Colleagues,
The following document represents comments submitted by the AALL
Government Relations Committee to the Chicago Conference on the
Future of Federal Government Information. The Conference will be
held at the Allerton Hotel, October 29-31.
The working conference is open to all members of the depository
library community and will focus on the development of a plan for
federal government information dissemination and the
restructuring of the Depository Library Program.
Law librarians who will be participating in the Conference
include:
Dorie Bertram Wash. U. c53008db@wuvmd.wustl.edu
Susan Dow SUNY Buffalo lwsusan@ubm.cc.buffalo.edu
Sally Holterhoff Valparaiso sholt@exodus.valpo.edu
Judy Meadows St. Law Lib/MT 71732.1322@compuserve.com
Carol Moody St. Louis U moodycl@sluvca.slu.edu
Cheryl Nyberg U of Illinois c-nyberg@uiuc.edu
Lois O'Brien Marquette U. 9726obrienl@vms.csd.mu.edu
Susan Tulis Ass't Wash. Rep. tulis@guvax.georgetown.edu
Jackie Wright Ark. Sup. Ct. sclibrary@ualr.edu
The Government Documents Special Interest Section report,
mentioned in the GRC report, is not presently available for
uploading. Please contact Cheryl Nyberg if you would like a
photocopy of this 15-page document.
American Association of Law Libraries
Government Relations Committee
and
American Association of Law Libraries
Government Documents Special Interest Section
Depository Library Program Restructuring:
The Law Library Perspective
September 14, 1993
Submitted to the
Conference on the Future of Federal Government Information
Chicago
October 29-31
Summary
These comments and the attached report of the Government
Documents Special Interest Section (GD/SIS) of the American
Association of Law Libraries (AALL) offer the law library
perspective on restructuring that part of the Depository Library
Program that involves law libraries. While the preferred model
suggested by the GD/SIS report represents a consensus reached by
a significant number of law/documents librarians, time did not
permit comprehensive review by all members of the Association.
Thus, this report does not constitute an official position of the
American Association of Law Libraries. When a specific
restructuring plan is proposed, AALL will provide an official
response.
The model preferred by those members of the GD/SIS who
responded to a draft of the attached report provides for the
development and adoption of a core legal collection and the
availability of gateway services to electronic government
information. This model most closely resembles the Government
Information Access Center model described in the Dupont Circle
Group's "Discussion Draft." The likelihood of wide acceptance of
this model by law library depositories is premised on several
factors:
1. that the core legal collection would be determined in
consultation with practicing law/documents librarians.
Several law librarians are qualified and willing to
work on the core legal collection list.
2. that the core legal collection would provide for
multiple formats. A choice of formats enables each
depository to select the formats most suitable for
their users.
3. that item numbers would be refined to allow more
precise selection.
4. that depositories would be authorized to select some
number of additional items beyond the core legal
collection to address institution-specific needs.
5. that access to electronic government information on
bulletin boards and ftp/telnet sites would be
unrestricted.
Several members of the Association's Government Relations
Committee and the Government Documents Special Interest Section
will be attending the Chicago Conference to participate further
in discussions for restructuring the Depository Library Program.
Government Relations Committee Report
Due to economic realities and the nascent use of computer
technology for the dissemination of federal government
information, producers and users of government information are
reexamining the mission, structure, and function of the
Depository Library Program. With more than two hundred law
libraries serving as selective depositories, the law library
community is seriously concerned about the future of the Program
and the effect of Program changes on the current and future users
of government and legal information.
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), a
nonprofit organization with more than five thousand members, has
long supported the Depository Library Program. Through its
Government Relations Committee and Washington Affairs
Representatives, AALL has worked to promote the value of the
Program and its participants to government officials and members
of the legal community. AALL's Government Relations Policy
states:
Accessible government information is both an essential
precondition of a democratic society and a valuable
national resource created at taxpayer expense. Timely
and equitable access to government information is the
cornerstone of AALL's government relations policy.
Law libraries in the Depository Library Program are
affiliated with law schools, federal and state courts, and
government agencies. Most of these libraries participate by
virtue of special eligibility provisions in Title 44. Section
1915 authorizes the libraries of state appellate courts to become
depositories and section 1916 authorizes libraries affiliated
with accredited law schools to participate. By these
designations, Congress has sought to ensure that members of the
public have access to law-related government information with the
assistance of librarians trained in legal research skills at
facilities that routinely acquire specialized commercial indexes
and other tools that facilitate legal research. The Committee on
House Administration stated in 1977 that
[l]aw school libraries increasingly assist members of
the public in the use of Government documents. The
ready availability of digests, indexes, treatises,
hornbooks, encyclopedias, law reviews and periodicals,
as well as of librarians who are specialists in legal
research, enhance both the use of Government documents
and the interpretation of their contents. Law school
libraries, with their wealth of supporting materials
and personnel, not only make Government documents
available to the public, they make them useful to the
lay researcher.
It is precisely because law library depositories are
committed to providing members of the public with timely and
equitable access to legal and government information that AALL
and the law library community are committed to working with other
interested parties in finding workable alternative structures for
the Depository Library Program.
The Preferred Model for Law Depositories
The law library option developed by the Committee on GPO
Restructuring of the AALL Government Documents Special Interest
Section customizes the Dupont Circle Group's Government
Information Access Center proposal. The predefined core legal
collection would consist of item selections representing
resources from all three branches of government that are
indispensable for legal research. Critical titles and categories
of publications/information include:
* legislation and laws
* bills and resolutions
* slip laws and the Statutes at Large
* United States Code
* legislative history documentation (hearings, reports,
documents, and the Congressional Record)
* regulations and administrative determinations
* Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations
* administrative agency decisions, e.g., Decisions of the
National Labor Relations Board and the F.C.C. Record
* administrative agency policies, e.g., Internal Revenue
Bulletin and the U.S. Attorney's Manual
* treaties
* judicial opinions
* slip decisions and U.S. Reports
To further enhance public access to and understanding of how
our laws are made, implemented, enforced, and interpreted, other
essential sources from the agencies most directly involved in the
legal process would be crucial for inclusion in the core legal
collection. These include:
* Congress
* Department of Justice
* President and the Executive Office of the President
* Internal Revenue Service
* Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial
Conference.
Not surprisingly, this core legal collection mirrors those
items already selected by a majority of law library depositories.
As quoted in the GD/SIS report, Sally Holterhoff's Suggested Core
Collection for law libraries demonstrates "selection patterns . .
. [that] show strong consensus on a basic group of documents."
Historically, law library depositories have tended to select
fewer item numbers than the average depository. This lower rate
of selection to some extent compensates for the fact that some of
the items selected are among the most costly to produce in paper.
The availability of multiple formats will continue to be an
issue for law libraries (and other libraries) serving a public
that is not completely ready to embrace the electronic
information age. While the law library's primary patrons--
legislators, judges, government officials, law students and
faculty, attorneys, and other legal researchers--are increasingly
comfortable using computers to retrieve information, they still
consume enormous quantities of paper reproducing electronic
information. In general, other users of depository collections in
law libraries are less likely to be facile with electronic
retrieval and manipulation of government information. Effective
public access to government information should not be determined
by format. Notwithstanding the call for changes in the Depository
Library Program, depositories still need to have a choice in
formats.
That being said, it is also true that law libraries as a
group have nearly twenty years of experience with large full-text
databases. Law librarians have led the legal community in
learning how to incorporate and integrate electronic sources with
traditional, print-based legal research techniques. Several law
school libraries, notably those libraries at Chicago-Kent,
Cornell, Washburn, and Washington and Lee, are riding the next
wave of electronic information dissemination by establishing
electronic archives of government, legal, and related information
accessible to those with connections to the Internet. Current and
potential users of government information will benefit if the
restructured Depository Library Program finds a way to build on
and expand such efforts.
Exclusive distribution of primary legal materials in
microfiche is problematic. While microfiche is an economical and
space-saving storage medium, it is most appropriately used for
the dissemination of information that is not time-sensitive and
likely to be infrequently consulted. Most primary legal materials
possess qualities that make them the antithesis of microfiche-
compatible information. The timely publication of laws,
regulations, judicial opinions, and administrative actions
facilitates the research process and provides an enduring
historical record of the multi-faceted legal process.
The attached report from the AALL Government Documents
Special Interest Section provides a more detailed explanation of
the preferred model. It also contains a brief analysis of other
proposals and suggests why those models are inappropriate for law
libraries.
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