Wednesday, November 2, 2011

GPO/FDLP News from the Frontlines

I promised to update this blog a while back; and now that I have so much to share for our meeting in Lafayette on Friday, I'll start by putting a lot of current information right here.

As most of you know, there has been a lot of controversy over a couple of issues having to do with how, in this time of great change in libraries, the current system of Regional and Selective responsibilities are being tested and, for some FDL's, are failing.

One of those tests involves the dropping to Selective status of Michigan's only remaining Regional and the arrangement that they made with Minnesota to take over the duties of Regional for Michigan. This arrangement was not approved by GPO, primarily because the new Administration at GPO/FDLP is not approving any new multi-state Regional/Selective arrangements.

The other prominent test involves the approval of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) Collaborative Federal Depository Program (CFDP)--a.k.a. the Centers of Excellence Program. As you all know, LSU and LaTech have both signed on as Centers of Excellence participants; and LSU is already working with aspects of the ASERL Disposition Database.

The controversy surrounding this second test has developed because the prior Administration at GPO/FDLP gave "informal" approval to the ASERL project, and now the current Administration is questioning if the project meets legal standards.

In this first of what will probably be many posts, I will insert links to documents that, when read in chronological order, give details about both of the tests.




Enjoy the drama!

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