GODORT Education Committee
Minutes

Arlene Weible, Chair
Michael Oppenheim, Recording
1996 Midwinter Conference, San Antonio, TX
January 21, 1996, 2:00 p.m. -- 5:00 p.m.
Plaza San Antonio, Los Mananitas Room

Committee members in attendence: Michael Oppenheim, Larry Romans, Sandy Webber, Kate Lee, Patricia Cruse, Betsy Richmond, Patrick Wilkinson.

Introductions of those present were made. The minutes of the 1995 Annual meeting, as published in Documents to the People. 23 (September 1995): 186-187, were approved.

Liaison Reports

ALA Library Education Assembly. Due to scheduling conflicts, Mary Mallory was unable to attend the Assembly's meeting at this conference. She will obtain a copy of their minutes, and forward them to Arlene Weible.

ALA Library Literacy Assembly. Due to scheduling conflicts, Patrick Wilkinson was unable to attend the Assembly's meeting at this conference. The question of formally maintaining the liaison arose again; because the liaison relationship is with ALA GODORT, rather than the Education Committee itself, GODORT would need to approve its discontinuation. Arlene will bring this issue to the Steering Committee.

Federal Documents Task Force. Michael Oppenheim reported that the FDTF's Workgroups and Business Meeting was given over almost entirely to workgroups' discussion of the GPO's Electronic Transition Plan. Seven work groups--Archiving, Cataloging, Legislation, Organization, Public Service, Standards, and Training/User Education (led by Arlene Weible)--brainstormed for about an hour, then made brief summary reports to the assembled group. Reports from these workgroups will be edited into "bullets" to be presented at the Business Meeting and Second Steering Committee meeting. (See "New Business," below, for the Education Committee's further discussion of the Training/User Education Workgroup's findings, and reaction to the Electronic Transition Plan.)

International Documents Task Force. Kate Lee reported that the IDTF discussed the new Subject Guide to IGOs, to be published in March or April; the anticipated update to the Foreign Countries Guide; proposed resumption of agency liaison programs; various New York City conference matters; and the Electronic Transition Plan.

State and Local Documents Task Force. Sandra Webber reported that the SLDTF discussed Atifa Rawan's new State and Local Documents Home Page, for which the URL is (http://www.library.arizona.edu/users/arawan/state.html), and approved some editorial changes to its description.

OLD BUSINESS

1. Handout Disk Exchange

A 1996 edition of the disk will be sold at the annual conference in New York City, preceding the Saturday morning Federal Documents Task Force Update and the Monday morning program. Brian Carpenter and Mary Mallory will assist with sales. Larry Romans stressed that all submissions are welcome, and new materials are definitely needed, particularly in (but not limited to) the following categories: training materials; processing specifics; CD-ROMs and other electronic products; promotional materials; levels-of-service statements; and more collection development policies, especially those which cover electronic information. Arlene Weible suggested including GPO's promotional materials on the disk; HTML text of Web pages used for instruction or training, and URLs for Documents Departments' home pages, may also be included. All Education Committee members will solicit (and are strongly encouraged to provide) handouts for the disk. Materials are due to Larry Romans by April 15.

The 1995 disk will also be available, at GPO's earlier request, at the April 1996 Federal Depository Conference at the Washington Airport Hilton. Larry Romans' proposal that GPO permanently take over the reproduction and (preferably free) distribution of the disks was well received by the committee, particularly in view of the exceptionally large group of depository library personnel who traditionally attend the Federal Depository Conference, and are usually unable to attend ALA Annual.

2. 1996 Pre-Conference Planning

Arlene Weible distributed copies of the announcement/registration form for "Demystifying Documents: Finding Federal Government Information." Copies of this flyer have already been distributed at the Midwinter Conference. The only piece of information "missing" is an exact location in NYC; ALA will announce the 1996 Annual Conference event locations on May 4. Pre-Conference registrants will be informed of the location when their registrations (which are due by May 17) are confirmed. Arlene will provide a more detailed description of the Pre-Conference for inclusion in the preliminary program for Annual.

Tricia Cruse, Mary Mallory, Michael Oppenheim, Jill Vassilakos-Long, and Patrick Wilkinson constituted themselves as a subcommittee to handle (primarily electronic) advertising for the Pre-Conference. In addition to GOVDOC-L, a very wide range of library-related listservs will be identified and "blitzed" with Pre-Conference announcements. Listservs for library schools, state library associations, and the greater New York/Pennsylvania/New Jersey/New England area will also be especially targeted. Tricia Cruse will work on getting an announcement on GPO's Web pages (the Pre-Conference is already described on Andrea Sevetson's "GODORT" Web pages). Yvonne Wilson has also arranged for promotion through the SLDTF's "Committee of Eight" state government liaisons.

Tricia Cruse, Kate Lee, Mary Mallory, and Amy Spare volunteered for Pre-Conference registration and movement logistics duties. Arlene Weible will handle name-tags.

Yvonne Wilson will handle all matters associated with the dinner for the Pre-Conference presenters.

Michael Oppenheim and Yvonne Wilson will work on an evaluation form for the Pre-Conference.

Yvonne Wilson is coordinating the preparation, production, and binding of the Pre-Conference bibliographies, most of which are already well under way. Two final-draft deadlines were confirmed: (1) Friday, March 15, 1996, for the "subject-specific" work groups (business, legislation, and social issues); and (2) Monday, April 15, 1996, for the "morning speakers" (Beth Woodard and Marilyn Moody). (February 15 was assigned as a target date for the subject-specific groups to share drafts of their bibliographies among themselves.) It was reconfirmed that the bibliographies (1) will adhere to an average length of 5 pages, double-sided; (2) will each include a cover page providing telephone and fax numbers, email addresses, and other appropriate biographical information, about the compilers/presenters; (3) should use a brief, uncomplicated, easy-to-read citation style; (4) will cover both federal governmental and appropriate commercial sources (in paper, fiche, Internet/Web, and other electronic formats); and (5) will be issued to attendees in both paper and disk format. (The bibliographies will also be included on the 1996 Handout Disk, free copies of which Larry Romans has offered to provide to Pre-Conference attendees.) The topics "Health" and "Poverty and Welfare" will be added to the "Social Issues" component, which already encompasses crime and education.

Arlene Weible distributed a draft schedule for the Pre-Conference. The Committee, which generally endorsed the schedule, agreed to expand the time slots allotted to morning speakers B. Woodard and M. Moody to 45 minutes each, to be followed by a 20-minute general Questions and Answers session. Betsy Richmond agreed to handle the Pre-Conference Wrap-Up (in addition to the morning introductions). Yvonne Wilson volunteered to investigate possibilities for refreshments sponsorship by vendors (i.e., CIS, or CQ).

An overhead projector with an LCD panel will be available for each speaker. Arlene Weible will investigate the availability of a computer through ALA; speakers will also be strongly encouraged to bring their own laptops. No live Internet demonstrations will be attempted.

Arlene Weible will establish an email routing list based on the attendance of this meeting to ensure full communication about all ongoing Pre-Conference planning activities among everyone involved.

NEW BUSINESS

Response to Electronic Federal Depository Library Program Transition Plan

Arlene Weible, who led the morning FTDF Workgroup session on Training and User Education, reported to the Committee on points identified by that group, as part of the Committee's development of its response to the Transition Plan, as requested by GODORT. Among these points, and key concerns of the Committee, are the following: (1) GPO needs to define fully what they mean by "user services," and to focus, in the early stages of the transition, on librarians, rather than GPO Access end-users; (2) GPO should go beyond the Regional Depository Library structure to include in its proposed training agenda (in addition to Regionals) large selective depositories and state documents interest groups, among others, especially as geography indicates; GPO (3) should fund "training grants" to facilitate workshop attendance; (4) serve as a handouts clearinghouse; (5) develop "generic" training materials, suitable for local adaptations; (6) establish minimum technical and "content" competencies for depository librarians, which can be used in the development of library school and continuing education curricula; (7) make the most of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and distance education technologies; and (8) coordinate internships at such sites as larger depositories, federal agencies, and within the GPO itself. The Committee fully endorsed this outline, and recommended additional proposals (1) for the development of a GPO "Help Desk," for both simple and complex technical/electronic problems, and more general referral questions (the Patent and Trademark Depository Libraries' Help Desk offers an ideal model); and (2) especially prominent emphasis on the need to make training equitable, for both users and for libraries and their staffs.

The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.


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