Prepared by:
Patricia Cruse, Chair, Education Committee,
Government Documents Round Table (GODORT),
with special assistance from: Ann Roselle, Sherry DeDecker,
and other members of the GODORT Education Committee.

Introduction

With the continuing development of new information technologies and other changes for libraries, there are many new-sprung challenges as we reach the year 2000. Arguably government information, whether federal, international, state, or local, has been impacted much more heavily than other areas in the library. This is true for several reasons:

• technological innovations that facilitate effective distribution,
• the lack of copyright restrictions on many government publications,
• budget constraints that have forced government bodies to find more cost effective means to distribute materials, and
• pending legislative action mandating the electronic distribution of government publications.

• 92,064 electronic titles available on GPO Access,

• 45,858 electronic titles linked from GPO Access,

• 10,749 electronic titles distributed to FDL's in tangible form (CD-ROMS, diskettes), and
• approximately 15 million titles downloaded from GPO Access every month. 1

The basic goals are the same, but new challenges have been added

Despite the focus on change and new technology, we should all realize that the basic goals of government information librarians and other librarians remain the same: to provide access for patrons to the information that they need. In the future, libraries will continue to acquire, preserve, and provide access to materials as well as provide reference service for patrons, answering their questions and directing them to information resources. The real challenge is how we achieve these goals as more resources move to electronic format, and furthermore how we can exploit new technologies to help us realize these goals. Below we discuss some of the key issues and considerations that we face as we move forward into the new century.

Changes in training of government information librarians

Because of the shift from a paper to an electronic environment, there is a growing need for better technological training for government information librarians. Gone are the days that providing access simply meant creating bibliographic records and shelving materials. Today access means that many of us must have a detailed understanding of both hardware and software, including computer networks, HTML code, perl scripts, and other programming languages. In a recent survey of 187 academic government information librarians, 72% responded that they participate in one way or another in the development of a World Wide Web (WWW) site. 2  This survey also found that 45.7% of the respondents are "totally responsible" for providing links to government information for the library's web site.

Besides providing access to government resources on the WWW, government information librarians also need to provide access to data contained on CD-ROMs. Most government information libraries have substantial collections of CD-ROMs issued by various government agencies. For many users, CD-ROMs are the preferred method of access simply because CD-ROMs allow for more user flexibility -- this is particularly true for users who are working with numeric data. Consequently, government information librarians must have the technical knowledge to support the CD-ROM workstations whether standalone or networked. The problem of providing access to the sheer number of CD-ROMs is compounded by the fact that there is no standard software or operating system and government information librarians must learn to successfully use many different search interfaces and extraction programs to assist users.

In addition to providing access to government information via WWW pages, there is an ongoing need to integrate Internet resources into our online catalogs. Government information librarians and the GPO have been at the forefront of this effort. This has required government information librarians to become more familiar with not only cataloging standards, but also with online catalog systems and other knowledge access management systems. Educational opportunities in these areas must be made available to government information librarians to assist them as they continue their efforts to provide the best possible access to the full range of government information that is now available.

Expansion of and changes in the user community

As government information librarians, we no longer serve a predictable user community such as a congressional district, campus community, or local community. With the growth of the Internet, the pool of potential patrons for a particular service has grown dramatically. In a single day, we may answer questions at the reference desk from graduate students, professors, elementary school students, and others, as well as answer e-mail questions from around the world. In addition, any number of unknown users will use web pages and other technologies that we have created to access government information. With the increase in the patron base, there is a corresponding increase in patrons' interests, questions, and needs.

Other factors have also increased the number of patrons using government information. The organization of public service points for government information has changed over the last several years as documents and general reference desks have been merged at many institutions. An Association of Research Libraries survey of 88 libraries found that nearly 1/3 of the libraries had combined their reference services in the past five years.3  In many cases this has literally brought government documents out of the basement and into the mainstream of public service. Significantly, 33% of library respondents in this same survey found an increased demand for access to government information.

Changes in the nature of patron training/instruction

As the patron population and their needs change, user training and instruction becomes much more complex. According to Jim Gillispie, Head of Government Publications, Johns Hopkins University,  "Teaching readers to find, use, and understand the collections libraries make available is the most important aspect of our profession."4 Government information librarians can no longer rely on the typical "reference interview" as the basis on which to evaluate the user's needs and to provide the necessary instruction. Many inquiries are no longer made in person, but by e-mail or telephone. In the case of WWW pages, we may never actually communicate directly with the patron. Rather, we must rely upon detailed help pages to guide the patrons through their information needs. Many of us have had to navigate users through web pages over the phone and guide them to the database that they want -- certainly, a different task than guiding users through a printed copy of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Furthermore, along with instructing users about the content of a government publication, we are also faced with teaching patrons how to use the technology to access the materials. This can range from helping a user download a current version of Acrobat to helping unzip a data file and loading the data into a spreadsheet program.

Increase in the scope of colleagues

Technologies such as listservs, email, and web pages have had an enormous impact on who and how government information librarians communicate. In the survey of academic government information librarians over 70% of the respondents felt that they were developing closer ties with other government information librarians because of the Internet.

5 In designing WWW pages, we frequently consult other government information librarians for assistance. More significantly, nearly 30% of respondents indicated that they are developing closer ties with individuals not directly associated with government information. Those of us that specialize in government data and census information have learned the language of GIS and spatial statistics, by interacting with geographers, statisticians, and other specialists. The development of new relationships also is occurring within the institution itself - "A total 47.8% of respondents felt that they were developing closer ties with their systems/automation unit." In sum, technology has expanded not only how we communicate, but also with whom we communicate. This has forced government information librarians to seek out experts in the field and apply new skills in the delivery of government information.

Change in the nature of the collection

As detailed in other parts of this document, many government information libraries are witnessing a decline in the acquisition of tangible (paper, microfiche, etc.) federal, state, local, and international publications. This is in marked contrast with the growing volume of government publications available online as detailed in other parts of this document. Government information libraries have had had to shift energies from the daily tasks associated with processing a physical collection to providing access to Internet resources. According to Jack Sulzer, Associate Dean for Campus College Libraries, University Libraries, The Pennsylvania State University, "librarians now should be planning to convert their 'processing' time and resources to services." 6 This issue has broader implications for government information librarians. Until quite recently government information librarians' expertise and knowledge was primarily based on their institution's tangible collections. For example, librarians with direct access to old government publications were often experts in historical research. However, a "just in time" approach to collection development requires new skills to provide access. Jim Gillispie states that, "'Just in time' often requires a highly proactive approach to acquiring information from the most expedient source and delivering it via the fastest available." 7 It requires that a librarian understand not only the content of the information, but also where it is located on the web, how it is arranged structurally, and how to manipulate it once found. All of these tasks require a new set of skills.

The question is, "how can government information librarians best take advantage of the challenges in our profession?" First and foremost, there is a need to reaffirm our values and recognize that our goal of providing access to government information remains the same. How we most effectively achieve that goal requires that we:

• educate ourselves in the use of new technologies,
• recognize our changing patron base,
• develop new instruction programs to facilitate patron success in an online environment,
• take advantage of the skills and expertise of colleagues, and
• shift our energies from providing access to the physical collection to an online collection.

1. Evans, Thomas C. Data for FDLP Electronic Collection. E-mail to Patricia Cruse. 4 March 1999.

2. Roselle, Ann. "Racing to Keep Up With an Electronic FDLP: Its Effect on Professional Relationships of Academic Government Documents Librarians". Paper to be presented at the 9th ACRL National Conference on April 9, 1999.

3. Clark, Cynthia D., and Judy Horn. "Organization Of Document Collections And Services: A SPEC Kit." Washington DC: Association of Research Libraries, 1998.

4. Gillispie, Jim. "Assuring User Success in a Networked Environment for Government Information." Collection Management 23 no.3 (1998):1-8.

5. Roselle, Ann. "Internet-Related Work Activities and Academic Government Documents Librarians' Professional Relationships." Government Information Quarterly 16, no.2 (1999):149-68.

6. Sulzer, Jack. "U.S. Depository Librarians in Reality and Myth, a Framework for a Future Government Information Program." Journal of Government Information 23, no.3 (1996):307-25.

7. Gillispie, Jim. "Assuring User Success in a Networked Environment for Government Information." Collection Management 23 no.3 (1998):1-8.