30-August 3, in 

Washington, DC. The free seminar, open to 

depository library staff, provides an 

opportunity for both new and experienced 

documents personnel to review basic 

materials and learn about new products 

directly from Federal agency staff. Tours of 

Federal agency libraries are included. 

Registration and hotel reservation 

information will be announced on the GPOFDLP-L listserv and on the FDLP desktop: 

www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/index.ht

ml 

Spring Depository Library Council Meeting 

The Spring 2007 Depository Library Council 

Meeting will be held April 15-18 in Denver, 

CO, at the Adams Mark Hotel. Registration 

and hotel reservation information will be 

announced on the GPO-FDLP-L listserv and 

on the FDLP desktop: 

www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/index.ht

ml

The meeting, which is free and open to the 

public, will cover current issues concerning 

Federal Government information and the 

FDLP. 

DISTRIBUTION AND OTHER 

STATISTICS 

During FY 2006 (October 2005 - September 

2006), GPO distributed a total of 4,900,043 

tangible copies of 10,070 titles (this includes 

print, microfiche, CD's and DVD's). This is 

an increase of 663,721 tangible copies and 

859 titles, compared to FY 2005, when GPO 

distributed 4,236,322 tangible copies of 9,211 

titles. 

 

15 
AN-v27-#09-10-10/15/06 

USGS map distribution during FY 2006 

included 681 titles and 72,018 copies; the 

totals are lower than those for FY 2005, when 

2587 titles and 314,702 copies were 

distributed. The drop was due to internal 

distribution changes at USGS, which caused 

delayed delivery during FY 2006. GPO 

expects to see increased distribution early in 

FY 2007. For FY 2006, 11,414 bibliographic 

records, up from 10,452 in FY 2005, and 

11,083 PURLs were created, of which 6,619 

are links to publications on agency web sites, 

up from 8,441 in FY 2005. 

As of August 2006, 93 percent of depository 

titles distributed were available online and 

only 8 percent of depository titles distributed 

were tangible-only, with no electronic 

equivalent. About 25 percent of the titles 

distributed were available online and in one 

or more tangible formats. 

GPO ACCESS STATISTICS 

In FY 2006, 452.4 million documents were 

retrieved from GPO Access, averaging nearly 

37.7 million a month, or 1.2 million per day. 

Retrievals from GPO Access since its 

inception in 1994 now total 2.85 billion. 

For FY 2006, 16,202 online titles and 6,619 

PURL links to agency titles outside of GPO 

Access were added for a total of 22,821 new 

online titles on GPO Access. These additions 

bring the total number of titles on GPO 

Access to 209,651, and the total number of 

titles linked from GPO Access to 47,954. In 

addition, 515,316 titles are available through 

partnership sites. The total number of titles 

accessible through GPO Access is 772,921 

(total titles on GPO Access, PURL links to 

agency titles, and partnership titles). 

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS 

(SALES) 

GPO continues to move towards innovative 

relationships with the private sector to create 

new business models for its Sales Program. 

GPO released a Request for Proposal on 

April 12, 2006. The submission period closed 

on Thursday, August 31, 2006, and GPO has 

reviewed the proposals. Best and final offers 

are due from the bidders by the end of 

October, and GPO anticipates contract 

awards by the end of calendar 2006. 

Questions? 

If you have questions or comments on any of the content in Administrative Notes, please send them to askGPO, the 

online help service at: 

http://gpo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/gpo.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

To ensure that your question is routed to the correct area, please choose the category "Federal Depository Libraries" 

and the appropriate subcategory, if any. 

You may also contact the GPO Customer Contact Center at 866-512-1800 (Toll-free), or at 202-512-1800 (DC 

Metropolitan Area), Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., EST. 

16 
AN-v27-#09-10-10/15/06 

Table of Contents 

Federal Depository Library of the Year Announced: Benton Harbor Public Library .................. 1 

Depository Library Meeting Attracts Varied Audience................................................................ 2 

Redesign of Browse Topics Web Site Underway......................................................................... 3 

Last Shipping List Numbers for FY2006...................................................................................... 3 

Remarks by Judy Russell, Superintendent of Documents, 2006 Fall Council Meeting............... 4 

Remarks by Ric Davis, Director, Library Services and Content Management, 2006 Fall 

 Council Meeting.......................................................................................................................... 8 

GPO Depository Library Council Update, October 2006........................................................... 12 

Administrative Notes Cumulative Table of Contents 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/adnotes_toc.pdf 

Updated with each issue 

Searchable by keyword 

Administrative Notes is published in Washington, DC by the Superintendent of Documents, 

Government Printing Office, for the staffs of U.S. Federal Depository Libraries. 

It is published on the 15th day of each month; some months have additional issues. Postmaster 

send address changes to: Administrative Notes 

U.S. Government Printing Office 

 Stop IDED 

Washington, DC 20401 

Internet access at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/index.html 

17