Public Documents

October 1980 Number 42 GP Z.TJ'Ai Assistant Public Printer (Superintendent of Documents) U.S. Government Printing Office

Congressional

Serial Set Gets a

"New Look"

One result of the campaign to reduce

the cost of Congressional printing is a "new look" for the Congressional Serial Set.

Historically, two versions of the vol- umes were produced: a posterity edition with red, green, and black ink labels, stamped with imitation gold, and a less

elaborate edition for distribution to Depository Libraries and International Ex- change Libraries. The Joint Committee on Printing

has directed that beginning with the 96th Congress there will be only one

edition of the Congressional Serial Set bound. Depository Libraries and Inter- national Exchange Libraries will receive the same edition as the so-called "posterity libraries." This new edition will be similar in appearance to the old Depository Library Edition.

Public, private, and special reports

will no longer be bound in separate vol- umes. All Congressional Reports and

Documents will be bound in numerical sequence. Also, beginning with the 96th

Congress, Senate Executive Reports

and Senate Executive Documents (let- tered documents) will be bound as part

of the Congressional Serial Set. The Congressional Serial Set re- mains a valuable reference tool for de- termining the legislative intent of statutes.

The "new" Serial Set's first published volume for the 96th Congress is displayed by Mr^ Virginia F Saun^^^

Documents Specialist) with GPO's Library and Statutory Distribution Service. It is: Serial Set #13227, Senate Documents, Volume 8,

96th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document Number 18, Panama City Beaches, Florida.
Superseded

Documents Committee

Wants to

Hear From You!

Recognizing a long-standing need

for gathering information on "what su- persedes what" in Government documents, four librarians have undertaken

to root out the answers. They are: F. Anne Diamond (Michigan State Li- brary), Clyde Hordusky (Ohio State Li- brary), Janis Pivarnik (University of Kentucky Libraries), and Pat Sloan

(Nebraska Library Commission).

They would like to hear from documents librarians who have found specific answers they would be willing to share. They would also like to know

what specific documents are a genuine

puzzle to librarians. Do write to them.

Answers will begin to appear on a regular basis in HIGHLIGHTS for February

1981 and in subsequent issues until

all questions are answered!

Ms. F. Anne Diamond, Chair- person Superseded Documents Committee Michigan State Library

Government Center—Law Build- ing

525 West Ottawa Street Lansing, Michigan 48913

Depository Libraries

Selecting More Items

By the end of August, 1,342 libraries held depository status with four designations pending. Included in the total are 49 regionals and 107 recently des- ignated law libraries. The Depository Library Program

presently offers some 4,127 active items, not counting 400 additional ones

being surveyed as part of the 1980

Census. The average number of li- braries selecting a particular item is 427, while the total number of items

selected by individual libraries aver- ages 1,242.

The most selected item continues to

be Monthly Catalog (1313 choosing it and 28 doing without!), followed closely

by Congress/ona/ Directory, Your Federal Inconne Tax, Congressional Record,

United States Code, Code of Federal

Regulations, and reports of Presidential Commissions.

Among the least selected items are

the Defense Department's Master Cross Reference List, and, as Depository

Librarians may guess, the Flood Insur- ance Studies. A breakdown of actual figures on

both the total number of individual

titles and the total number of copies

shipped is the clearest indication of the

Library and Statutory Distribution Service's commitment to distribute "documents to the people."

FISCAL YEAR HARDCOPY TITLES MICROFICHE TITLES

1978 41,236 shipped 4,054 shipped

1979 34,218 shipped 20,598 shipped

1980—^Anticipated 37,404 to be shipped 24,930 to be shipped

1981—Anticipated 41,144 to be shipped 39,823 to be shipped

FISCAL YEAR HARDCOPY COPIES MICROFICHE COPIES

1978 14,473,656 shipped 1,544,755 shipped

1979 19,580,302 shipped 7,473,049 shipped

2
Questions and Answers

Can You Help?

[The following call for assistance has come to HIGHLIGHTS. Perhaps some of the documents people who face this problem have worked out solutions they

would be willing to share.]

"We are currently receiving Department of Energy reports on microfiche

through the Regional Depository status

of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, which is located on the University of Wisconsin campus. In addition, we receive DOE reports on microfiche on a subscription basis directly-from

DOE. Since the DOE shipments are much more comprehensive than the GPO shipments, we have no intention

of cancelling our DOE subscription.

However, because of the overlap of the two programs, we are building an enor- mous collection of duplicate reports. At

this point, I am not much interested in giving away the duplicates as I am in talking with other librarians who are in a similar situation. How are librarians re- ceiving both collections (DOE reports

from GPO and DOE reports from DOE)

integrating the two collections? I would

appreciate hearing from any other li- brarians attempting to cope with such

a situation (NASA reports represent a

similar problem for this library since we

receive them both from NASA and

GPO)."

Ms. Jean Gilbertson

Technical Reports Librarian Kurt F. Wendt Library

College of Engineering

University of Wisconsin

215 North Randall Avenue

Madison, Wisconsin 53706

Q. How long should a library choose

to retain the preliminary and advance

reports of Current Population Population Reports (C3.186: )? A. Karen Curtis, Documents Librarian

with the Tulsa City/County Library System in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was puzzled

by this problem. For an answer, she

turned to the Denver Office of the Census Bureau. She was informed by

Mr. Jerry O'Donnell of the Bureau that the final reports always replace the

earlier reports (a general principle with

Census material). Indeed, the preliminary report can be replaced by the ad- vance report. He said the only thing the advance and preliminary reports have

that the final reports lack is the summary statement. He pointed out that the Bureau itself does not keep the ad- vance or preliminary reports after re- ceipt of the final reports.
Document Review

[HIGHLIGHTS welcomes short reviews

by depository librarians of significant recent documents. Just send them

typed double spaced to the Editor. Our

most recent contribution is by Earl Shumaker, Head Librarian, Govern- ment Publications Department, North- ern Illinois University Libraries.]

Judges of the United States. By the

Judicial Conference of the United

States, the Bicentennial Committee,

Subcommittee on Biographical Directory. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govern- ment Printing Office, 1980.) Pp. 550.

$10.00. Ju 10.2:J89/4. (Available in Depository Libraries, GPO Sales Stock

Exhausted, Stock Number 028-004-

00033-8.)

One of the projects of the Judicial Conference's Bicentennial Committee was to compile a directory of the judges

of the United States. Information for the directory was gathered from various

sources. All living judges were asked to answer questionnaires for their own

biographies, and to supply information on deceased judges who had served

within their respective areas and were

appointed on or after January 1, 1900.

Professor Kermit Hall, of Wayne State

University, prepared biographical in- formation on all district, circuit, and

territorial judges appointed prior to 1900, as well as those territorial judges appointed after 1900.

The directory includes judges ap- pointed by Congress prior to the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789.

Also included are judges of the Court of Appeals for "Cases of Capture." (These

judges were elected by the Congress

under the Articles of Confederation;

this Court is known as the "precursor

of the Supreme Court"). Thus, the di- rectory includes every judge of the

United States from the time before our

Constitution was adopted until 1978.

Plans call for the directory to be revised

periodically; each new Federal judge

will be asked to complete a questionnaire after confirmation.

The biographical text, arranged al- phabetically by surname, includes such

information as date and place of birth, death and interment dates, schools at- tended, nominations for appointment,

employment, publications, date ad- mitted to practice, and family data.

Three indexes are provided. The first

is an index by appointing President. Under the Continental Congress four judges are listed. Then appointments

are arranged alphabetically by Presi- dent. Under each President, the ap- pointments are likewise arranged al- phabetically (date of appointment is also given). The second index is by year

of appointment. This index also lists the judges alphabetically under the year of appointment. The third is an alphabetical index of all the judges.

Tables of abbreviation are also pro- vided. These are broken down into four

sections: tables of abbreviations generalized, military titles, journals, and

courts. Needless to say, this work should

prove to be a valuable addition to any

reference collection. mi
Some users of the Monthly Catalog

have questioned omission of the "List

of Depository Libraries" from the September issues. The last list appeared

in the September 1978 Monthly Catalog. The background to this change is as follows: A decision was made during the

Winter of 1979 to develop an expanded

version of the annual committee print,

"Government Depository Libraries." The new committee print would include

updated information, such as address

and telephone number, depository li- brary name, district where located,

type of depository, and nature of designation. As in the past, the committee print was distributed to all depository libraries, with additional copies on

request free of charge.

A simultaneous decision was made

that due to the increased size of the

committee print, and its ready avail- ability through the Library Division, the

list would be dropped from Monthly

Catalog. Since the Monthly Catalog in- formation was copied from the separate

list, it was further concluded that a substantial amount of duplicate effort would have to be expended to reor- ganize and redesign the information to present it in its familiar format. To

duplicate the committee print seemed

unnecessary. All of this involves a con- 5

PRF

Still Improving!

The Publications Reference File is re- ceiving new enhancements. By November the fiche will contain: an expanded

price field, foreign as well as domestic;

a related data field for binding code

and cover material; a special field for subject bibliographies; separate fields for imprint information—date, pagination, illustrations; from 10 to 23 status codes (i.e.: in stock at warehouse, in fiche format, data status determined,

etc.). After these enhancements are in place, sometime in January, 1981, a new User's Guide will be issued in a format consistent with the PRF microfiche size. The new Exhausted Publications Ref- erence File covers publications no

longer sold, from 1975 through the

end of 1978. There will be yearly adds

to this file and cumulations. The 1980

cumulation is for three years and

should be retained. Thus a proven and popular library reference tool is being made even

better!

siderable saving and an improved re- vised committee print which will better serve the needs of depository libraries and their patrons.

Anyone wishing to obtain copies of the current revised committee print

may send their request to:

Chief, Depository & Service

Branch

U.S. Government Printing Office 5236 Eisenhower Avenue

Alexandria, Virginia 22304
Our Best Effort!

[A range of publicity activities for documents can assure being noticed. An excellent example of the broad approach is this one called, "Easy Promotion of Gov- ernment Documents."]

Why promote the use of Government

documents? If for no other reason, it might help you keep your job or your

budget. With double-digit inflation, li- brary directors are being pressured to cut the budget. They no longer take our

usefulness at face value. We must prove

our worth. You say you have no time? Of course you don't. Most Government Docu- ments Librarians complain of being

short-staffed and overworked.

Although you may not have time to

set up an extensive SuDocs Information

System, or call on each of your patrons

to promote the use of Government documents, there are a few ideas that I have

used that when taken together have

substantially increased my circulation

in the past year. Here are a few of them:

(1) Put a copy of the "Consumer

Information Catalog" in each professor's mailbox.

(2) Select all item numbers which

are listed as including posters. When

they arrive, use them as the focal point

of displays. I put a poster hanging over

a carrel. Then I pull 5-10 publications

off the shelf and arrange them under

the poster. It only takes a few minutes,

but people do stop to look. (3) Have a table of free materials. My table includes "Consumer Information Catalogs," superseded and free materials for which I've sent. Once a form letter has been composed, a stu- dent can easily write for free copies of desired documents.

(4) Make sure that the Government

documents area is always included in li- brary tours. Since I give the tours, I always put in a plug for Government

documents.

(5) When I see faculty members in the library or on campus, I occassionally

mention a document that I think might

particularly interest them. If I can in- duce them to come into the Government

documents area, I frequently can inter- est them in more than the mentioned

document.

(6) When new Subject Bibliographies

arrive, I send the superseded bibliography to the appropriate faculty member.(7) Make the acquaintance of the

Consumer Affairs Officer at^your re- gional Food and Drug Administration

Office. They can be very helpful by giving you copies of reprints from FDA

Oon%umQT and posters, pamphlets and

other materials for displays.

(8) If your Senators or Representatives have offices in your area, make

the acquaintance of their staff. They

can frequently obtain documents that you might have trouble with.

In the final analysis, your best ad- vertisement is the type of service you

provide. Displays, tours, and free pamphlets may lure them into the documents department, but most people re- turn only if they're given efficient, effective assistance.

Ms. Carol A. Singer

Reference Services Coordinator

U.S. Conn Library

Wayne State College

Wayne, Nebraska

Public Documents Highlights is cir- culated bi-monthly by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C. 20402, and is mailed at first class postage rates. Public Documents Highlights

is intended primarily for librarians of the Federal Depository Library Program.

Material proposed for circulation may

be submitted to the Editor, Public

Documents Highlights, Library and

Statutory Distribution Service, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20401. The Superintendent of Documents, however, retains the right

to accept such material, to edit it, and

to assign priorities of circulation.

G P O 8 7 4 39 1