From the desk of Rand Simmons

Crystal Lentz and Rand Simmons attended the Federal Depository Library Conference in Arlington, VA, October 19-21, 2015. Crystal manages the Central Library of the Washington State Library (WSL) and also is the Coordinator of the library’s Regional Federal Depository (Regional Library) for the states of Washington and Alaska.

As a Regional Depository Library, WSL receives and houses all publications distributed by the Government Publishing Office (GPO) through its Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Federal publications are published in many mediums including print, digital, microform, video and audio.

There is only one Regional Depository in the states of Washington and Alaska — the Washington State Library. As a Regional Depository WSL selects and retains all FDLP publications indefinitely (unless otherwise allowed by GPO) for use by the residents of Washington and Alaska.  All others are known as “selective depositories” and are less restricted under GPO requirements.

Crystal observed,”The Federal Depository Library conference is my yearly opportunity to network face to face with my colleagues from all states and territories, to learn what they are doing and glean best practices.”

GPO, as a conference teaser, said they had some very good news for participants. “We have been eagerly awaiting news about the regulation on discarding materials and we were hoping this would be the good news,” Crystal stated.

Her wish was granted when Davita Vance-Cooks, Director of the Government Publishing Office and Mary Alice Baish, Superintendent of Documents, announced the congressional Joint Committee on Printing had accepted GPO’s proposal that Regional Libraries be allowed to discard federal publications after seven years when a digital copy exists. The applause was deafening! But, there are “as long as” stipulations. GPO will conduct pilot tests with six Regional Libraries around the nation in 2016 before allowing all Regional Libraries to participate.

“This is wonderful news for us,” Rand noted. “We want to shrink our footprint for federal documents. We cannot house all of our federal collection in our current building. For many years we have leased space from the Department of Printing to house lesser used publications but we are near capacity. Something needs to be done soon. Going digital is desirable because it makes our federal publications available to many more people but the new policy will help us address the storage issue. That’s the good news. The other side of the coin is that with more than a million items and few staff progress in digitizing will be slow.”

Depository librarians from Washington and Alaska attended the conference. Along with two Oregon, one Alaskan and one Boston depository librarian the group met for lunch to network over pizza. “It was a great opportunity to meet colleagues,” Rand said. “That is crucial if I am to be successful in my new assignment.”

As the Executive Manager of the Federal Collection Rand works collaboratively with Crystal on specific assignments that include focusing on increasing the amount of federal publications available online and implementing a Regional Depository Library model that is shared among selective depositories. WSL will remain the official Regional Library.