February 2010 marked the first month where the only documents posted to the Lost Docs Blog were receipts submitted during that month or during the last week of the preceeding month.

We also established a new blog category that we hope we will not need to use very much. That category is "Explanation Needed" and if you need an explanation, see my blog entry about it.

Now on to the February 2010 Lost Docs Report and Appeal

REPORT

In February 2010, we posted 27 "lost docs" e-mail receipts sent by GPO to the librarians who reported these missing documents. These civic minded librarians in turn e-mailed us their receipts. How many reports did GPO receive? Only they know, but the more people who send their fugitive docs e-mail receipts to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info, the more accurate our count will be.

Of these 27 reported items, two items have been cataloged by GPO since the initial report. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with February 2010 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

In our view, six of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in January were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) or were already in the catalog. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with February 2010 dates.

In three of these "false positive" cases, it looks like GPO had received the tangible item near the published date of the item and cataloged an electronic equivalent, but did not distribute the tangible item to the Federal Depository Library Program. This may or may not be in accordance with GPO SOD 301 which states that budget permitting, tangible documents will be offered when both tangible and online formats are available.

With the available information in these three item CGP records, it is unclear whether GPO made a conscious, budget related decision to not offer these publication or just forgot to send them out. We encourage GPO to begin putting notes explaining why a given item was not distributed to the FDLP into the item's bibliographic record.

If you are interested in viewing this new category of publication, visit http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/explain/ and look for items with February 2010 dates.

As I stated in the post introducing the "Explanation Needed" category of the Lost Docs blog, we strongly encourage people with instances of CGP cataloged but non-distributed federal documents to use GPO Help and not GPO's Lost Docs form.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

3/1/2010 - Updated to add criteria of non-distribution of tangible product to FDLP.

Thanks to some documents reported to FGI's Lost Docs Blog last month, the Lost Docs blog has a new category that needs explaining. The category is called "Explanation Needed."

GPO lost docs receipts submitted to lostdocs.freegovinfo.info will be assigned this category if:

1) Cataloging records exist for both tangible (Paper and/or microfiche) and online versions of the item submitted that were added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) earlier than the datestamp on the lost docs receipt.

2) The catalog record for the tangible version indicates that GPO cataloged the tangible version within five years of the publishing date of the item.

3) There is clear evidence from the bib record or depository librarian testimony that the tangible item was NOT offered to Federal Depository Libraries.

We have a five year limit because GPO Acquisitions staff have indicated they rarely have success in finding depository copies of tangible items more than five years old.

We at FGI don't insist that GPO distribute a tangible item when that item is solely available in an online format, but when a tangible item is available and fits the program, it should be distributed. GPO's policy on dissemination, SOD 301, states (emphasis mine), "When the product is available both online and in a tangible format, GPO will disseminate the online version to depository libraries. Tangible versions will be offered as well, budget permitting." Hopefully this means that most of the time the budget will permit this. If an item wasn't distributed for budget reasons, GPO should note this in the print record.

Until the non-distribution of these tangible items is explained and obviously noted in the cataloging record for a given item, it will keep the "Explanation Needed" tag. However, we will also continue to tag such items as "false positive" since we believe the primary focus of "lost docs" is documenting government publications that have escaped the National Bibliography GPO is required to maintain and because people do have access (at least for now) to the online version.

We encourage depositories to report non-distribution of CGP-Cataloged documents through GPO help and not through the Lost Docs form.

The Government Printing Office (GPO) has posted their recent session on reporting fugitive documents at their OPAL archive:

Helping GPO Identify Fugitive Publications presented in January 2010 by Joe McClane, Manager of Content Acquisitions, and Linda Nainis, Acquisitions Librarian, U.S. Government Printing Office.

• Streaming audio with slides (runtime 69:10)
• Downloadable MP3 audiorecording (22 MB; runtime 69:10)

If you have any interest in the fugitive document problem -- agencies publishing information that slips between the cracks -- I highly recommend this session. This is an informative and frank discussion about GPO's efforts to address this problem and how librarians and other interested govinfo types can help contribute to the solution. Or at least one solution among many.

With the January 2010 Lost Docs Report and Appeal, we have come to the last of our "saved receipts" with which we first seeded the blog. This means that starting February 1, 2010, every single posting to the Lost Docs Blog will be a receipt submitted during that month or during the last week of the proceeding month. That means that if everyone who sent in a lost document report to GPO also sent to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info, we would have an accurate report of the volume of document reports provided to GPO. We hope you will help make this happen.

Now on to the January 2010 Lost Docs Report and Appeal

REPORT

Thanks to the continued generosity of documents librarians, we posted 85 reports of fugitive documents submitted to GPO. About two thirds of these items were reported during December 2009/January 2010.

Of these 85 reported items, 11 items have been cataloged by GPO. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with January 2010 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

In our view, three of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in January were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) or were already in the catalog. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with January 2010 dates.

There were two items added to the "E-Version Needs Cataloging" category. You can view these items by visiting http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/catalog-eversion and looking for items with January 2010 dates. If your library has either of these documents, please consider adding an 856 field to the record(s) so your patrons will be able to link to the electronic version(s) through your catalog.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

If you'd like to hone your skills at locating and reporting fugitive documents, check out this e-mail from GPO:

----------------------

From: Announcements from the Federal Depository Library Program
[mailto:GPO-FDLP-L@LISTSERV.ACCESS.GPO.GOV] On Behalf Of FDLP Listserv
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 12:40 PM
To: GPO-FDLP-L@LISTSERV.ACCESS.GPO.GOV
Subject: Chat with GPO: Helping GPO Identify Fugitive Publications

On Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 1:30PM EST, Joe McClane, Manager of
GPO's Content Acquisitions and Linda Nainis, GPO's Acquisitions
Librarian will discuss how documents librarians can help GPO identify
fugitive publications. 

The presentation will feature a 30-minute slideshow that explains how
GPO staff find fugitive documents and ways the community can help GPO
improve the researching and processing of new documents. Time will be
allocated at the end of the session for questions. 

Space is limited to the first 100 participants on a first come basis.
GPO recommends arriving at least 10 minutes early in order to reserve
your spot and test your connection.

Connect to the GPO OPAL Room:
<http://www.conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs38bb0e4b3a5a>.

For more information on GPO's OPAL implementation and OPAL requirements,
visit: <http://www.fdlp.gov/outreach/onlinelearning/68-opal>.

_________________________________

If you have questions or comments, please use the askGPO help service
at: <http://www.gpoaccess.gov/help>. When submitting a question,
please choose the category "Federal Depository Libraries" and the
appropriate subcategory, if any, in order to ensure that your question
is routed to the correct area.

-----------------------

If you have an interest in identifying fugitive publications, I strongly encourage you to attend this OPAL session. The better reports that GPO has, the faster any given item will be cataloged. This benefits everyone. Hope to see you there.

If you are one of the 557 fans of our Facebook page, please check your inbox for details on how you can use your Facebook Notes to promote government documents. Be sure to check for "updates" and not regular messages.

If you decide to help, would you leave a comment here and/or on our fan page? Thanks!

In September 2009 we at Free Government Information (FGI) started the "lost docs blog" at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info to collect your receipts from GPO about the fugitive documents you reported through GPO's lost docs form at www.fdlp.gov/lostdocs or through GPO's Help system at gpo.custhelp.com.

Here is the December 2009 Lost Docs Report and Appeal:

REPORT

Thanks to the continued generosity of documents librarians, we posted 93 reports of fugitive documents submitted to GPO. More than two thirds of these items were reported during November/December 2009.

Of these 93 reported items, nine items have been cataloged by GPO. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with December 2009 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

In our view, seven of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in December were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) or were already in the catalog. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with December 2009 dates.

This month we added a new subcategory of fugitive document to the blog, that of "needs URL addded." These are reported documents where a record of the tangible version is in the CGP, but the record makes no reference to online availability. Since we feel that documenting online availability is important, we left them listed as fugitive documents because the electronic version are unknown to GPO. This month there were 20 items where the CGP knew about the tangible version but not the internet version. You can view these items by visiting http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/catalog-eversion and looking for items with December 2009 dates. If your library has any of this documents, please consider adding an 856 field to the record(s) so your patrons will be able to link to the electronic version(s) through your catalog.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month.
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

UPDATE 1/5/2010

John Stevenson, my friend and distinguished government information librarian, reminded me that current GPO cataloging policy is to create multiple records for a given work based on format. This means that instead of adding a URL to an 856 field in an existing record, GPO would create a new record based on the electronic format of the document. I wonder how efficient that is, but that's another post for another time.

So we have renamed our new category "eVersion Needs Cataloging." You can get a feed for just these items by subscribing to http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/catalog-eversion/feed/.

Keep comments and your lostdocs receipts coming!

We started the LostDocs blog back in September 2009 to collect e-mail receipts for items that were reported to GPO as "fugitive documents" -- agency documents that should have made it into the Federal Depository Library Program and/or the Catalog of Government Publications.

In the process of running this blog, we have identified 40 documents reported since April 2008 that were cataloged by GPO after being reported as "fugitive documents." These fall into the "found documents" category of our blog.

You can find our list of 40 (and counting) cataloged fugitives here. This spreadsheet will be updated whenever we identify new GPO cataloging for items that had been reported as fugitive documents.

The results are interesting and somewhat disturbing, but not definitive.

The 40 items were cataloged in times varying from three days to 524 days. The mean cataloging time was 213 days. The median cataloging time was 184 days or about six months.

If the cataloging times above were typical of all documents reported through the LostDocs process, we think this would be a major problem for GPO that would require some serious soul searching and dialog about how this result could be changed and what tradeoffs and/or extra community involvement would be required as a result.

We are NOT making the claim that these cataloging times are typical for reported fugitive documents. We honestly do not know what is typical. Jim Jacobs, FGI's resident data librarian, had this to say about our sample of cataloged documents:

As for sample size and relevance: the number of items in the sample can't tell us the significance or accuracy of the results. We'd have to know two other things: the size of the universe (of all reported lost docs), and the accuracy of the sample. Since the sample was self- selected (by those reporting) rather than random, and since we don't know if the sample is 1% or 85% of all submitted lostdocs, we can't claim that the findings necessarily reflect the status of the whole universe. (does that make sense? If only people w/ long waits reported to us, our sample does not accurately reflect all lostdocs.)

When we first thought about making lostdocs reports available to the community at large, we first approached GPO with a partnering opportunity. We would maintain the blog, and offer them the opportunity to comment on the blog whether something was out of scope for CGP or already in the catalog. In return, we asked them to modify their LostDocs form so that when they received a report, the blog would automatically get a copy. If this partnership had been accepted, then we would know the two facts Jim cited above that are needed to tell us whether we have typical results or not. GPO declined to accept our partnership agreement, citing their workload. We're not questioning that they are overworked.

We do feel that the results above deserve further investigation. Perhaps GPO could prepare a report on documents cataloged as a result of fugitive reports over the past few years. Unless they've discarded the e-mail receipts (which would be defensible), they have the dates of when documents were reported. The CGP lists when an item was first added to the CGP. They could have an intern make a semester project of putting the two together and then posting the results to fdlp.gov.

If they have tossed previous e-mail receipts, they could start saving them for a year starting in January 2010 and do the analysis we propose above in 2011. But in either case we feel the analysis should be done. If it confirms our results then it will be good ammunition in Congress to procure more cataloging staff or to start cataloging collaborations with FDLP members. If the GPO analysis concludes that items reported to lost docs are in fact cataloged in a timely manner, then that will help build trust with the documents community and motivate more people to report fugitive documents. Either way it is a win-win for GPO.

While poking around the Government Printing Office's (GPO)'s OPAL training site at http://www.opal-online.org/archivegpo.htm, I found a couple of online workshops that I think will be valuable to beginner and expert alike:

Searching for Free Government Full Text Docs Online: Where to Begin? presented in October 2009 by Holly Harper, GPO intern and MLIS student at the University of Washington.

* Streaming audio with slides

Geology Librarianship and Government Documents presented in August 2009 by Stephanie Earls, GPO intern and MLIS student at the University of Washington.

* Streaming audio with slides

They appear to run best in Internet Explorer. The recordings were made by two library school interns working with GPO's Robin Haun-Mohamed. The intention was to create programming that would be helpful to generalist librarian and new depository staff.

I think they've done well at this and created some videos that should be shared with non-librarians as well. I publicly thank Robin and the GPO staff that made these possible. You may wish to pause the videos in places to make notes of URLs.

One new thing I learned (or was reminded anew) by the "Full Text Docs" presentation was the ability to browse publications in FDSys by collection, congressional committee or by Date. Use the "last 24 hours" option to see just how much information government is pumping out these days. And that's just a fraction of what's available.

My highlighting these two OPAL presentations should not be interpreted as a slight on the other good material you can find there. Go, watch and explore.

In September 2009 we at Free Government Information (FGI) started the "lost docs blog" at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info to collect your receipts from GPO about the fugitive documents you reported through GPO's lost docs form at www.fdlp.gov/lostdocs or through GPO's Help system at gpo.custhelp.com.

Here is the November Lost Docs Report and Appeal:

REPORT

Thanks to the continued generosity of documents librarians, we posted 60 reports of fugitive documents submitted to GPO. These receipts were a mixture of old receipts and items actually reported in November 2009.

Of these 60 reported items, 17 items have been cataloged by GPO. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with November 2009 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

In our view, only one of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in November were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications or were already in the catalog. You can view this item by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with November 2009 dates.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month.
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

While not part of the GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki, I wanted to highlight a new guide from the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau:

Tap the Power: Foreclosure Crisis

The introduction to this annotated bibliography states:

With the collapse of the subprime mortgage market early in 2007, foreclosures reached crisis level, and the crisis continues today. In answer, federal, state, and local governments have implemented programs to help alleviate the problem and stabilize neighborhoods. This bibliography presents a selection of print and online resources about foreclosure and the programs implemented by states and the federal government to help homeowners.

I think the folks at the WI LRB deliver on this promise. A few of the resources highlighted include:

Characteristics and Performance of Nonprime Mortgages / U.S. Government Accountability Office. July 28, 2009. GAO was asked to examine the nonprime mortgage market to help inform congressional efforts to deal with the problems in the mortgage industry. www.gao.gov/new.items/d09848r.pdf

Foreclosure to Homelessness 2009: The Forgotten Victims of the Subprime Crisis / National Coalition for the Homeless, et al. 2009. (347.62/N21) One phenomenon of the current foreclosure crisis is that many homeowners who lose their homes end up not in apartments, but on the street. This report examines how this happens and makes policy recommendations.
www.nationalhomeless.org/advocacy/ForeclosuretoHomelessness0609.pdf

"The Giant Pool of Money" / National Public Radio, This American Life, May 9, 2008, episode 355. This podcast of the episode, originally broadcast in 2008, provides a thorough summary of the housing crisis. Available in audio or transcript format. www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Like the resources from the Handout Exchange, I encourage you to check out the whole guide. Regardless of where you live, I think you'll find it worthwhile. I hope you'll also find it just another example of the value that librarians offer over unorganized information.

As Jim mentioned, GPO has posted presentation materials from the recently concluded Depository Library Conference.

One of the files worthy of your attention is the presentation slides from:

A Tale of Two Economies: Government Information from the New Deal and Now by Marianne Ryan, Associate University Librarian for Public Services, Northwestern University Library and Catherine Jervey, Director, Market Planning Legislative and Historical Services, LexisNexis Academic and Library Solutions

The slides give a govdocs powered, side by side comparison of the reactions of FDR and President Obama to their respective economic crises. It makes for interesting reading and puts today's economic troubles in perspective.

It's not touched on in the presentation slides, but I'm interested in a big difference between the 1930s and today. For the most part, regular people didn't have access to the New Deal legislation before it was passed. Today, whether or not it's taken advantage of, people around the country have access to proposed legislation in their own homes.

Would the wide-ranging legislation of the New Deal have been passed if there had been wide public access to the proposed legislation? It's an interesting "What If" scenario.

Last month we at Free Government Information (FGI) started the "lost docs blog" at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info to collect your receipts from GPO about the fugitive documents you reported through GPO's lost docs form at www.fdlp.gov/lostdocs or through GPO's Help system at gpo.custhelp.com.

Starting this month, we want to provide you a monthly summary report and appeal for help.

REPORT

Thanks to generous and retention minded librarians, we posted 45 reports of fugitive documents submitted to GPO. These receipts were primarily from 2008. Once we get the backlog posted, we hope to post receipts as we get them and will then be able to more closely track the number of submissions per month.

Of these 45 reports, 12 items have been cataloged by GPO. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with October 2009 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

In our view, three of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in October were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications or were already in the catalog. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with October 2009 dates.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month.
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

Have you wondered how many items get submitted to the Government Printing Office as fugitive documents through GPO's Lost Docs form at http://www.fdlp.gov/lostdocs? We have.

Have you thought that a public "lost docs" list might be a good collection development tool? We have.

Have you wondered how long it takes GPO to act on fugitive documents reports? We have.

To answer these questions, Free Government Information (FGI) has established a new stand-alone blog called the Lost Docs Blog at http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/. You can also get to the blog by clicking on "Lostdocs" in the upper right-hand corner of the FGI home page.

We think that the Lost Docs blog, if well utilized, will provide several important services to the Government Information Community:

1. It will provide an indication of the volume of fugitive documents discovered by the community.
2. It will reduce duplicate reports of fugitive documents, optimizing the time of GPO catalogers.
3. It will allow depository libraries and other interested parties the opportunity to acquire materials found to be out of scope of the FDLP.
4. Since blogs are indexed by Google and other search engines, lostdocs blog posts will raise awareness of government documents in search results.

   Participating in this blog is easy. All we need you to do is to send us your e-mail receipt from GPO to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. That's it. If you're new to reporting fugitive documents, you might want to check out our instructions at http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/2009/07/how-to-report-a-fugitivelost-document/.

   We know there have been many respectable efforts at tackling the issue of fugitive documents. What we think makes this project different is the public listing of possible fugitive documents acknowledged by GPO's reporting system. If enough lost docs reporters forward their receipts to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info, then we'll have a good handle on what the documents community is finding and reporting.

   Because some will ask us why we didn't ask GPO for copies of their receipts, we wanted to let you know we did. GPO is involved in a number of worthy projects at the moment and was not able to commit to providing us copies of their lostdocs e-mail receipts. We appreciated the time they gave to review our proposal.

   Now it's up to you. If you have some lostdocs receipts on hand, send them to us. And start forwarding receipts for items you report to GPO in the future. Together we can create a new collection development resource that will benefit librarians and documents users alike.

   Sincerely,

FGI would like to congratulate Bert Chapman, Lori Bryant and Libby Wahl for their work which has resulted in the Purdue University Libraries Government Documents Department being the Government Printing Office's (GPO) Federal Depository Library Spotlight for August 2009. This honor is well deserved as this excerpt from GPO's citation makes clear:

The depository has subject guides, course guides, and the maintenance of an ongoing list of “Frequently Asked Questions” that are of interest to people monitoring current events.

The library’s Government Documents Web page also promotes government information through the maintenance of a "Government Documents of the Week" and "Featured Sites of the Week" section. This enables people to explore topics of current or general interest through depository resources. Visitors may not even have known that government information played a part in the topic!

The library’s efforts to connect users to government information supports not only library users, but library staff as well, since much of the information is related to current events and hence may be harder for reference staff to track down.

Finally, the depository coordinator, Bert Chapman, is committed to providing detailed subject help through listserv postings as well as through the online reference service Government Information Online (GIO). By participating in these and other initiatives, he shares his vast knowledge by providing quality information and reference services to both library users and librarians nationwide.

In addition to what GPO has cited, we at FGI would like to thank Bert Chapman for his many contributions to the GODORT Handount Exchange. His willingness to share his excellent subject guides beyond his university to the entire government information community is greatly appreciated. We have featured a number of his guides linked to the Handout Exchange.

In summing up the greatness of the Purdue Government Documents department, we can't do better than how GPO ended their citation:

For all the energy directed to educating both users and librarians alike, GPO would like to thank the Purdue University Libraries. Their willingness to share their expertise benefits us all.

Indeed. FGI salutes Bert, Lori and Libby for all that they do and wish them well in continued efforts.