Dear all: as many of you know, there are serious efforts afoot, led by the US Government Printing Office, to provide a digital archive of all previous U.S. Government publications.  Various individuals from across the DLF have been working with the GPO on this plan, from library directors providing feedback through ARL and other channels, to specialists in digitizing, metadata, and preservation helping to shape two planning reports.  

The first report, on digital preservation masters, proposes a set of minimum specifications for digitizing the legacy documents collection: 
<http://www.gpoaccess.gov/about/reports/preservation.pdf>.  

The second report, on metadata specifications, is available now for public comment -- please see below.

David 

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US Government Printing Office Report of the Meeting of Experts on Digital Preservation

The US Government Printing Office is working with the library community and others in the information community on a national digitization plan, with the goal of digitizing a complete legacy collection of tangible U.S. Government publications. The objective is to ensure that the digital collection is available, in the public domain, for no-fee permanent public access through the FDLP.
 
The project will ensure that the collection is digitally reformatted for preservation purposes. The digital preservation masters and the associated metadata will be preserved in the GPO electronic archive (in addition to any other places that the materials might be held), and there will be no-fee public access to the content through derivative files on GPO Access.
 
The Report on the Meeting of Experts on Digital Preservation: Metadata Specifications, which is located at, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/about/reports/metadata.html , is a summary of the second of two meetings held to assist GPO in developing specifications for the digitization project. This meeting, focusing on descriptive and preservation metadata, was held at GPO on June 14, 2004. A summary of the overall discussion of the experts and the necessary resources for the metadata package submission are included in the report. Also included is a listing of metadata elements that is not meant to be viewed as a final list of required metadata elements, but a list of metadata elements, based on this discussion and the recommended readings as put forth in the meeting. It provides a common set of elements from which to build for digitization project. GPO encourages all to review the report and provide comments to Judith C. Russell ([log in to unmask] ) by Monday, March 28, 2005.
 
If you have questions or comments, please use the GPO online help service at: http://gpo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/gpo.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php . To ensure that your question is routed to the correct area, choose the category "Federal Depository Libraries" and the appropriate subcategory under Additional Information.
 
You may also contact the GPO Customer Contact Center at 866-512-1800,
(Toll-free) or at 202-512-1800, (DC Metropolitan Area) Monday through Friday, 7:00 am - 9:00 pm, EST.
 
GPO Customer Contact Center
 
 
 
Robin Haun-Mohamed
Development Project Manager
Program Development Service
United States Government Printing Office
732 North Capitol Street NW
Washington, DC 20401
(202) 512-0052
(202) 512-1262 (fax)
email: [log in to unmask]