A Day in the Life: Dealing with Digital

When Carolyn Kohler became a government publications librarian at the University of Iowa in 1968, her biggest problem was finding enough storage room for the infinitely expanding print collection. Now, as the U.S. government moves toward a goal of publishing as much as 95 percent of its documents solely in electronic format, she worries more about how to build a permanent collection of documents when they can vanish at the keystroke of an agency webmaster. "The agencies do understand that people want the information right now," Kohler says. "I'm just not sure they get that people may still want it 20 years from now."

Like other documents librarians, Kohler has found herself unexpectedly at the forefront of technological change and momentous political issues: the public's right to know vs. legitimate security concerns; public accountability for government actions vs. government secrecy; permanent public access vs. instantaneous (but maybe temporary) electronic access.

When LJ visited the government publications libraries of the University of Iowa (UI) in Iowa City and Western Illinois University (WIU) in Macomb, we expected that these concerns, and fears for the very future of the federal depository library program (FDLP), would be foremost in librarians' minds. What we found was that, yes, they're concerned, but on a day-to-day basis, documents librarians focus on the best way to do the job at hand: answering users' questions, teaching students, constructing finding guides and web pages, and assisting faculty with research and course content.

Patrons may be especially surprised by the depth of information at UI, where the Government Publications Department appears to be just a big room with a couple of workstations, a few shelves of books, and a reference desk; the collection, which currently numbers over five million cataloged items, actually occupies much of the library's third floor and overflows into the basement storage area.

Like many depository libraries, UI is also a depository of state documents. Depository libraries may be part of public, academic, or state libraries. They may be partial depositories, holding just the documents that matter to their institutions, or regional depositories, receiving all documents processed by the Government Printing Office (GPO). In exchange for the free delivery of documents, all depository libraries pledge to store the materials, provide access to them, and supply librarians to assist the public in their use—all at the library's expense.

Librarians there field questions on topics such as Iowa Civil War rosters, the controversial Iowa bottle bill, graphic art ("I need to see recruiting posters from World War II"), statistical data of all kinds, environmental issues, topography ("What's the highest point in Johnson County?"), genealogy ("Can you help me find the town in Poland my ancestors came from that doesn't seem to be on the map anymore?"), and much more.

At WIU, when a woman wondered what earthly use there was for daily crop reports, Chuck Malone, head of its Government & Legal Information Unit, told her, "I used to be a farmer, and I used those all the time to decide how much of each crop to plant." He adds that when he helped a man find out what patents his competitors were registering, the man said, "You mean that's public information? And free? Wow."

The story Malone most likes to tell, though, is about an older man who browsed the military collection while waiting for help with an obscure tax form. When Malone returned with his tax information, the man had tears in his eyes. Fifty-one years earlier in Korea, he told Malone, he and his unit were ordered to march to a hill where they fought for four days, then abruptly were ordered to return to where they started. His best friends had died there, but until he read an account of that battle in a book Malone had led him to, he had no idea what the point was, or whether they had accomplished anything.

Documents librarians may well be the most service-minded people in the profession. The range of questions and questioners these librarians deal with indicate that every inquiry, even if it seems trivial, is legit. For instance, Malone recalls helping a patron identify a pan he bought for 25¢ at a yard sale, from a patent number. Being part of a university library doesn't restrict the kinds of service these librarians offer or the people they serve.

That service attitude stems from depository librarians' awareness of the unique challenges their libraries present to hapless users. It is not that their systems lack a formal logic; it is that an excess of formal logic prevails. This overabundance of classification schemes and separate collections can help information disappear.

The SuDocs classification scheme is hard enough for most people to master, but it is trickier when coupled with the Swank system for state documents, separate microfiche and map collections, and foreign and international document collections classed in Dewey or the Library of Congress.

There are also databases on CD-ROM and the Internet that hold plenty of answers, but only if you can figure out how to use their wildly varying interfaces and search engines. Then there are the "fugitive publications," published by government agencies but not distributed to depository libraries, and web-based documents that may be deleted or moved to new addresses without notice (nine of the web documents in the April Marcive tapes already have dead URLs).

Daunting, isn't it? That's why, as one of the librarians says modestly, "We try to be tenacious."

In both libraries, documents librarians spend part of their time checking in material, cataloging it, claiming missing items, and binding and preserving materials. That is partly because of the rules depository libraries must follow—you can dispose of government documents only after offering them to other libraries—and partly because of the irritating inefficiencies of the GPO and state government agencies, whose shipments are usually filled with little mysteries.

Despite the librarians' best efforts, many of the older items in the depository collections are still not in the general library catalogs. Mary McInroy, map librarian for UI's government publications library, sometimes wonders how she can possibly get students and faculty to use maps when only ten percent of the map collection is in the library catalog. Catalog users won't realize the library has a complete set of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and a striking collection of aerial photographs of Iowa, but, fortunately, Google users will because McInroy posted the information on the Maps Library web page.

Not surprisingly, given the challenges of the cataloging system, creating finding tools and putting them on web pages is an ever-larger part of these librarians' daily responsibilities. UI librarians have created guides to statistical sources, environmental impact statements, international agency publications, technical reports, Congressional publications, state and local information, and other resources. At WIU, which has a collection about half the size of UI, Malone and his staff, one librarian and five paraprofessionals, have created over 100 web pages, many of them guiding students to print and web-based primary documents for eternally popular term paper topics like capital punishment, gun control, and cloning.

In both institutions, documents librarians work directly with faculty to create course-specific guides to key government resources. Marianne Mason, documents and reference librarian at UI, has worked with faculty to recommend documentary resources for a course in telecommunications law and for a freshman seminar on weapons of mass destruction, among others.

Malone and newly hired Marcy Allen, whose specialty is geographic information systems (GIS), have developed resource guides for health services management, engineering technology, introductory GIS, and other courses. Allen, who clearly hit the ground running, is also reviewing all the library's CD-ROMs to see which ones can be used with mapping software and handheld GIS devices. She and Malone have been poring over individual course offerings for the coming academic year and brainstorming about what government-created documents, maps, and databases would be of value in each. They are now approaching faculty members with suggestions for their reading lists.

In addition, Allen's performance for her first year will be measured in terms of how proficient she has become at finding answers and useful instructional resources in the open stacks collection of 300,000 paper documents, 300,000 fiche titles, 400,000 maps, 1000-plus CD-ROMs, and electronic and print finding tools that occupies the entire fourth floor of the WIU Library—no small feat.

At both institutions, depository librarians go into classrooms to teach students (and faculty) about the wealth of government information in their field of study and then guide the students through their class projects. Mason says this is the part of the job she enjoys most: "encountering a student who thinks finding an answer to her research assignment in the Government Publications Department is a real long shot and then becomes a happy regular. I guess that's evangelism."

Of course depository librarians can't create finding tools for their users, or even answer reference questions, unless they continually update their knowledge and skills. In fact, in some ways the FDLP has actually forced librarians to be ahead of the technology curve. Kohler says that she became the first person at UI Libraries to get a computer with a CD drive because the GPO had sent her the first CD-ROM database the university's librarians had ever seen. She and the other librarians have had to learn to create web pages because they're the best way of reaching and teaching users.

Kohler writes individual training plans for each librarian. Since the staff is small, she expects librarians to teach each other core elements of their jobs and keep each other informed about new documents, databases, and finding tools. She also expects them to attend FDLP and American Library Association Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) meetings and other professional conferences, where government agencies and vendors offer training on new databases and finding tools.

As a regional depository library, UI is obligated to assist and train librarians at other depository libraries in Iowa. Kohler maintains the web page and the electronic discussion for the Govdoc-Iowa mailing list. Mason chairs the Iowa State Plan for Federal Depository Libraries and is especially active in training activities. She has brought representatives from government agencies to Iowa to train depository librarians in the use of census products and the new GPO Access. As chair of the Iowa Government Documents Round Table, she is now planning the summer program and working with local history librarians to prepare for the fall Iowa Library Association meeting. She also goes to public schools, where she uses "Ben's Guide to US Government for Kids" to teach them how government works and shows them the entertaining educational activities available from even the stodgiest government agencies.

As a partial depository, the Government & Legal Information Unit at WIU accepts only 70 percent of federal publications and has no training responsibilities for other depository libraries. However, through a historical fluke, it is also the county law library, housing the collection that once nearly collapsed the floor of the court house; the department still receives annual funding from court fees to maintain and expand the law collection.

Thus, where UI depository librarians would routinely refer legal questions to the UI law library, Malone and Allen at WIU provide legal reference and prepare information guides for university courses in such areas as broadcast regulation and sports law. From time to time, their collection has been a boon to lawyers and agents for the St. Louis Rams, who practice on the WIU campus in the summer.

The least rewarding work any of these librarians do is complying with FDLP guidelines and policies, writing service plans, and producing self-studies, and they are not entirely unhappy about the possible big changes in the FDLP that put more emphasis on the service role and less on pure collection management. Mason says, "I think the depository program needs to be shaken hard! There has been an inflexibility of the FDLP that has made administration of the program onerous for some libraries."

In fact, as ready electronic access to documents has made the benefits of membership less clear, a number of libraries have recently chosen to leave the depository program—in Iowa, the number has gone from 20 to 16 within the past five years. LJ sat in on a meeting where Galesburg Public Library, a depository since 1895, announced that, like several other Illinois libraries, it has decided to join the exodus.

Malone doesn't think that's all bad: "I really see a future where with more and more government information online, and more shared online OPACs, just about any library can be a government information library, regardless of whether they participate in the FDLP. Then those that remain in the FDLP can serve a consulting and coordinating role to assist the nondepositories."

The regional depositories would continue to host historic collections that have not been digitized and provide reference assistance for nondepository libraries.

For documents librarians, who have the best working knowledge of citizens' information needs, advising the Superintendent of Documents about problems and recommending policy solutions is arguably their second most important function, and librarians are expected to participate in the semi-annual FDLP meetings.

Those events offer opportunities to voice qualms about the side effects of the e-government initiative to publish government publications in digital form. The plan leaves electronic publishing in the hands of government agencies and officials who mouth the right words about "stewardship for government information throughout its life cycle." But, Kohler says, they "don't seem to have any good, solid plans for archiving and preserving web-based documents."

In early May 2003, a meeting of the Federal Depository Library Council invited depository librarians to reenvision completely the mission of their libraries and the FDLP. The published report, in FDLP's Administrative Notes, suggests that there is divergence between the goals of librarians and those of the public printer and the Superintendent of Documents in at least two areas. First, librarians want the GPO to be responsible for permanent public access to electronic documents, while the GPO seems to want to pass the responsibility as another unfunded mandate—to the libraries. Kohler says they're touting the idea of " 'super–regional depository libraries' to deal with the issue." Second, the GPO proposes a "value-added business model" that includes making its resources available through commercial aggregators, a red flag to librarians who insist that any such products should be available to depositories for free.

Another concern of documents librarians is the tendency toward secrecy in government that has been aggravated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This trend has resulted in the outright removal of some government information and the reclassification of documents that were already on public record.

However, McInroy says that government officials did try to allay librarians' fears about disappearing geospatial data at a recent meeting of the Cartographic Users Advisory Council. They explained that while some agencies had removed all their data from their web sites temporarily in order to review it, fewer than 60 items permanently disappeared—a claim that is difficult to verify, given the absence of a requirement that all agencies report additions and deletions to their sites to the GPO.

These issues, and the funding crisis that makes libraries wonder whether they can afford the luxury of supporting depository collections, have left Kohler reflecting on the wisdom of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." With retirement approaching, she says, "In some ways, I'd like to hang around and see how this all shakes out, but I'm getting tired of the hassle."

Though she and the other librarians we met worry about the future of their profession, they still hold several truths to be self-evident. The more power the government has, the more essential it is that it be held accountable for its actions. Information is the sunlight that exposes slimy crawling things like incompetence and corruption and sends them running for cover. And, most importantly, the mission of depository librarians is to provide that sun.