The following is a copy of an email I sent last week to all of the federal depositories in Louisiana. Several of you have already responded directly to me via email, as I requested; but if you have not yet responded, please do so--not on this list, but via email to sbraunst@lsu.edu

Thanks!


Because some of you were not able to attend the most recent meeting of the Louisiana Federal Depository Library Council held on November 14 at the State Library, you did not already have a chance to make comments on my announcement of the proposed move of selected older federal documents from New Orleans Public to Tulane.

This plan is a natural and logical response to the damage sustained during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As you remember, Tulane’s basement was flooded—causing great loss to their federal gov docs collection; and New Orleans Public’s basement was not flooded—thankfully saving many volumes of “heritage-quality” federal gov docs.

However, while damage to the materials was not a problem at NOPL post-Katrina, other negative impacts were felt, primarily in staffing numbers. This staffing issue brought to light the fact that while NOPL had a wonderful heritage collection of fed docs, the patron needs had changed at NOPL, making this collection under-utilized. Simply put, these older, currently unused, documents were needed to help rebuild a docs collection in a location where the documents would more likely be used.

As soon as I got to Louisiana and was asked if the NOPL docs could be moved to Tulane, I was in support of what seemed like a perfect solution; and now it appears that the two libraries in question are ready to move forward. Before they are given the 100% go-ahead, it was suggested to me by GPO that I make sure that none of the other selectives had a problem with this plan. Since, as I noted above, I had already announced it at the meeting in November, I decided to send this message out to make sure that everyone had a chance to come forward with comments or concerns.

Please send comments to me directly, off-list, so that we do not get one of those torturous threads going that are difficult to follow.