librarianship =

Did that get your attention? Well, good. Because government information is hot. Especially now that the ASERL Collaborative Federal Depository Program has won the GODORT Documents to the People Award for being hot. And, well, for their strong vision of a collaborative future for the depository program. And their commitment to the preservation of our government’s heritage. Plus we are going to have a big party for them at ALA. All of that’s hot.

I’ll stop with the hotness in a second, but you know what else is hot? The Census. The 1940 Census was so hot that news shows ran feature stories on its release. I even saw one feature that mentioned that you could get help at the library! The library in the news? In a good way?! The Census is damn hot.

Why all the hotness? Today the North Carolina Library Association’s Government Resources Section had its annual workshop and business meeting. Our group is not big but we have a huge impact. From our webinar series to our active participation in ASERL’s CFDP we are hot. Below are notes. If you weren’t there, you missed out. Big time.

FDLP Update (Beth Rowe, UNC-Chapel Hill)

Beth talked mostly about the FDLP Forecast Study to develop a strategic plan for the overall program. The individual surveys are due June 30, but we also need to develop statewide survey answers and an action plan. She also talked about the ASERL program briefly.

• individual forecast – use forecast answers to answer 2013 biennial
• state forecast – Beth will schedule conference calls with interested people
• state action plan – five most important initiatives for state; last state plan was 1980 (!)
• UNC will be a Center of Excellence for Y4 hearings (also univ of florida)
• ASERL only viable program dealing with future of fdlp in a realistic way (HOT)
• She also mentioned this CRS Report on the Issues facing the Federal Depository Library Program

State Documents Update (Jennifer Davison, State Library of North Carolina)

• State pub clearinghouse run by state library since 1987
• Access to state government information initiative part b grant – they were able to hire a few more people
• Looking at closer relationships with NC agencies
• New state library website coming and new URL for clearinghouse (getting in July); up to 11,500 born digital items; added over 4K items this year
• Ensuring Democracy grant project – digitize core publications; research guides, lesson plans; added sessions laws (1817-2000); product was NC State Government Publications Collection
• Tools for state docs: bimonthly cleaninghouse newsletter; state docs rss feed; born digit shipping list; checklist of official state publications
• NC Mosaic
• NC state gov websites archive – not UNC system
• GODORT state agency databases

Come to Your Census: An Overview of the U.S. Census from its Inception to the Present Day (Bryna Coonin)

Bryna gave a great presentation on the highlights of the Census through the years. Below are the main ones I caught.

• 1820 – start to include agriculture, manufacturing, commerce questions within the regular census
• 1830 – enumerators were given actual forms for first time
• 1840 – “insane and idiot” added; was correlated with race and then tried to correlate to geographic location (northern blacks were more insane than southern) and later shown to be an error (!)
• 1850 – first time names of every person listed; slave schedules but no names
• 1870 – literacy broken into reading and writing; first time free blacks are included
• 1880 – relationship with household; administration of census changed; supplemental schedule on “delinquent classes”
• 1890 – began using mulatto, etc; name schedules for most states burned; Kellee Blake’s “First in the Path of the Fireman” discusses what really happened; fire destroyed on 25% of census and government ineptitude destroyed rest; have been efforts to rebuild from other local admin records
• 1900 – asked questions about year of immigration to US, number of years married, date of birth
• 1910 – Department of Commerce was in charge and was able to plan early for census
• 1920 – Charlie Chaplin in LA (HOTNESS!); first time majority of Americans live in urban places
• 1930 – addition of Guam, Virgin Islands, etc; in January 1931 did additional census of unemployment; Asked questions on homemaker status and tv sets
• 1940 – begin sampling
• 1950 – 48 states and dc; intro standard metropolitan statistical area
• 1960 – 100% and sample questions on separate forms;
• 1970 – mailed forms; summary files begin
• 1980 – mandate for block data; significant increase in proportion of children living with only one parent
• 1990 – TIGER files and cd-roms emerge; carpooling questions
• 2000 – multiple race option
• 2010 – 308 million people; afraid public not cooperate with electronic submission

The ASERL Collaborative Federal Depository Program: An Overview/Becoming a Center of Excellence: One Selective’s Experience (John Burger, ASERL/David Durant, East Carolina University)

John Burger gave an overview of the program about which you can learn more on their website.

• ASERL is 40 research libraries; all volunteer organization until 1990; John is executive director and has a part-time staff person
• Difficulty with documents is they suffer from the free like beer or free like puppy problem
• The ASERL CFDP  affirms collections are an asset to the southeast
• Start with proof of concept with University of Florida, University of Kentucky, South Carolina
• Goal is two comprehensive collections throughout the southeast region through Centers of Excellence (can be a COE based on an agency, topic, or format)
• 30 libraries are participating; 187 sudocs adopted; 5 stems have 2 COEs already

David Durant talked about East Carolina University’s ASERL Center of Excellence for the House Un-American Activities Committee and its successor. They chose HUAC because of their J. Edgar Hoover collection. David’s big goal is to fill in gaps for the pre-1950 materials (ECU became a depository in 1951). David will do a “Help!” webinar on HUAC content in July (HOT!)

And finally, thanks to Elon University’s Belk Library for hosting us.