Report for Week 5 - April 25 to April 29
To: Robin Haun-Mohamed
From: Cathy Zegelin
CC: Ingrid Reyes-Arias
Date: 4/29/2011
Re: Status Update Week 5
Hours worked:
4/27 – 2.5; Research and work on draft documents 10:00 – 12:30
4/29 – 5; Work on draft of final documents, set up final meetings with UW librarians and re-visit libraries on UW campus to fill in gaps in notes.
Week 4: 8.5 hours
Total: 56.5 hours
I am continuing to work on the draft documents of the collection analysis and the processes I used to research the collection. I was unable to complete ten hours of work during the week, but plan to spend a few hours on Saturday 4/30 to focus on the drafts and plan my strategy for the remaining 44 hours of my Directed Fieldwork.
I have a meeting set up with Cass Hartnett for next week to review the work completed so far and discuss the processes I’ve used to gain her perspective on areas I may have overlooked or other methods of approach to the collection. I set up a meeting with Amy Entze, the library technician lead in Monographic and Database services. We are going to discuss the cataloging methods and treatment of government documents. In conversation with a fellow student, Courtney Leach, I learned that she spent a year last year working on a cataloging project to update the bibliographic records with SuDoc numbers. She said they went shelf by shelf checking the items and updating the catalog records. She gave me Amy’s contact information and said I should speak with her about the cataloging process. I think this will be a great source of information and answer a lot of the questions I have about mining the catalog for information, search methods, and the treatment of government documents through the cataloging process.
I went back through the law library and engineering library to familiarize myself with the areas of the collection I spoke with Mel DeSart and Peggy Jarritt about. The Law library has an impressive collection, and so much shelving space. They collect a wide range of microfiche, containing documents dating from 1873 to present day. The majority of the collection consists of CIS Unpublished Committee Hearings from the 1890’s to mid 1950’s as well as LLMC distributed congressional records. They also collect the distributed pamphlets of the House documents and then have them bound in the UW Libraries bindery.
The engineering library houses an impressive collection of microfiche, microprint, and reels of tape, the majority of which are not cataloged and are accessed through a physical card catalog on the first floor.
I did not notice any large areas of obvious documents that may be fugitive from the CGP, but given more time each collection could warrant closer inspection. I did find a collection of the printed Monthly Catalog of Government Publication in the Gallagher collection with in-house markings noting what was received by the law library. This could be a useful source to see what may be in the Gallagher collection, and since items are re-classified with LC, to check what has been co-located in those areas to search for documents.
I was made aware of an interesting blog through an email Cass Hartnett sent to students in her government documents class last quarter: http://freegovinfo.info/node/3149. It is a blog dedicated to discovery of fugitive documents and efforts to add bibliographic records to the CGP. I think it is a great reference to see what has been found, and could be a source of information for anyone undertaking a project at their library to evaluate a collection and look for these documents. For me it is fascinating to see how much effort librarians and information professionals put into making information easily accessible and how big the project of identifying government information that should be widely available really is.
From: Cathy Zegelin
CC: Ingrid Reyes-Arias
Date: 4/29/2011
Re: Status Update Week 5
Hours worked:
4/27 – 2.5; Research and work on draft documents 10:00 – 12:30
4/29 – 5; Work on draft of final documents, set up final meetings with UW librarians and re-visit libraries on UW campus to fill in gaps in notes.
Week 4: 8.5 hours
Total: 56.5 hours
I am continuing to work on the draft documents of the collection analysis and the processes I used to research the collection. I was unable to complete ten hours of work during the week, but plan to spend a few hours on Saturday 4/30 to focus on the drafts and plan my strategy for the remaining 44 hours of my Directed Fieldwork.
I have a meeting set up with Cass Hartnett for next week to review the work completed so far and discuss the processes I’ve used to gain her perspective on areas I may have overlooked or other methods of approach to the collection. I set up a meeting with Amy Entze, the library technician lead in Monographic and Database services. We are going to discuss the cataloging methods and treatment of government documents. In conversation with a fellow student, Courtney Leach, I learned that she spent a year last year working on a cataloging project to update the bibliographic records with SuDoc numbers. She said they went shelf by shelf checking the items and updating the catalog records. She gave me Amy’s contact information and said I should speak with her about the cataloging process. I think this will be a great source of information and answer a lot of the questions I have about mining the catalog for information, search methods, and the treatment of government documents through the cataloging process.
I went back through the law library and engineering library to familiarize myself with the areas of the collection I spoke with Mel DeSart and Peggy Jarritt about. The Law library has an impressive collection, and so much shelving space. They collect a wide range of microfiche, containing documents dating from 1873 to present day. The majority of the collection consists of CIS Unpublished Committee Hearings from the 1890’s to mid 1950’s as well as LLMC distributed congressional records. They also collect the distributed pamphlets of the House documents and then have them bound in the UW Libraries bindery.
The engineering library houses an impressive collection of microfiche, microprint, and reels of tape, the majority of which are not cataloged and are accessed through a physical card catalog on the first floor.
I did not notice any large areas of obvious documents that may be fugitive from the CGP, but given more time each collection could warrant closer inspection. I did find a collection of the printed Monthly Catalog of Government Publication in the Gallagher collection with in-house markings noting what was received by the law library. This could be a useful source to see what may be in the Gallagher collection, and since items are re-classified with LC, to check what has been co-located in those areas to search for documents.
I was made aware of an interesting blog through an email Cass Hartnett sent to students in her government documents class last quarter: http://freegovinfo.info/node/3149. It is a blog dedicated to discovery of fugitive documents and efforts to add bibliographic records to the CGP. I think it is a great reference to see what has been found, and could be a source of information for anyone undertaking a project at their library to evaluate a collection and look for these documents. For me it is fascinating to see how much effort librarians and information professionals put into making information easily accessible and how big the project of identifying government information that should be widely available really is.