Fugitive Documents: A Case Study of US Forest Service Scientific Reports

Abstract

Librarians who work with government publications have long been concerned about the many US government documents that remain inaccessible and, in some cases, difficult to discover. In 1976, Ruth Smith reported to the Public Printer’s Depository Library Council, “A conservative estimate is that 50% of the Federal documents published are not main stream publications. In one way or another they manage to elude national announcement. They are not sent to GPO or NTIS [US National Technical Information Service] and are not widely advertised.”1 In 1993, Peter Hernon expressed this common concern: “We can question how the public can learn about the existence of particular information resources and services, how public access can be guaranteed and enhanced, and how information services can be standardized and seamlessly linked for better use.”2 The problem is considered so serious that in 2004 the Fugitive and Electronic-Only Documents Committee of the American Association of Law Libraries Government Documents Special Interest Section sponsored the first annual Fugitive Documents Week to encourage librarians to report fugitive documents to the US Government Printing Office (GPO).3