Registration for the 2011 Statewide Government Documents Annual Conference is now open.    All are invited.

The following presentation by our special guest speaker, Christopher C. Brown from Denver University, may be of particular interest:

Harvesting HathiTrust Documents: A New Model for Online Access
When the University of Denver began using an OAI-PMH harvester to bring HathiTrust materials into their Encore library catalog, they discovered an extremely high percentage of government documents in the harvest. This presentation will discuss the challenges and successes the library encountered as we attempted harvesting as a non-Hathi member library. We have been able to add nearly 150,000 online documents (with additional records every week). Among the advantages is that there is no record management involved. On the negative side is the poor record quality. Use statistics from Google Analytics will be presented. The harvesting model can be viewed as a forward-looking model for low-cost, high-volume access to government document content.

Other presentations are described on the conference website.

 

The MU Libraries have purchased a walk-up scanner for patrons to use. It is located near the OASys (student computer lab) on the first floor of Ellis Library behind the main elevators.  Patrons will be able to e-mail their scanned materials to themselves or scan them to a thumb drive. Thumb drives are available for purchase in the vending machine near the north entrance of Ellis. There is no attached printer.

Scanning and saving documents is a simple process. The scanner can do an entire book, or split the scan so the pages are saved individually. Scans can be made in black and white, grey scale and in color. Books can be scanned flat or in a V-mode which will put less strain on the spine. The user can save the documents in several formats (such as jpg, png, and pdf). Optical Character Recognition can be performed, which can result in a searchable pdf or even an audio file of the text being read by “Microsoft Anna.”

KIC scanners have been used with great enthusiasm by patrons and Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery departments in several of our peer GWLA institutions. More information about KIC scanners can be found at http://www.imageaccess.com/dlsg/products_kic.htm

MU has entered an Intrastate Regional agreement with the University of Central Missouri (UCM) at Warrensburg.  UCM will be the regional depository for U. S. Air Force documents;  MU will remain the regional depository for all other federal agencies.  Print Air Force documents we had classed in SuDoc and shelved in 1 East have been removed from the MERLIN catalog and will soon show up in UMC’s online catalog, QUEST.  They will remain accessible to our users through MOBIUS loan or ILL.  Further details are online in the agreement text at http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/collections/fdlp/MU-UCM.doc.

Out of the whole United States, only one library student each year is selected to receive the competitive W. David Rozkuszka award for work in Government Documents.

I am pleased to inform you that our own student assistant, Lindsay Braddy, will receive the award this year. She will be presented with a plaque and a $3000 scholarship at the ALA GODORT reception in Washington DC. The event is tentatively set to take place at the U.S. Naval Observatory on the evening of Sunday, June 27.

Though the work is all Lindsay’s, it is an honor for MU Libraries to have one of the most promising library students in the country. Thanks to her, MU Libraries will enjoy some of the spotlight at this year’s awards reception.

After this year’s ALA conference, Lindsay’s bio will be added to this list of award winners.

The project to reduce duplication between MU Ellis Library and the MU Law Library is underway, and the Congressional Record is the first title to be addressed. Volumes are now being removed from Ellis 2 East. The Law Library will retain a complete set on campus. Full text access is also available through the Lexis Nexis Congressional database.

Ellis Library makes available selected federal and state tax forms and instructions at the display near the top of the West Entrance staircase. Forms and instructions may also be downloaded from the web.

Free tax help is available from VITA and AARP volunteers.

Registration for the May 27, 2009 Missouri Government Documents conference is now open. The event is free and open to anyone with an interest in government information. MU Libraries employees who wish to attend are encouraged to fill in the registration form. See details on the conference site.