Carla Graebner mentioned that the DSP-LAC Information List, a listserv that she had set up, would be a good forum in which to share information and ideas concerning this project. Doris Ricard spoke about electronic resources cataloguing that is shared among a network of eight libraries in the University of Quebec system and for which she is responsible. Louise Carpentier spoke on behalf of the Association pour l'avancement des sciences et des techniques de la documentation ASTED and as a faculty member of Concordia University.
She spoke about the portal for government information on the Concordia University Libraries Web site, and about the indexes and databases that are maintained there. Louise spoke about the continuing problem of finding physical space for older publications, and she asked for guidance on weeding hard-copy formats. She specifically mentioned the Canadian Aviation Regulations in loose-leaf format, saying that nobody was sure whether what they had was complete.
Gay Lepkey responded that, if the base volume is defective or incomplete, and if there is an electronic version available, the retention guidelines could be invoked. Caron Rollins asked how a library should inform PDS if it wishes to stop receiving loose-leaf publications.
Gay responded that if a particular loose-leaf publication is available online, then the library can simply cancel its subscription to the print edition.
Katharine Barrette said that Mount Royal University Library had cancelled its subscription to the print edition of the Canadian Aviation Regulations because the student pilots were only interested in accessing the publication online. There was some discussion around the table about how a library could know to which loose-leaf publications and to which serial publications it was subscribed.
Gay said that PDS could provide a list of current loose-leaf publications that have viable electronic editions, as well as a list of active subscription items handled by PDS.
She talked about a discussion among libraries in four Western provinces to consolidate its last-copy print strategy. Karen also spoke about the need to keep up with students' informational expectations, such as full-text keyword searching and downloading to handheld devices. She said that moving to electronic format, in this context, was not enough. Brent Roe, as executive director of CARL , commended the government for its revisions to copyright policy on non-commercial use.
He raised two questions pertinent to the academic library community:. On the topic of missing "fugitive" government publications, Carla suggested that if responsibility for all federal organizations could be divided among DSP partners, then all partners could participate in capturing publications.
Carla reported members' interest in investigating the formation of a LOCKSS system similar to what had been implemented in the United States, for Canadian government publications. Currently access is restricted to three months and no search function is available. The SFU Library uses a portion of their Web site to highlight different services, resources or newsworthy items.
Gay Lepkey outlined four CLF 2. When publications have been removed as a result of CLF 2. One participant in the meeting suggested that the problem of disappearing publications could be seen as a failure of government accountability. Katharine Barrette spoke from the vantage point as librarian at Mount Royal University. She said the main challenge was to make students aware of government publications as sources of information. The library had stopped ordering print publications, where possible, due to space and time constraints.
She agreed with earlier comments about loose-leaf publications and suggested that regular confirmations of subscriptions be sent to libraries. Katharine also mentioned that she had created a significant pathfinder to government information and that it was published on her library's Web site. Christine Leduc responded that it would be great if DSP partners shared their collective knowledge by providing additional resources or links to those resources that we could add to the Publications Web site.
Bernie Gloyn presented recent developments regarding Statistics Canada publications, relationship with the DSP and with its library activities. The strong opposition voiced by the library community over Infodep upon the news that the Market Research Handbook would be discontinued in all formats was noted. Bernie said that the main reason for the decision to discontinue the publication was the difficulty in making it available in XHTML format.
There was some discussion about which stakeholders had been consulted before reaching the decision, as the messages on Infodep demonstrated that end-users had relied on the publication heavily. Bernie said that there were plans to discontinue the paper format of other publications, such as the Consumer Price Index, but that librarians would be among those consulted before decisions were reached.
In response to the earlier questions about preservation of government publications, Bernie described the policy of the Statistics Canada library: all print publications and print-outs of all publications in PDF format are retained indefinitely, but publications in other electronic formats are not retained.
There was some discussion about Statistics Canada's digitization projects. Bernie reported that the goal was to digitize all publications that are in the library and that the project was expected to take several years to complete. This year, the focus was on Census publications. Antonio Lechasseur asked whether digitized versions of historical publications would be treated as new publications by the DSP and listed in Checklists.
Gay responded that they would be, in principle. Margo Jeske asked whether depository libraries would be able to dispose of print editions of publications if federal departments digitize them. Gay responded that this would be a legitimate interpretation of our retention guidelines, but that DSP had not yet fully developed a policy on whether depository libraries would still have an obligation to catalogue and provide access to the digitized editions.
Louise Carpentier asked whether Statistics Canada had tracked usage of the Canada Year Book historical collection, as the server could be over-taxed if library users try to access digitized publications simultaneously rather than consult print editions.
Frank Winter responded that, in his experience, students and professors would prefer to wait for an electronic resource to become available than to go to the stacks to consult print equivalents.
He also mentioned the recent controversy about the abolishment of the mandatory long-form census for Marc St-Pierre responded that with the trend towards a smaller production of publications at Statistics Canada, DSP did not want to commit to paying the same amount for potentially fewer publications, particularly as the DSP was coming under strategic review. Many participants reconvened for an informal supper at a nearby restaurant at p.
The most important reason for the modernization agenda, Doug Rimmer said, was the perception that a major shift from "analog" to "digital" media was occurring and that Daniel Caron, the current Librarian and Archivist of Canada, believed that the digital world was fundamentally different from the analog world. LAC would be looking at different ways to shift its focus from print and digital collections, including changes in acquisitions policy and working in partnership with other Canadian institutions, including libraries and the DSP , to distribute the responsibility of collection development and description.
A lengthy discussion followed Doug's talk. Gay Lepkey and Christine Leduc spoke about how the DSP had a distributive model, where DSP holdings were not located in a central office but where all the depository libraries acted as regional distributive repositories. While preservation was not part of the DSP 's mandate, Christine said, the DSP 's biggest strength was its status as a single access point for federal government publications.
Some of the information on this web page is from external sources. The Government of Canada is not responsible for the accuracy, reliability or currency of the information supplied by external sources. Users wishing to rely upon this information should consult directly with the source of the information.
Content provided by external sources is not subject to official languages, privacy and accessibility requirements. Its original mandate was to acquire, catalogue and distribute Government of Canada GC publications in all formats to a network of depository libraries, as well as to parliamentarians.
In April , the mission of the DSP , and of its parent directorate Publishing and Depository Services PDS , changed to focus on acquiring, cataloguing and making available for download GC information published in portable electronic formats. By collocating and hosting GC documents independently of the author departments, the DSP itself has become the depository of the program. Government information, including laws, regulations, policies, reports, statistics and more, keep changing on a regular basis.
No citizen has the time, energy or knowledge to keep track of all the changes and to produce an archival copy for evidence in case it is needed. This is why preserving point-in-time government information is so critical. However, only current information is available on most of the government websites and as of April , Canadian government information [vi] is no longer available in print; it is now exclusively available electronically.
An unclassified Treasury Board document, [vii] requested by British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association in , revealed plans for consolidation of over 1, Government of Canada websites into a single site by As the result, a large amount of information would be cut from government websites according to a vague guideline entitled ROT [viii] Reduce Redundant, Outdated and Trivial content.
Preserving government information has never been so critical. Despite a legal mandate to preserve the documentary heritage of Canada, Library and Archives Canada LAC stopped their web archiving activities within the federal government domain in late and ceased the legal deposit program for provincial and territorial government publications in [ix].
It was only in late that LAC resumed the web archiving activity of the federal government domain after intensive lobbying by the library community. However, provincial and territorial government publications are now out of the legal deposit mandate of the LAC.
Thousands of second copies of the provincial and territorial official publications were shipped out from LAC in Libraries that requested titles to fill their gaps from this collection received not only the title requested but a whole box of publications where that title sat.
University of Toronto Libraries are sorting out duplicate titles from this shipment for overseas exchange programs. Libraries have been taking an active role in ensuring access to government information as they face the daily challenge of assisting users to locate government information in an ever-changing online environment.
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