GODORT International Documents Task Force

Draft ALA Midwinter Meeting Minutes
Saturday, January 15, 2000
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Sumner Suites, King William I, II

Presiding: Jim Church, IDTF Coordinator

Approval of Minutes of the 1999 Annual Conference. The Minutes were approved.

Announcements
Andrea Morrison reported that the grant proposal submitted by the University of Sussex last year to create an online union list of serial official publications of European countries was denied. The university is going to reapply for funding. They are seeking permission again from GODORT to use contents description notes from the 2nd edition of the Official Guide.

Reports from IDTF Liaisons
  • IFLA: Helen Sheehy Andrea Sevetson reported on behalf of Helen Sheehy, who was unable to attend the conference.
    Helen's written report will be reproduced for the GODORT Business Meeting.

  • Cataloging: Kathleen Jones
    The GODORT Cataloging Committee wants international documents added to the Toolbox. Members are asked to send Kathleen any feedback.

  • Education: Angela Bonnell Jim Church reported on behalf of Angela Bonnell.
    The committee received six proposals for tutorials for the Government Information and Depository Management Clearinghouse.
    Andrea Morrison said this is the last year for funding Clearinghouse tutorials.

  • Legislation: Bert Chapman
    The committee is working on the NTIS closure, protective database legislation, community right-to-know legislation and other issues.

  • GITCO: Barb Mann
    The committee is making progress on the CDROM documentation project.

  • Program: Wen-Hua Ren
    The IDTF/GODORT program "International Statistical Data:
    Sources, Issues, and Trends" is scheduled for the annual conference. "City on the Hill: Building the Urban Information System for the Next Century" and a program on the 2000 Census are proposed for 2001.
    Details are on the Program Committee Web page.

  • Publications: Andrea Morrison
    The DTTP budget deficit is a concernthere will be more discussion at the GODORT Business Meeting.
    Future agenda topics for the committee include the idea of establishing an editorial review board and doing more Web publishing.

  • Rare & Endangered: Sam Dunlap
    Jim Church reported on behalf of Sam Dunlap.
    The focus continues on the U.S. Serial Set.

  • WESS: Sam Dunlap
    WESS is one of the co-sponsors of the annual program.

  • ALA IRC: Rosemary Little
    The committee discussed the arrest in Beijing of the Chinese librarian from Dickinson College, and what possible course of action could be taken in response. An article about the arrest appeared in the January 13 "New York Times." More information will be gathered and discussion resumed at the annual meeting.

IDTF Web Pages: Debi Schaubman
The Web oversight group is discussing the possible audience(s) for the IDTF Web page, and the implications of how that determines content. It is likely that the Web page will include IDTF created Web content as well as links to sites developed by organizations and individuals who may not be international documents librarians. They also talked generally about ADA compliance, value-added features, use of metadata, and ideas for future content. The committee believes the Web administrator should a rotated position, appointed for a two year term. This would mean that the Web would continue to reside at UC San Diego for a while longer.

IDTF Program for Annual 2000: Jim. Church The IDTF/GODORT program "International Statistical Data: Sources and Trends for the New Millennium" is scheduled for July 10, from 9:30 AM - 12:00 noon. The program will feature a panel composed of Heather McMullen (Harvard University)Bobray Bordelon (Princeton University)Jacqueline LeBlanc (Statistics Canada) and Elizabeth Chapman (Oxford University). Co-sponsors are the International Association of Social Science Information Service and Technology, the Western European Specialists Section, and the Business Reference and Services Section.

Agency Liaison Program: Marian Shaaban The list of agency liaison and the program guidelines are on the Web. The OECD Liaison Report and the Report of the External Evaluation Committee on the IMF's Economic Research Activities were distributed. Liaisons for ILO and Readex are needed. Chuck Eckman reported that the WTO has republished its 1994 Uruguay Round with Cambridge University Press.

Old Business

Jim Church learned that with the exception of four titles, UN ESCAP had stopped automatically sending publications to the UN depository libraries. ESCAP attributes this to a lack of funds to continue supporting worldwide distribution of its publications. Libraries may still obtain ESCAP publications by ordering them from UN ESCAP, if they are willing to pay for shipping and handling, or from the UN Sales Office. Jim asked for volunteers interested in working with him to draft a letter of response to ESCAP for review at the annual conference. Chuck Eckman, Catherine Shreve and David Griffiths volunteered.

New Business

  • UNDP National Human Development Reports: Marian Shaaban
    Marian described the value of the National Human Development Reports but spoke of the great difficulties in obtaining them. UN Publications representative Gundega Trumkalne acknowledged the problems, and said her unit was working on them.

  • Archiving and Cataloging of Full-Text Internet Documents: Catherine Shreve
    Catherine asked what other libraries are doing to archive full-text Internet documents. CIC at Indiana University has the Floppy Disk Project for U.S. depository material, which is publicly available. The WTO, UNESCO, FAO and parts of the UN have begun archiving their documents. Volunteers were sought for a small group who will create a survey that can be sent to IGOs to query them on their current and future plans for archiving.

  • GODORT Cataloging Toolbox for International Documents: Kathy Jones tabled due to lack of time.

Reports from Vendors

  • OECD: Matt Borsius
    The OECD will soon make all of its publications available online with the new product "SourceOECD." "SourceOECD" comes in four parts: SourceOECD-Studies, SourceOECD-Periodicals, SourceOECD-Statistics and SourceOECD-Acts. The first two will be out this year. Periodicals in 2001.

  • United Nations Publications: Gundega Trumkalne
    The "UN Treaty Collection" Web site is available free for testing until March 1, after which it will be offered only by subscription. Access will be by password or IP address. Subscription details are on the Web.

  • Readex: Peter VanLeeuwen
    Indexing is completed for 1956-1960. Indexing for 1951-1955 will be done by December 2000. AccessUN is adding more full-text documents for the years from 1991 on. The database is 10% full-textReadex wants to increase that to 20%.

  • CRL: Pat Finney
    Pat gave an update on the Foreign Official Gazettes project. Unique hard copy and negative microfilm from the New York Public Library collection are completed for countries A-T. NYPL recently decided to stop deaccessioning its microfilm, and instead, retain them all.

  • Bernan/Unipub: Don Hagen
    Don Hagen briefed IDTF on Bernan/Unipub's newest titles. He clarified to the group that Bernan is not comprehensively distributing UN and UN umbrella agency publications.

  • Norman Ross Publishing/EU Official Journal: Norman Ross
    Norman Ross began publishing the European Union's OJ in January 2000. It also has all of the OJ backfiles. It has begun filming all of the Human Rights Watch publications in all languages, including some that were previously unavailable in the U.S.

The meeting adjourned was at 4:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted by Jeanne Fong, Secretary.