U.S. Government Information Site GPO Access Shuts Down March 16

GPO Access, the online disseminator of official U.S. government publications, is shutting down permanently tomorrow, March 16th. It has gradually been replaced over the past two years by the new FDsys or Federal Digital System.

FDsys offers authentic, digitally signed PDF documents from dozens of different collections of U.S. Federal Government information (Congressional, Presidential, judicial and federal agency materials)

Some of the new system's highlights:

• Information is preserved for permanent public access
  
• Search multiple publications at once
  
• Conduct complex searches
  
• Narrow, sort, and filter search results
  
• Access documents in multiple file formats
  
• Access metadata in standard XML formats
  
• Browse by collection, Congressional committee, date, and Government author
  

GPO Access was launched in June 1994 by the Government Printing Office in Washington as the official source for American government information online. In 2009, the Office announced that it was moving to the next generation platform, FDsys. According to the FAQ, as of tomorrow:

"URL redirects will redirect users from content on GPO Access to content on FDsys. One-to-one redirect connections are in place for select GPO Access pages. Files in legacy databases on GPO Access will be automatically redirected to files in FDsys. In other cases, where one-to-one redirects are not possible, users will be redirected to the FDsys home page. FDsys will remain GPO’s only site for official Government information."

Library Journal's Movers and Shakers 2012

Library Journal has released its 2012 list of Library Movers and Shakers:

"For 11 years now, LJ’s Movers & Shakers has been spotlighting librarians and others in the library field who are doing extraordinary work to serve their users and to move libraries of all types and library services forward. They hail from all corners of the library world.They’ve been nominated by their colleagues, friends, bosses, and just plain admirers. We know there are many more Movers out there, making libraries better and taking them into the future."

The publication provides a map of all the Movers and Shakers from 2002 to 2012.

Over the years, a number of Canadian librarians have been selected, though no Canadians were chosen this year.

Statistics Canada Legal Aid Report 2010-2011

Statistics Canada has published a new report on Legal Aid in Canada: Resource and Caseload Statistics 2010/2011.

It presents information on the operation of Canada's 13 legal aid plans. The report includes information on the legal aid plans, personnel resources, revenues and expenditures, as well as information concerning applications for legal aid.

Among the highlights:

• In 2010/2011, the federal government reported providing a total of $112 million to the thirteen provincial/territorial legal aid plans. The thirteen provincial/territorial governments reported contributing $563 million
• In 2010/2011, legal aid plans spent $752 million providing legal aid services in eleven provinces and territories (excludes Northwest Territories and Nunavut), which amounts to about $22 per resident. In the nine provinces and territories that provided data for both 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 (also excludes Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick), legal aid spending was down about 3% from the previous year after adjusting for inflation
• Eight of eleven legal aid plans spent more on criminal matters than civil matters in 2010/2011 (excludes Northwest Territories and Nunavut). The three legal aid plans that spent less on criminal matters were in Quebec, Ontario and Prince Edward Island
• About 670,000 applications for legal aid were submitted to legal aid plans in ten reporting provinces and territories in 2010/2011 (excludes Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut). Civil matters accounted for over half (56%) of applications
• Legal aid plans in ten reporting jurisdictions (excludes Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut) approved approximately 449,000 applications for full legal aid services in 2010/2011. Criminal matters accounted for over half (55%) of approved applications

Hiring Librarians Blog

Emily Weak, a graduate of San Jose State University's MLIS program, has created the Hiring Librarians blog, which describes itself as "a venue which allowed people who make hiring decisions to explain their enigmatic thinking".

Ms. Weak created an online survey to solicit information from library managers. As well, she has directly interviewed hiring managers and shared some of their ideas.

CALL 2012 Online Registration Now Available

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) now has online registration available for its 2012 annual conference taking place in Toronto May 6-9.

The Early Bird Registration Deadline is Friday, March 16.

You can read the conference program on the CALL website.

Statistics Canada Report on Victimization of Older Canadians

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat today released an article on Victimization of older Canadians, 2009.

Among the highlights:

• In 2009, more than 154,000 or 2% of people aged 55 or older living in the 10 provinces reported that they had been the victim of a violent crime in the previous 12 months
• Older Canadians reported the lowest rates of violent victimization. For example, the rate of violent victimization among people aged 55 and older was about one-tenth the rate for the youngest group, aged 15 to 24
• The types of violence experienced by older individuals were similar to those reported by Canadians under the age of 55. Both groups cited physical assault as the most common type of violent victimization
• Older people who experienced a violent incident were more likely than younger people to report it to police
• The rate of household victimization for older households was less than one-half the rate reported by younger households. Theft of household property was the most common form of non-violent crime reported by both groups
• Overall, the rate of household victimization among older households has remained stable since 2004

Zegov.ca Federal Government Social Media Aggregator

A group of Ottawa area students and young professionals has launched Zegov.ca, which describes itself as a "content aggregator designed to provide the public, the media and public-service employees with a continuous flow of information generated by government institutions through social media."

Zegov.ca offers a single gateway to content from federal government Twitter and Facebook channels and official blogs.

According to the creators, there are 222 government Twitter accounts, 95 Facebook pages and 11 official blogs right now. Zegov.ca soon plans to add content from official federal YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn accounts.

On the Zegov.ca site, you can find an index or list of the government organizations covered as well as profiles of the people behind the project.

Twitter : @ZegovCanada
Facebook : Zegov.ca

More background:

• Web site tracks Ottawa’s growing social media presence (itWorldCanada, March 8, 2012)
• Zegouv.ca: students involved in making federal government 2.0 more open (University of Ottawa Gazette, March 7, 2012)
• Twittez-vous avec le gouvernement canadien? Aimez-vous ses pages Facebook? (Blogue "Sur le Web", Radio-Canada, 5 mars 2012)

First Ever E-Only Issue of Information Technology and Libraries

This is a follow-up of the Library Boy post of January 12, 2012 entitled Information Technology and Libraries Changes to Open Access Format.

As announced earlier this year, the journal Information Technology and Libraries has published its first issue in its new incarnation as an open-access, e-only publication.

Of particular interest to me are the following articles:

• Library Use of Web-based Research Guides (Jimmy Ghaphery, Erin White): "This paper describes the ways in which libraries are currently implementing and managing web-based research guides (a.k.a. Pathfinders, LibGuides, Subject Guides, etc.) by examining two sets of data from the spring of 2011. One set of data was compiled by visiting the websites of ninety-nine American university ARL libraries and recording the characteristics of each site’s research guides. The other set of data is based on an online survey of librarians about the ways in which their libraries implement and maintain research guides. In conclusion, a discussion follows that includes implications for the library technology community."
• Investigations into Library Web-Scale Discovery Services (Jason Vaughan): "Web-scale discovery services for libraries provide deep discovery to a library’s local and licensed content, and represent an evolution, perhaps a revolution, for end user information discovery as pertains to library collections. This article frames the topic of web-scale discovery, and begins by illuminating web-scale discovery from an academic library’s perspective – that is, the internal perspective seeking widespread staff participation in the discovery conversation. This included the creation of a discovery task force, a group which educated library staff, conducted internal staff surveys, and gathered observations from early adopters. The article next addresses the substantial research conducted with library vendors which have developed these services. Such work included drafting of multiple comprehensive question lists distributed to the vendors, onsite vendor visits, and continual tracking of service enhancements. Together, feedback gained from library staff, insights arrived at by the Discovery Task Force, and information gathered from vendors collectively informed the recommendation of a service for the UNLV Libraries."
• Usability Test Results for a Discovery Tool in an Academic Library (Jody Condit Fagan, Meris A. Mandernach, Carl S. Nelson, Jonathan R. Paulo, Grover Saunders): "Discovery tools are emerging in libraries. These tools offer library patrons the ability to concurrently search the library catalog and journal articles. While vendors rush to provide feature-rich interfaces and access to as much content as possible, librarians wonder about the usefulness of these tools to library patrons. In order to learn about both the utility and usability of EBSCO Discovery Service, James Madison University conducted a usability test with eight students and two faculty members. The test consisted of nine tasks focused on common patron requests or related to the utility of specific discovery tool features. Software recorded participants’ actions and time on task, human observers judged the success of each task, and a post-survey questionnaire gathered qualitative feedback and comments from the participants. Overall, participants were successful at most tasks, but specific usability problems suggested some interface changes for both EBSCO Discovery Service and JMU’s customizations of the tool. The study also raised several questions for libraries above and beyond any specific discovery tool interface, including the scope and purpose of a discovery tool versus other library systems, working with the large result sets made possible by discovery tools, and navigation between the tool and other library services and resources. "

Information Technology and Libraries is published by LITA, the Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association.

Deadline Extension for Canadian Association of Law Libraries Research Grant

Members of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) now have until March 3oth, 2012 to apply for a research grant from the Association.

The grant provides financial assistance of up to $3,000 in 2012 to support CALL members who wish to do research on a topic of interest to those working in law libraries.

Proposed research projects need not be large or formal; research could include surveys, bibliographic projects, pilot projects and feasibility studies. Grants have been previously awarded for a survey of the education of law librarians in Canada, a comparison of electronic citators, and a bibliography of common law materials written in French.

Top Technology Trends 2012 From ALA Midwinter Conference

The American Library Association (ALA) held its annual Midwinter meeting in Dallas in January.

At each ALA gathering, its LITA division (Library and Information Technology Association) holds a Top Tech Trends panel discussion. This year's session took place on Sunday, January 22, 2012.

The January panel members were: Stephen Abram, Gale Cengage Learning; Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt University Library; Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC; Nina McHale, Arapahoe Library District, Colorado and Sue Polanka, Wright State University Libraries.

Here are some of the trends they discussed:

• frictionless access – smartphone technology that provides unfettered access to services without user interaction (Stephen Abram)


• advent of “enterprise IT staff” for libraries – bringing in professional programmers rather than librarians who like programming (Nina McHale)


• impending demise of the ILS (Marshall Breeding)


• trend toward self-service (Sue Polanka)


• rise of personal institutional curation services (Lorcan Demsey)


• on-demand tipping point– libraries offering a hybrid model to provide the physical experience for users (Stephen Abrams)


• web analytics (Nina McHale)


• reintegration of discovery with the backend systems (Marshall Breeding)


• technologies that take instruction in a different direction, e.g. touch screens (Sue Polanka)


• platform wars in consumer space and the implication for libraries (Lorcan Demsey)

The session has been archived on LITA’s USTREAM channel.