Federal Depository Program Research Articles

Using Targeted Distributed Collections to Enhance Government Depository Collections at a Regional Level: The ASERL Collaborative Federal Depository Program

The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries is exploring options for collaborative services and collection analysis for federal government publications in order to improve public access to those collections. The Collaborative Federal Depository Program has developed “Centers of Excellence” (COE), representing multiple complete collections of publications for each federal agency. Working together to create a distributed print retention program, southeastern depository libraries agreed to collect, maintain, and provide access to publications for specific government agencies. The authors discuss the development of the COE model and the expected impact of a regionally based distributed print archive for government documents, and provide an implementation case study.

Accurate Answers to Reference Queries May Be Provided Less Frequently Than Expected

A review of:
 Hernon, P., & McClure, C. (1986). Unobtrusive reference testing: The 55 percent rule. Library Journal, 111(7), 37-41.
 
 
 Objective – To determine the number of government documents reference questions that are answered correctly by professional library staff.
 
 Design – The authors utilized unobtrusive reference testing: reference queries posed to library personnel who were unaware they were being evaluated. As opposed to other designs that require the researcher’s presence in the setting, unobtrusive testing utilizes proxies to administer test questions to the subjects, reducing the possibility of reporter bias.
 
 Setting – Twenty-six public and academic libraries participating in the U.S. Government Printing Office Depository Program located in the Western, Southern, and Midwestern United States. The Federal Depository Program consisted of 1400 libraries at the time of the study. One public and one academic library were chosen for each city.
 
 Subjects – Reference and government documents librarians. These two staff types were selected in order to compare the accuracy of each group’s responses to the queries.
 
 Methods – A set of 15 predetermined factual and bibliographic questions were developed by the authors and administered to library staff respondents by proxies. Government documents were selected as the foundation for the test questions. In selecting federal depository libraries for their sample the authors could ensure all queries may hypothetically be answered using U.S. Government Printing Office documents, as all of the libraries would hold the resources in question.
 
 Graduate students enrolled in the University of Arizona and University of Oklahoma library science programs were trained by the authors to serve as proxies. The proxies posed as library users and administered the set of queries at each selected library. Reference librarians and government documents librarians were tested separately, receiving seven and eight questions respectively at each library visited. Over a four-month period a total of 390 questions were posed and their answers recorded.
 
 Main Results – The respondents correctly answered 241 of 390 queries (62 percent). Government documents librarians accurately answered 65 percent of questions, while reference librarians successfully responded to 59 percent. Hernon and McClure derived the “55 percent rule” for reference accuracy from these results and previous unobtrusive studies conducted by both the authors and other researchers. This body of research estimates the rate of accurate answers of factual and bibliographic questions to be between 50 and 62 percent.
 Data regarding the “interview and search process” (I&S), defined as the activities between the time a query was posed and when a resolution was provided, also yielded intriguing findings. Regardless of the question asked, the average I&S duration was three to five minutes. Two-thirds of the accurate answers were supplied within three minutes, and 89 percent within five minutes of the initiation of I&S. The duration of I&S did not vary significantly by library type or librarian type.
 
 Reasons for the provision of inaccurate answers included providing the wrong data (64 percent of instances), responding with “don’t know” and ending the interaction (20 percent), or claiming the library did not own a source that would answer the query (15 percent). Other findings included the fact that respondents infrequently offered referrals, which took place in 17 percent of all interactions, and that the three geographic regions studied had an even distribution of correct answers.
 
 Conclusions - Based on their research results as well as those of similar unobtrusive studies, the authors propose two rules regarding reference assistance that apply to public and academic libraries. First, reference librarians correctly answer approximately 55 percent of factual and bibliographic queries received (the 55 percent reference rule). Second, librarians spend no more than five minutes on most factual and bibliographic questions (the five-minute answer rule).
 
 Ultimately, Hernon and McClure recommend reevaluating the centrality of reference services to library operations. If trained professionals are unable to answer more than 60 percent of factual questions correctly, should reference services continue to receive such considerable staffing and funding? Or, alternatively, should libraries increase efforts to improve the accuracy of answers? The authors close by challenging the profession to address the need for strategic assessment of reference effectiveness.

Access to Government Serial Information in a Digital Environment

Summary Access to government information is a fundamental principle of American democracy. The federal depository program is one of the main ways in which government information is distributed to the public. Much of this information is now available in electronic form, and libraries must consider several major technical service and public service issues surrounding the provision of access to these electronic serial documents.

Federal depository program at the crossroads: The library administrator's perspective

Rapid transition of the Federal Depository Library Program to a mostly electronic environment and U. S. Government Printing Office standards for computer hardware and public services in depositories have raised the specter of mass exodus of libraries from the program. This study examines libraries' commitment to the program and how they are coping with changing information formats and public service demands, from the perspective of senior administrators responsible for allocating resources and setting service priorities. The author visited 24 depositories in three geographic regions and interviewed library directors and documents librarians. Administrators' statements give evidence of great willingness to continue as depositories and the belief that costs must be borne for access to electronic information generally, not just government sources. There are serious doubts, however, about the program's future as universal Internet access diminishes the special advantages of depository status. Directors express firm conviction that there will continue to be an important role for government information specialists in libraries.

Congress, higher education, and the U.S. federal depository program

It is commonly held that the purpose of the U.S. federal depository library program is to provide government publications at no cost for the informational needs of the general public. In view of this, it seems unusual that academic institutions dominate the program. This apparent anomaly can be understood when one realizes that the depository law was amended to allow expansion of the program in 1962 at a time of increased support for higher education. An examination of Congressional publications of the last two decades reveals that Congress clearly allowed expansion of the depository program because it was willing to assist higher education.