Depository Library Council Takes Steps to Furthering the "Vision"

Barbie Selby, Chair of the Depository Library Council (Alderman Library, University of Virginia) is inviting everyone to help the Depository Library Council continue the process of envisioning the future of the FDLP and of our libraries' roles in providing government information.

One suggestion for proceeding is to focus exclusively on the "action plan" and not worry about the vision discussion paper. We'd aim to end up with a short document which stated goals and action items. Some narrative, but mostly what we plan to DO. For example:

• We think "training" is important - what kind of training do we need, what kind of training can we provide? Who might pay for this?
• We want to mentor, and to have mentors - can we set up a mechanism to match up new and "old" documents librarians to mentor each other?
• We need to distinguish between big "O" and little "o" official materials and their electronic provision. Can a group of us begin to list what is big "O" Official in electronic format?
• We think an expert registry might be a good idea - for referrals. Could GODORT host such a registry? Would a depository consider an official GPO partnership to host such a registry?
• We believe that exploring possibilities with "internet memory organizations" would be advisable. Are some of us already doing this? Are we partnering to digitize government information? Can we make an acceptable proposal to GPO for partnering to get some government documents digitized?
• We want government information chat reference service. Are we willing to fully staff such an effort? How would it work?

Our action plan should probably take these into account in some way.

• Topics
  • Adding value
  • Deploying expertise
  • Collections/delivering content
  • Non-exclusive environment
• Themes
  • Customer focus
  • Increase flexibility
  • Education
  • Promotion (Marketing)
  • Collaboration
  • Innovation

If you are interested in helping DLC as the Council moves forward in its planning process, please email Barbie Selby at bselby@virginia.edu and let her know if there's a particular area you're interested in working on.