Report for Week 7 - May 8 - 13
To: Robin Haun-Mohamed
From: Cathy Zegelin
CC: Ingrid Reyes-Arias
Date: 5/22/2011
Re: Status Update Week 7
Hours worked:
5/7 – 3; Work on drafts; 6-9pm
5/8 – 4.5; Work on drafts; 9am – 12am, 8pm-9:30pm
5/9 – 2; Work on drafts; 7-9pm
5/11 – 5.5; Work on Drafts 10-12:30, meeting with Blynne Olivieri and Cass Hartnett 3-4pm; work on drafts 4-6pm
5/12 – 4; Work on drafts; 7pm – 11pm
5/13 – 2.25 Call with Ashley Dahlen about Marcive 7:45 – 8:30, edit drafts 8:30 – 10am
Week 6: 22.25 hours
Total: 92.25 hours
This week I focused on finishing the draft documents. I had more research than I realized, and spent a lot of time re-writing sections and reviewing the processes suggested. The work on the drafts included re-visiting sections of the stacks and reviewing online resources to create a bibliography of resources that would be useful for anyone undertaking the project.
Through the course of my research, interviews with library staff, conversations with GPO staff, and in drafting these documents I have come to understand just how big this project is. I imagine the purpose of the Catalog of US Government Publications is to ultimately create a single source of bibliographic records for all government publications. Libraries do not have an entirely universal standard for classifying, cataloging, and providing access to these government documents. There appears to be a lack of understanding among some libraries and the general public about what the GPO does, what government documents are, and why this work is important. I think progress is made through education. Each conversation I have had has been an enlightening experience for me, but was also an opportunity to share what the project is about, why it is important, to advocate for the work of the GPO.
I have about 8 1/2 hours left in the quarter to reach the goal of 100 hours to receive course credit for the work. I plan to use these hours in the next two weeks to finish research and work on edits.
I’ve described my conversation with Blynne Oliviere in the draft document about Special Collections. It was an enlightening conversation. It made me realize that government documents are everywhere. By definition (found in 44 USC 1901) a government publication is anything printed by the US Government, or paid for by the government. It’s amazing the variety of items that qualify, and where they can be discovered.
I followed her advice to limit to special collections and search by author, and found this is the best way to search in special collections at UW because their catalog records don’t specify if a document is a government publication, don’t include SuDoc numbers, and the stacks are closed and require call numbers for access.
Cataloging for special collections is handled through the centralized cataloging department for UW Libraries. There is one cataloger dedicated to special collections to handle fragile, difficult items, but much of the collection is cataloged according to the standards of Monographic Records. Preservation of items is handled by the central preservation department, so any items from Government Publications will go to the preservation department, and will probably end up back on the shelves in GovPubs, rather than to special collections for storage and access.
I conducted the search for “United States” as author in special collections and returned 99 items. The search returned items such as state constitutions, tribal treaties, the declaration of independence (printed in celebration of the bicentennial in 1976), and Acts of Law related to the Pacific Northwest. There was a record for The Federal Reserve Act of 1914 with minimal bibliographic description. However, it was published by Seattle National Bank and does not qualify as a government document under title 44 definitions. I did find one listing of interest. A Compilation of all the treaties between the United States and the Indian Tribes, now in force as laws. Prepared under the provisions of the act of congress, approved March 3, 1873. The UW has two copies of this item, one in the open stacks in GovPubs, and one in Special Collections with the Pacific Northwest collection. The SuDoc assigned is E95 .U6 1873. The item is listed with OCLC #2432319. OCLC listed 245 libraries who have a copy of this in their collections. A search in the CGP did not return a hit through a SuDoc class search or a keyword search for prominent sections of the title.
The conversation with Ashley Dahlen about Marcive was also enlightening. Her advice led me to rewrite several sections of the final reports at the last minute. I appreciated the opportunity to speak with her because it cleared up a lot of confusion I had about the difference between GPO Marcive and Marcive, Inc. GPO’s cataloging services is the Catalog Record Distribution Project (CRDP) which produces full catalog records distributed to FDLs on a monthly basis. These records are RDA and FRBR compliant in preparation for next generation catalogs. These records allow for increased functionality of search. The section on Marcive in the process report explains much of the conversation we had. It helped to understand that Marcive, Inc is a value added service that sells libraries labels, shipping list temporary records, and records customization. CRDP can’t afford to provide these to FDLs, so those that choose to do so subscribe to the services of Marcive. Many libraries 'clean up' the Marcive records because their catalogs are not set up for FRBR yet.
Ashley provided me with some very helpful suggestions for considering points of entry into the fugitives in the collection. She said to remember that fugitives can come into the collection through professor donations, agreements with regional federal agencies to receive materials directly, and from programs such as DocX. I have not had the time to research this program, but it sounded like an interesting avenue to explore. For a time agencies were sending materials to the Library of Congress because of the misconception that the LOC is the national repository for government publications. The LOC doesn’t collection govpubs, so they shipped the documents to FDLs. Ashley had worked at the University of Maryland and said they received a large amount of documents through this program. She said it stopped in about 2004, but many fugitives could come into collections this way.
From: Cathy Zegelin
CC: Ingrid Reyes-Arias
Date: 5/22/2011
Re: Status Update Week 7
Hours worked:
5/7 – 3; Work on drafts; 6-9pm
5/8 – 4.5; Work on drafts; 9am – 12am, 8pm-9:30pm
5/9 – 2; Work on drafts; 7-9pm
5/11 – 5.5; Work on Drafts 10-12:30, meeting with Blynne Olivieri and Cass Hartnett 3-4pm; work on drafts 4-6pm
5/12 – 4; Work on drafts; 7pm – 11pm
5/13 – 2.25 Call with Ashley Dahlen about Marcive 7:45 – 8:30, edit drafts 8:30 – 10am
Week 6: 22.25 hours
Total: 92.25 hours
This week I focused on finishing the draft documents. I had more research than I realized, and spent a lot of time re-writing sections and reviewing the processes suggested. The work on the drafts included re-visiting sections of the stacks and reviewing online resources to create a bibliography of resources that would be useful for anyone undertaking the project.
Through the course of my research, interviews with library staff, conversations with GPO staff, and in drafting these documents I have come to understand just how big this project is. I imagine the purpose of the Catalog of US Government Publications is to ultimately create a single source of bibliographic records for all government publications. Libraries do not have an entirely universal standard for classifying, cataloging, and providing access to these government documents. There appears to be a lack of understanding among some libraries and the general public about what the GPO does, what government documents are, and why this work is important. I think progress is made through education. Each conversation I have had has been an enlightening experience for me, but was also an opportunity to share what the project is about, why it is important, to advocate for the work of the GPO.
I have about 8 1/2 hours left in the quarter to reach the goal of 100 hours to receive course credit for the work. I plan to use these hours in the next two weeks to finish research and work on edits.
I’ve described my conversation with Blynne Oliviere in the draft document about Special Collections. It was an enlightening conversation. It made me realize that government documents are everywhere. By definition (found in 44 USC 1901) a government publication is anything printed by the US Government, or paid for by the government. It’s amazing the variety of items that qualify, and where they can be discovered.
I followed her advice to limit to special collections and search by author, and found this is the best way to search in special collections at UW because their catalog records don’t specify if a document is a government publication, don’t include SuDoc numbers, and the stacks are closed and require call numbers for access.
Cataloging for special collections is handled through the centralized cataloging department for UW Libraries. There is one cataloger dedicated to special collections to handle fragile, difficult items, but much of the collection is cataloged according to the standards of Monographic Records. Preservation of items is handled by the central preservation department, so any items from Government Publications will go to the preservation department, and will probably end up back on the shelves in GovPubs, rather than to special collections for storage and access.
I conducted the search for “United States” as author in special collections and returned 99 items. The search returned items such as state constitutions, tribal treaties, the declaration of independence (printed in celebration of the bicentennial in 1976), and Acts of Law related to the Pacific Northwest. There was a record for The Federal Reserve Act of 1914 with minimal bibliographic description. However, it was published by Seattle National Bank and does not qualify as a government document under title 44 definitions. I did find one listing of interest. A Compilation of all the treaties between the United States and the Indian Tribes, now in force as laws. Prepared under the provisions of the act of congress, approved March 3, 1873. The UW has two copies of this item, one in the open stacks in GovPubs, and one in Special Collections with the Pacific Northwest collection. The SuDoc assigned is E95 .U6 1873. The item is listed with OCLC #2432319. OCLC listed 245 libraries who have a copy of this in their collections. A search in the CGP did not return a hit through a SuDoc class search or a keyword search for prominent sections of the title.
The conversation with Ashley Dahlen about Marcive was also enlightening. Her advice led me to rewrite several sections of the final reports at the last minute. I appreciated the opportunity to speak with her because it cleared up a lot of confusion I had about the difference between GPO Marcive and Marcive, Inc. GPO’s cataloging services is the Catalog Record Distribution Project (CRDP) which produces full catalog records distributed to FDLs on a monthly basis. These records are RDA and FRBR compliant in preparation for next generation catalogs. These records allow for increased functionality of search. The section on Marcive in the process report explains much of the conversation we had. It helped to understand that Marcive, Inc is a value added service that sells libraries labels, shipping list temporary records, and records customization. CRDP can’t afford to provide these to FDLs, so those that choose to do so subscribe to the services of Marcive. Many libraries 'clean up' the Marcive records because their catalogs are not set up for FRBR yet.
Ashley provided me with some very helpful suggestions for considering points of entry into the fugitives in the collection. She said to remember that fugitives can come into the collection through professor donations, agreements with regional federal agencies to receive materials directly, and from programs such as DocX. I have not had the time to research this program, but it sounded like an interesting avenue to explore. For a time agencies were sending materials to the Library of Congress because of the misconception that the LOC is the national repository for government publications. The LOC doesn’t collection govpubs, so they shipped the documents to FDLs. Ashley had worked at the University of Maryland and said they received a large amount of documents through this program. She said it stopped in about 2004, but many fugitives could come into collections this way.