April 3, 1997
Report submitted to the UC Heads of Public Services
April 3, 1997
3 April, 1997
TO: UC/Stanford Heads of Public Services (HOPS)
FROM: Linda Kennedy
RE: Report to HOPS Spring 1997 Meeting
The UC/Stanford Electronic Government Information Initiatives Group (EGIIG) has had one conference call and one meeting since our last report for the EGIIG Fall 1996 meeting. Action items for HOPS discussion are indicated.
1. Review of Charge and Membership
In March of 1995, HOPS charged the Electronic Government Information Initiatives Group to identify, on an ongoing basis, appropriate electronic government information resources, including maps, for system-wide or other multi-campus access. Terms of office were not specified. At its March 31st meeting, EGIIG reviewed its work and membership. We have a number of ongoing projects, and developments in electronic government information are occurring more and more quickly.
To enable us to continue to work effectively we recommend some changes. First, we would like to appoint Patricia Cruse as the Chair of EGIIG, replacing Linda Kennedy. Linda is willing to remain on the committee for at least a year, but would prefer that a new person undertake the responsibility of chairing the committee. The following committee members are willing to remain on the committee:
Vivienne Roumani-Denn (UCB) is planning several major collection moves. She is actively involved in electronic mapping issues and would like to focus her efforts on the GIS/Digital Maps subcommittee (see below). We therefore recommend appointing another map librarian to the committee.
ACTION: EGIIG requests that HOPS appoint a new chair as indicated above. We recommend that Vivienne Roumani-Denn be replaced with another map librarian, such as Mary Larsgaard from UCSB.
2. Digital Mapping
ACTION: In order to accomplish its original charge in the area of digital maps, EGIIG recommends forming a GIS/Digital Maps subcommittee with the following charge. With HOPS approval, we will appoint the subcommittee, unless HOPS prefers to make the appointment. Recommended members: David Deckelbaum (UCLA), Mary Larsgaard (UCSB), Vivienne Roumani-Denn (UCB). After the group is formed, additional members may be added to the subcommittee as requested by the subcommittee.
The GIS/Digital Maps subcommittee is charged to investigate issues relating to GIS, digitized maps, and online data sets, both owned by UCs and available on the Web. The subcommittee is to address the following areas and make recommendations to EGIIG:
3. Electronic Partnerships:
With the massive transition to electronic formats for data dissemination, there are opportunities for mutually beneficial partnerships with the Government Printing Office and other federal agencies, partnerships which improve access to and preservation of information for UC scholars.
The INFOMINE and GPO Gateway projects are examples of such partnerships.
Patricia Cruse and Linda Kennedy will be meeting with Government Printing
Office staff in Washington, D.C. on April 15th to discuss additional
partnership possibilities, such as:
4. UC Digital Libraries:
EGIIG will prepare a concept paper on government information for the University of California Library Planning and Action Initiative. Government information was not addressed in the UC Digital Libraries draft report. However, inexpensive availability of government information is not a given. Libraries still make considerable investment in staff and equipment to provide access. The existence of EGIIG demonstrates the university's concern for coordinating access to government information. EGIIG has several successful prototypes in operation, but our ideas are far ahead of existing structures. The concept paper will summarize what we have accomplished, and the issues we need to address. The paper should be ready by Fall of 1997.
5. Social Sciences Data Library Consortium (SSDLC)
At EGIIG's recent meeting , Susan Rosenblatt updated EGIIG on the progress and plans of the Social Sciences Data Library Consortium (SSDLC.), a consortial project of UCB, UCSD, Harvard, Stanford and Oregon State. Additional libraries-Columbia , Michigan, Yale, Princeton and Cornell will be brought into the project. EGIIG is particularly interested in continued access to the 1990 Census Lookup project-Census Bureau CD-ROM's made available through a joint endeavor of the UCB library, UCData, and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL). UC Berkeley recently took over complete maintenance of the project after the Department of Energy discontinued funding. UCB obtained campus funding of 100,000 and is starting with the STF3 (1990 Census Summary Tape File 3 economic and social data). EGIIG would like to see continued access to the data within UC, and as broadly as possible. We discussed the problematic issue of funding the development and maintenance of government information sites, which is one of the key planning issues for the SSDLC.
6. Cataloging Electronic Government Information:
EGIIG is highly supportive of the Standard for University of California Electronic Government Documents recently reviewed by HOS. EGIIG has been discussing strategies to get records for all GPO cataloging for electronic documents into MELVYL. The California State Library and UC Riverside currently receive all records for MARCIVE.
Patricia Cruse has been working with Becky Ringler at UCSD. Patricia will ask EGIIG members to identify a technical processing liaison from each campus. EGIIG will continue to investigate ways to tag electronic format records with holdings for each campus, or to otherwise improve access to such records campus-wide.
7. Reports on Ongoing Projects:
a. INFOMINE (Margaret Mooney):
[ http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?govpub]
The Government Information database (one of ten databases in INFOMINE) was listed as a major government information site in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, and on the IT&T home page. Use averages 200-300,000 per month. The move of the INFOMINE databases to a UCOP host machine has not yet been completed.
A government information liaison has been appointed from each campus, although a formal Editorial Board has not been appointed. Area selectors, such as the international organization selectors, coordinate among themselves about appropriate fields and conventions. However, there is not enough outside activity to create an oversight board. The majority of work is still being done by UCR staff.
EGIIG discussed possibilities for extending the utility of INFOMINE. Some have suggested that brief records in MARC format might be able to be generated from INFOMINE for loading into MELVYL. The maps subcommittee we are establishing could look into such a possibility for the INFOMINE maps database. Also, with minimal outside contributions, UCR resources are stretched to cover all of the area resources in government information. With volunteer participants, there is little accountability for one's efforts. Efforts to increase bibliographic access to online resources are not yet recognized in librarian statements of responsibility, Often, efforts in this area are not evaluated qualitatively.
EGIIG agreed with Margaret Mooney's commitment to not duplicate existing resources. If another entity, for example the Government Documents Roundtable which is creating an website for international organization resources, provides a good replacement for INFOMINE's effort in the same area, she would choose to reduce INFOMINE's coverage to focus on other areas.
ACTION: EGIIG recommends that HOPS members encourage library units who have staff contributing to INFOMINE to recognize the contribution in the evaluation process.
b. GPO Gate (Patricia Cruse).
[http://www.gpo.ucop.edu/]
The GPO GATE interface to GPO Access processed fifteen new databases. Use continues at the average rate of approximately 75,000 users per month. Additional help files are desirable, and assistance from other campuses would be useful. Patricia Cruse was charged by EGIIG to set up a user/liaison group. UCSD and EGIIG are still interested in pursuing the mirror site proposal we made last year, in which copies of the GPO files would be transferred to the West Coast. This would vastly improve the communications delays currently experienced in using GPO Gate and GPO Access. With recent staffing changes at GPO, there may be willingness to reconsider our request for more information on the storage and staffing requirements of setting up a mirror site. Patricia and Linda will raise the issue in their meeting with GPO staff on partnership issues.
c. STAT-USA
EGIIG had recommended that the University pursue a system-wide contract for the STAT- USA web-based database of economic information through the Department of Commerce. The Computer Files Committee asked that EGIIG comment on the alternatives outlined in the agency's most recent contract offer. EGIIG surveyed UC campuses (except UCSF) and discovered that seven of the eight campuses were using STAT-USA. Five campuses were using the depository password, inputting it for each user. Two campuses (San Diego and Santa Barbara) had separate campus-wide subscriptions acquired under an earlier pricing scheme (a Berkeley business professor had an individual account). The new pricing scheme, by Class B or Class C addresses or by individual workstation, was very difficult to understand. It appears that a campus with a complex computer structure would pay more even if there were not a greater number of users. Government Information librarians who responded were interested in pursuing a system-wide contract primarily for cost savings. A solution to the password problem is also a major goal, but this could be solved with campus-wide contract.
HOS had also been investigating the STAT-USA issue and received information that STAT- USA would again be revising its pricing structure and would reimburse any campus which paid more under the Class B/Class C address pricing scheme. EGIIG concurred with DLA's recommendation that campuses pursue individual agreements until the pricing structure is revised to provide a pricing structure that would result in significant economies under a system-wide scheme as compared to a campus-wide subscription.
d. National Technical Information (NTIS) Pilot Project: (Linda Kennedy)
[http://128.120.79.79/webpgs/ntis.htm]
Although not a formal EGIIG project, EGIIG has been monitoring the UC Davis' NTIS "pre-pilot" project to deliver electronic images of NTIS technical reports to depository libraries for viewing and printing on site. The project has been moving slowly due to lack of staff-time at NTIS, but recently the pace has accelerated. UCD has been able to receive via ftp electronic documents in Postscript format, convert them to Adobe Acrobat format to facilitate viewing, and print the documents on a DocuTech Printer. UCD has been working with NTIS on methods to identify documents which are available in image format in the NTIS database. An appropriate mechanism has now been developed at NTIS. The requesting and logging mechanism is also progressing. After minimum technical requirements are developed, a limited number of other depository libraries will be selected to participate. A joint UC project did not seem desirable since documents can be requested and delivered directly; however, if a UC depository did not have the required technology it might be possible to develop a cooperative project.
8. Future projects:
EGIIG may be asked by the Computer Files Committee to assist in evaluating the CIS Compass web-based product.
EGIIG will also address changes in the Census Bureau's dissemination of
information (CenStats, DADS)
Maintained by: Sherry DeDecker
Updated: 10/11/04 08:30:48