Washington State Plan

A committee of four that includes Cass Hartnett, Robin Clausen, Carlos A. Diaz, and Herrick Heitman took a look at the Washington State Plan and saw that it needed to be revised.

A draft of the plan is available as a Word document at:

http://www.evergreen.edu/library/govdocs/ngin/stateplan2005-draft.doc

Please be sure to read the state plan for discussion at the NGIN meeting.

Fall 2005 NGIN Meeting Agenda Available

The Fall 2005 NGIN Meeting agenda is now available for your perusal at:

http://www.evergreen.edu/library/govdocs/ngin/nov7-2005.html

We definitely have a good program ahead for Monday, November 7, 2005 at the Seattle Public Library.

Fall 2005 GPO Conference

I was so pleased to see so many folks from depositories from the Pacific Northwest region. Coordinators from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho met at America at Union Station in Washington, D.C. for a nice friendly meal. A good time was had by all.

Different days of the conference had a different focus. One day was primarily discussion about authentication, another on envisioning, another on the Federal Depository Library Manual and the last day focused on Public Printer of the United States Bruce James.

Information pertaining to authentication of government documents can be found at:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/authentication/

Be sure to check the .pdf showing each type as a "official" one, an updated one, and an "unofficial" one. Much discussion was made over the use of "Official" and "official." The first titles to get the new authentication logo will be the bills. The folks at GPO are speaking with the various agencies and the Federal judiciary. Talks with the latter is very important because thus far, only the printed version of court cases, etc. are seen as the "Official" version. If GPO can get the Federal judiciary to accept the online version as "Official" that would make it possible for other government agencies to jump on the bandwagon.

During the Envisioning day, we were placed in small groups in order to discuss questions brought up by the mediators. You could tell the questions were carefully worded in order to get the appropriate response from the groups.

PPOTUS Bruce James speech was not of much significance. He spent a lot of time selling the idea that getting rid of the current historic and magnificent looking GPO building was what was best for GPO. That monies spent from problems arising in maintaining the old building would go into the FDLP, hence, a new glass modern building would benefit us in the long run.
Monies from the sale of the property would be used to build a new building.

The most prooductive presentation from the conference was the disaster relief program that featured the University of Georgia's fire. The fire happened in the government documents collection and was caused by an arsonist. The presentation asked some good and interesting questions such as:

• Are the firefighters in your area trained to control fires in liraries?
• Is your government documents collection insured? Many depository coordinators were surprised to find out they were not.
• Do you have a current disaster relief plan?

All very good questions to ponder.