ARCHIVED—Minutes of the Depository Services Program Library Advisory Committee (DSP-LAC) Meeting, 2011

Meeting Dates and Location

August 29 and 30, 2011
Ottawa ON

Table of contents

• List of participants
• Day 1: Monday, August 29, 2011
• Day 2: Tuesday, August 30, 2011
• Action Items (Draft)

List of participants

Director

• Joanne Joanisse, Publishing and Depository Services (PDS)

Institutional Representatives

• Antonio Lechasseur, Library and Archives Canada (LAC)
• Kim Steele (present for first afternoon), Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS)
• Bernie Gloyn, Statistics Canada (StatCan)
• Chantal Poliquin, Library of Parliament (LoP)
• Caron Rollins, Canadian Library Association (CLA)
• Frank Winter, CLA
• Louise Carpentier, Association pour l'avancement des sciences et des techniques de la documentation (ASTED)
• (Sylvie Nadeau – absent), ASTED
• Karen Adams, Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL)
• Carla Graebner, CARL

At-large Members

• Katharine Barrette, Mount Royal University
• Margo Jeske, University of Ottawa
• David Jones, University of Alberta
• Doris Ricard, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
• Carolyn Shandler, Surrey Libraries

Meeting chairperson

• Gay Lepkey, PDS

Minutes-taker

• Elizabeth Sander, PDS

Student observers

• Melissa Graham, PDS
• Jenna Linkiewicz, PDS

Assistants

• Isabelle Campeau, PDS
• Stéphanie Côté, PDS

Guests

• Pierre Gamache, LAC
• Jane Thacker, LAC
• Marie-Claude Côté, TBS
• Brent Roe, CARL

Day 1: Monday, August 29, 2011

Preliminary Business

At 8:40 a.m., Gay Lepkey called the meeting to order and asked those present to introduce themselves. The agenda was reviewed and approved. Comments on the minutes for DSP-LAC 2010 were solicited. Caron Rollins noted that Candace Loewen's name should be added, as she had participated in the LAC presentation. The 2010 minutes were otherwise approved.

Outcomes of action items from DSP-LAC 2010 were reviewed. Those items that were still open or ongoing were highlighted to be included in the action items for 2011.

A decision was made not to carry over item #4, concerning DSP posters and decals, since providing DSP posters and decals was part of normal operations.

Three items not actioned were dropped as they had become irrelevant, as follows. A message to encourage more usage on Infodep as per item #5 was no longer necessary since usage of the listserv had greatly increased without explicit encouragement. Secondly, a decision was made to drop item #14 since DSP catalogue records did not consistently indicate loose-leaf publications issued through serial updates. Finally, a working group of map librarians was no longer considered necessary, as per item #18, since the distribution of print-format maps produced by Natural Resources Canada was coming to an end.

Further to item #9, Carolyn Shandler reported that Surrey Libraries had added a field to its MARC records that enabled the searching of DSP materials. She said she would run or request a database report that would determine the size of the DSP collection and that she would report the results to Gay.

Item numbers 15 and 16, which had not been actioned, were discussed in some detail and carried over to the new list of action items. Carla, Caron and Carolyn confirmed that it would be very useful to have access to an expanded archive of Infodep messages. It was agreed that DSP would look into the possibility of the Infodep archive being expanded to cover one year.

Annual Report on DSP Operations

Gay Lepkey presented the DSP annual report. Carla Graebner requested that, in the future, materials such as the hand-out accompanying the annual report be made available to members ahead of time, in electronic format. Caron Rollins and David Jones commented that they appreciated the binders that were distributed for the current meeting.

In relation to the tables reporting on Fugitive Publication Requests and Recataloguing Requests, Marc St-Pierre suggested that the heading "Requests not actioned" be changed to "Not available" or "Not acquired".

Carla remarked that the successes outlined in the annual report ought to be made more public and that the DSP should be promoted. Caron Rollins and others expressed agreement. Gay talked about difficulties associated with government advertising. Marc said that the DSP annual report would be posted on the Web site as soon as possible.

With regard to fugitive publications, Gay explained the limitations of PDS's authority. Caron Rollins urged DSP-LAC members to petition the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to make its reports available in archivable, preservable formats. Carla reported that she had already taken some action in that regard. Marc said that he would like to send a message to the Director General of Communications at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to discuss this matter.

Based on the significant decline in the number of orders placed for physical publications and in the number of physical items shipped, Gay speculated that depository libraries have become less interested in acquiring print publications. There was some discussion of this point. Several members commented on the varied preferences of library users.

Gay said that the final shipments of Natural Resources Canada maps to be distributed through DSP, comprising approximately 900 NTS sheets and a smaller number of GSC sheets, were to come to an end by March 31, 2012.

Karen Adams asked for information about the contents of the Memorandum of Understanding between DSP and LAC that had recently been signed. Hard copies of the MOU were distributed to DSP-LAC members the following day.

Gay encouraged all DSP-LAC members to complete the annual report to DSP and to encourage their colleagues to do the same, as a higher number of responses would yield data that was more reliable, more precise and more convincing.

Updates / Reports from Committee Members

Carla Graebner and Karen Adams (CARL)

Prior to the DSP-LAC 2011 meeting, Carla Graebner had solicited comments on DSP from the CARL membership. She reported that two major issues had been raised:

1. the loss of the mandatory long-form Census, and
2. continued and long-term access to government publications. She reported that respondents were generally appreciative of DSP and of the discussion list (Infodep)

Appreciation had also been expressed for the prompt processing of orders and for the metadata provided for publications. There was some criticism of DSP's cumbersome handling of serial publications. DSP's role in archiving publications in PDF format was said to be vital as federal government organizations seemed to be moving towards dynamic content and away from archiving their own Web sites.

A question about the criteria used by LAC to decide which Government of Canada publications were catalogued and which were not led to the beginning of a discussion that was periodically revisited throughout the rest of the meeting. Karen Adams underlined the point that there was huge concern about the preservation of government information and suggested that four major "players"—Library of Parliament, DSP, Library and Archives Canada and Statistics Canada—had a presence in the room and could perhaps comment. To the four "players" identified by Karen, Gay Lepkey added a fifth: the Treasury Board of Canada. Karen coined the term "the Big Five" to describe these five organizations in relation to government information.

Gay mentioned that the issue of government information preservation had been discussed at some high levels in the past, but that DSP's authority to address the issue was limited, particularly given the challenges presented by recent and upcoming budget cuts. Carla Graebner reminded members that Simon Fraser University and the University of Alberta were both members of the US Government Documents LOCKSS Program, and she suggested that perhaps a similar program could be developed in Canada.

Pierre Gamache said that there was a certainty that things would have to be done differently in the future and that all possibilities of cooperation between DSP and LAC were on the table. Jane Thacker talked about LAC's difficulty in providing MARC records for all publications listed in DSP Checklists and about LAC's efforts to limit its bibliographic treatment to publications considered significant. She shared LAC's criteria for evaluating the significance of publications and she expressed a desire for input from the library community on which publications should be given priority for bibliographic treatment.

Frank Winter lamented the fact that Canada's national institutions were no longer able to perform the roles that the public expected them to perform. He said that, in his opinion, the grace period in which most information had not yet disappeared was rapidly eroding and that there was an urgent need to develop a sustainable, collaborative, nation-wide plan to make up for the shortfall of national institutions.

Louise Carpentier (ASTED)

Louise Carpentier reported that ASTED had a new executive director. She mentioned the conference of the Congrès des milieu documentaires du Québec to be held at the end of November in Montréal. Louise reported on new additions to the Web site of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationals du Québec, including newly digitized heritage publications such as the Gazette officielle du Québec (1869–1995). She talked about a few issues faced at Concordia Libraries, including diminishing physical space for collections and the diminishing number of professional librarians.

Caron Rollins and Frank Winter (CLA)

Caron Rollins and Frank Winter provided a written report to DSP on behalf of the Canadian Library Association. Frank wished to add to the point made at the bottom of page 5 that the Government and Legal Information Gathering had been co-sponsored by the British Columbia Library Association and Simon Fraser University. Caron began her spoken presentation on behalf of CLA by saying that CLA members were very positive about DSP and highly appreciative of the work done by DSP staff. Caron described changes to the organizational structure of CLA and said that the former Access to Government Information Interest Group (AGIIG) had been replaced by the Government Information Network. One project to be taken up by the Government Information Network would be the development of training materials for government information professionals. A copy of the Terms of Reference for this network was attached to the main CLA report to DSP. Caron talked about the CLA's position on Canada Post's Library Book Rate and about its other advocacy initiatives. She spoke about CLA's desire for more cooperation among federal institutions in their cataloguing and Web archiving services. Gay mentioned that there would be some discussion about whether the DSP E-Collection could be accessed through the new APLIC Portal.

Feedback on DSP received through a survey to the CLA membership was outlined in CLA's report to DSP. Specific comments received were as follows:

1. the index pages for StatCan publications that had been found on the old DSP Web site were missed
2. the version of the StatCan title Financial Performance Indicators for Canadian Business that was distributed through DSP did not include data for lower geographical levels although this data would be useful to patrons of DSP libraries
3. the popular StatCan title Canadian Business Patterns was not available at all through DSP
4. displaying the date as well as issue number of the Weekly Checklist in catalogue records would be helpful

David Jones (At-large Member)

David Jones provided a written report to committee members and spoke about issues relevant to map depository libraries. He expressed concern that, with the cessation of NRCan's distribution of printed maps, access to information would be reduced for the large sector of the population that did not have sophisticated GIS equipment at its disposal. David was concerned that the regional distributors through which printed maps would be made available were independent, private companies. He raised the question of archival maintenance of heritage publications and mentioned that there had been some discussion within the Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives about collaborative efforts among map repositories to digitize older maps. Gay mentioned that NRCan was no longer providing its own departmental library with maps free of charge and that DSP was therefore giving its cataloguing copies of maps to that library.

Carolyn Shandler (At-large Member)

Carolyn Shandler reported that she was very happy with the responsiveness of DSP to its client community. She said that she was concerned about a few changes to links provided in DSP catalogue records. The new central branch of Surrey Libraries was to open on September 24, 2011, and in preparing for the move, Carolyn had unexpectedly come across copies of some heritage Government of Canada publications, including Census publications dating from as far back as 1911.

Doris Ricard (At-large Member)

Doris Ricard reported that, since June 1, the library of the Université du Québec à Trois Rivières was subscribed to WorldCat. She said that she would like to see more publications made available in print format, particularly for volumes consisting of more than 100 pages or containing a lot of tables. Doris expressed her appreciation for the publication summaries provided in DSP's catalogue and for the work of DSP staff.

Margo Jeske (At-large Member)

Margo Jeske shared some of her thoughts and concerns regarding Government of Canada publications. She asked whether there were plans to digitize earlier issues of the Canada Gazette. She asked about DSP's policy on reports that were commissioned by GC departments, as law librarians working for private firms had been asking about these. Gay talked a little about the boundaries of what DSP did and did not treat as Government of Canada publications, saying that publications funded in part by GC organizations may be distributed through DSP if free distribution copies could be obtained or if they were in electronic format and hosted on a GC Web site.

Margo supported the idea of publicizing and promoting Publications.gc.ca, as people who had become aware of the resource had been impressed by it. She expressed her concern about the disappearance of content from Government of Canada Web sites because of CLF2 requirements. Marie-Claude Côté said that changes to Common Look and Feel were expected.

To the point raised about disappearing content, Carla Graebner asked about the status of Web crawls carried out by Libraries and Archives Canada. Jane Thacker said that two new comprehensive crawls (since those of 2005–2006 and 2006–2007) had been sorted and made accessible internally, but had not yet been made available through the public-facing Government of Canada Web Archive. Pierre Gamache said that selective crawls were currently underway.

Library and Archives Canada Presentation

Pierre Gamache made a presentation to the committee on behalf of Library and Archives Canada. Jane Thacker and Antonio Lechasseur also contributed. Pierre mentioned the ongoing talks between DSP and LAC.

A few questions about RDA were asked. Antonio said that work on a French translation of RDA was underway and that since RDA was interoperational, RDA bibliographic records would be usable by the library community. Jane said that some differences between AACR and RDA bibliographic records may require global updates but that such updates would be itemized as part of the RDA training package. After a brief exchange with Gay about RDA's compatibility with MARC bibliographic format, Jane said that if financial exigencies did not allow DSP to acquire an ILS, an alternative option might be to streamline DSP's bibliographic records to LAC so that LAC could create basic MARC records from DSP data. This would address the lack of comprehensiveness in LAC's selection of DSP materials to catalogue.

Carla Graebner asked for comments on the Trusted Digital Repository. Pierre and Gay commented a little on difficulties that had been encountered so far on the technical side.

Caron Rollins asked for clarification of the term "government records" in LAC's 2011–2012 Report on Plans and Priorities. Pierre said that, in theory, both published and unpublished records were included, but that in practice, most recent thinking on the subject had focused on unpublished documents. Gay added that in the Treasury Board's Directive on Recordkeeping, the scope of "records" was large and included publications and Web sites. Gay said that he was in a working group that was drafting a guide to publications to complement the Treasury Board directive. To Caron's question about whether the guide would be made public, Gay said that it would most likely be made available on the Treasury Board Secretariat's Web site if it were to be approved.

Statistics Canada Presentation

Mary-Lynne Reid, chief of Census Standard Products and Internet Development at Statistics Canada, with the assistance of Paul Schwets of Census Standard Products and Internet Development, delivered a presentation titled "Update on the 2011 Census and National Household Survey (NHS)". Also present from Statistics Canada were Josée Dufresne and Lyle Sather, both also from Census Standard Products and Internet Development.

Gay Lepkey asked whether the general user's guide to the National Household Survey that had been mentioned during the presentation would be made available as a formal publication. Mary-Lynne said that it would, though probably not in print format. To a statement made that the preliminary response rate for the 2011 Census had been very high, Carla Graebner asked what constituted a successful response. Mary-Lynne said that she was unsure of the specific criteria, but that one answer per major category probably constituted a successful response for the National Household Survey. Carla asked whether the increased "visualization" of data that was to be found in upcoming Census products would complement or replace the traditional tables. Mary-Lynne said that the tables would still be included. Louise Carpentier asked whether the new Census Web module described during the presentation would be replacing CANSIM. Mary-Lynne responded that StatCan was working towards a common database model. Brent Roe asked whether StatCan was satisfied with the Census 2011 response rate, and Mary-Lynne said that the numbers were very good but that data quality information had not yet been completely processed. Carla asked what use would be made of feedback submitted via Facebook and Twitter. Mary-Lynne said that StatCan had always guaranteed that it would respond to all comments and suggestions received.

Treasury Board Presentation

Kim Steele, senior director of Information Management Strategies, gave a presentation on the Open Data Portal pilot project which had been launched on March 17, 2011 as part of the Open Government Initiative. After the formal presentation, Kim responded to many questions.

To Marc St-Pierre's question about what was expected to happen after the initial twelve-month pilot project, Kim responded that the portal was expected to continue to exist. Frank Winter asked whether the funding for the portal was sustainable and Kim answered that very little investment was required on the part of the Treasury Board Secretariat, since the data resided on the Web sites of the participating departments. To Gay Lepkey's question about whether departments could withdraw their involvement at any time, Kim responded that this was a possibility. Carla Graebner asked whether departments could refuse the terms of licensing and Kim said that they could and that consultations between TBS and departments were underway through lawyers.

Joanne Joanisse asked whether there were plans to include in the portal any published material protected under Crown Copyright, and Kim said that she was unsure but that there had been some discussion of this question on the Access to Information side. Carla asked about criteria for measuring the success of the pilot project and Kim said that she would respond to this later, through Gay. To Caron Rollins's question about whether data would be updated on a regular basis, Kim responded that nothing had been decided in terms of scheduling but that automated updating might occur in the future. Louise Carpentier asked whether there was specific funding for the project and whether the funding would be made transparent. Kim said that the project had been assigned to her division and rolled in with other projects.

Marc St-Pierre asked whether there had been recurrent problems with lack of compliance on the part of departments. Kim said that the biggest challenge in the project was to find the right point of contact, as data sometimes resided across several organizational divisions. Marc asked what the biggest benefits of the portal were to departments and Kim responded that these were the cost savings that came from no longer needing to send CDs with data to multiple individuals and the advertisement of data that Canadians, including government employees, may not otherwise have known existed. Chantal Akeson asked what work was being done to deal with broken links. Kim said that a requirement that data reside in a "semi-permanent location" was in the guidelines to departments. Katharine Barrette asked whether there were plans to negotiate some kind of commitment from departments that participated and Kim answered that this was not something that had been explored since the data belonged to the departments.

Bernie asked whether there would ultimately be an index of all Government of Canada data and Kim said that this was a goal. In response to a question by Gay, Kim said that no significant problems had been encountered to date and that the biggest challenges going forward were to increase the number of data sets and to increase the rate of participation. In response to a question by Caron, Kim said that no Treasury Board directive covering the portal had been made yet but that policy options were being explored. Brent asked whether any apps had been submitted to date and Kim said that one had been submitted but that some may not consider it an app.

Parking-lot Discussions

Gay reported to the committee that some additional information about digitization had been received from the director of Canada Gazette (CG). He reported that a joint CG–LAC project to digitize legacy issues dating from 1841 to 1947 was nearing completion and that, once the project was complete, the issues would be made available on the LAC site in both PDF and GIF formats. Caron asked whether the issues in electronic format would be official and Gay said that he would get confirmation from the director of CG.

A decision was made to carry on with more reports from committee members rather than end the day's session early.

Updates / Reports from Committee Members – 2

Chantal Poliquin (LoP)

Chantal Poliquin reported on recent projects and initiatives at the Library of Parliament. She talked about the project to reconstitute and publish early parliamentary debates, saying that the reconstituted debates of the House of Commons had been published and released in both official languages for the years 1867, 1870 and 1872. She said it was expected that in late 2011, the reconstituted debates of the House of Commons for the year 1871would be released in both languages and that the French translations of the reconstituted Senate debates for 1873 and 1874 would also be released.

Chantal said that, under an MOU with Library and Archives Canada, the House of Commons Hansards had been digitized in TIFF format and that an outside provider was being sought for data conversion services to make them accessible and searchable. She also spoke about a pilot project to scan sessional papers and to make them available in the LoP catalogue within forty-eight hours of being tabled.

Current and future projects related to the expansion of the ParlInfo section of the Parliament of Canada Web site were outlined, including linking from personal profiles in ParlInfo to LAC fonds descriptions, investigating options for data visualization and GIS visualizations for high-value data sets, and transforming ParlInfo into a tri-partite partnership product in which the Senate and the House would curate the information for sitting Senators and MPs and the Library would maintain the historical information, data sets and value-added information.

Chantal reported that the Library of Parliament was in the process of developing an implementation plan for using its new subject taxonomy more widely, including in its catalogue. A working group composed of representatives from the library, the House of Commons and the Senate was in place to explore the possibility of sharing the library's best practices and tools as well as the possibility of jointly developing a parliamentary taxonomy.

There were developments on the technological front, as well, including plans to adopt SIRSI's e-Library and, ideally, to make the Library of Parliament catalogue public. Chantal said that the Library of Parliament was to begin the process of acquiring an electronic records management system (ERMS) in the fall. Finally, she said that the library wished to be able to share its bibliographic records with LAC, with OCLC and, in part, with the APLIC portal.

In response to a question about which House of Commons publications would continue to be distributed through DSP in paper format, Chantal said that she would have to contact Gay Lepkey later with an answer or that DSP could perhaps invite somebody from the House of Commons to address the question. Following up on a point made in Chantal's presentation, Louise Carpentier asked for more information on tutorials being offered by the Library of Parliament. Chantal said that the clients were primarily parliamentarians and parliamentary staff. She said that there were two members of staff whose positions were devoted to training and that there was an intention to post library tutorials to the intranet.

Bernie Gloyn (StatCan)

Bernie Gloyn presented an update to DSP on behalf of StatCan and provided a handout with the main points covered in his presentation. He spoke about the reduction in staff, stacks and services at the StatCan library that had resulted from a budget cut implemented in April 2011, as well as about the library's upcoming transition to an ILS (Evergreen). He spoke about changes to StatCan publishing, including the cessation of hard-copy production of the Consumer Price Index and the possibility of further movement towards a "data publishing" model for other outputs. Bernie reported that the digitization of older print-only publications was ongoing. He spoke about the Data Liberation Initiative that was to be implemented for participating post-secondary institutions in September and about StatCan's participation in the Open Data Portal pilot project led by TBS.

After Bernie's presentation, Gay raised the issue of broken links in the Publications.gc.ca catalogue that pointed to StatCan publications in HTML format. Bernie clarified that older publications were not being deleted but that they were being archived in a new location and that Web pages with links to the new Web addresses were now found at the old Web addresses. Gay said that advice on how DSP should proceed with electronic publications would be solicited from committee members the following day.

Day 2: Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Terms of Reference (TOR)

A lengthy discussion about the "Membership" section of the Terms of Reference of the Depository Services Program Library Advisory Committee (DSP-LAC) took place during one long and one short session on the second day of the meeting. The two main items for discussion were:

1. Should at-large members be allowed to renew their terms? and
2. Should national organizations have two members each

There was some disagreement about whether it would be better for the committee if at-large members had the possibility of their terms being renewed for an additional three-year term or whether it would be better for the committee if at-large members had to be rotated more regularly. In conclusion, since no consensus was reached, no change was made to the current provisions for renewal. The five current at-large members, all of whom were at the end of their current three-year terms, were asked individually whether they would like to have their terms renewed for one year, as per the current TOR. Katharine Barrette, Doris Ricard and Margo Jeske said they would like to cede their places to new members while Carolyn Shandler and David Jones said they would like to stay on the committee for one more year. The committee approved the extension of Carolyn's and David's terms by one year.

Some discussion about the number of representatives of national organizations took place. Margo asked whether TBS exercised its right to have a permanent member. Marie-Claude Côté said that she would look for clarification on how the TBS member was be chosen and would report back to Gay Lepkey. Karen Adams suggested that it may be beneficial if the two representatives of each national organization represented two perspectives: the managerial and the practitioner's. Brent Roe added that he appreciated the opportunity given to executive directors to attend the DSP-LAC meetings in the capacity of observers. Jane Thacker suggested that DSP should not dictate to organizations how they choose their representatives. In the end, no changes were made to the current provisions for the number or nature of representatives of national organizations to serve on DSP-LAC. It was also decided that executive directors of national organizations would continue to be welcome to attend DSP-LAC meetings.

A proposal was made to merge point 5 with point 2 under "Membership". The proposal was approved.

To address the desire for a broad representation of geographic areas and library types, there was a suggestion to approach the Partnership of Provincial and Territorial Libraries of Canada for suggestions of at-large members. Brent suggested that the Canadian Urban Libraries Council (CULC) may be a practical point of contact if the desire was to include representation of more public libraries. A question to be addressed was whether Quebec was represented in CULC.

The committee decided to replace "academic libraries" with "libraries of post-secondary institutions not represented by CARL" in point number 4 under "Membership". This change was to encourage representation of a broader variety of libraries.

Following Lynn Brodie's presentation (see below), a suggestion was made to add the Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada (APLIC) to point number 3 under "Membership", that is, to give APLIC corporate membership in DSP-LAC. A decision was made not to do so at this time but to consult with APLIC in the future when considering the recruitment of new members.

Library of Parliament Presentation

Lynn Brodie, director general of the Library of Parliament, delivered a presentation on the Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada (APLIC). In particular, she described the APLIC Legislative and Government Documents Portal, a pan-Canadian catalogue providing access to bibliographic records and electronic publications of legislative libraries from across Canada. She said that Library of Parliament had not yet contributed to the portal and that the portal was currently accessible only to APLIC members. The Ontario Legislative Library currently provided the technological support for the portal. Committee members were advised that the PowerPoint presentation accompanying a talk on the APLIC portal given at the 2011 CLA Conference was available on the CLA Web site. Gay Lepkey mentioned that he would be meeting with members of the Ontario Legislative Library in September and that there would be a discussion about the possibility of adding DSP's E-Collection to the portal.

Updates / Reports from Committee Members – 3

Frank Winter

Frank Winter reported on developments at the University of Saskatchewan Library. He said that there had been a review of the data, GIS and government information units of the library and that various models of service had been discussed. These were the MADGIC (maps, including GIS, data and government information) model and various other combinations of the three units. All models under consideration would incorporate a tiered model of service in which reference service would be available to users at the point of first contact through a single service point but with the ability to escalate queries to the appropriate level of expertise.

Katharine Barrette

Katharine Barrette used the opportunity of her report to DSP to make a request. She said that while it was very nice that posters and plastic cards advertising DSP were available to libraries, it would be even nicer if an electronic logo were available for use on library Web sites. Carla Graebner agreed that this could be a good branding opportunity for DSP, while Karen Adams expressed scepticism about the value of such promotional products to the end-user. There was some discussion about the possibility of creating stickers with QR codes to put on shelves holding DSP materials. In the end, it was decided that DSP would explore the possibility of creating a small image file that could be used on Web sites.

DSP and GC Electronic Publications

A one-page handout titled "DSP and GC Electronic Publications" had been distributed to committee members with their information packages. Gay Lepkey briefly addressed the main points covered on the handout and invited members to share their thoughts on the problems described.

Bernie Gloyn clarified that the removal of publications from their previous locations on the StatCan Web site was not limited to HTML format, but also affected documents in PDF. Gay reminded committee members that only HTML format affected DSP since DSP downloaded publications in PDF format and rehosted them in its E-Collection. He also talked about how DSP generally did not provide links to external Web sites since URLs were notoriously unstable, and he said the reason DSP had been making an exception for StatCan was because DSP had received assurances that StatCan URLs would not be changed. Gay solicited advice from members on whether to continue to link to StatCan publications in HTML format knowing that older publications were in fact being moved. In the end, members advised DSP to continue treating StatCan publications in HTML format in the same way as before. They said that coming across a "redirect" page when trying to access certain publications from Publications.gc.ca was better than not having any access at all to certain publications.

Members again mentioned their frustration over disappearing content from government Web sites and again referred to the "Big Five" analogy coined the previous day. They said they hoped the Big Five would collaborate in the preservation of and access to government information. Jane Thacker said there was a need for additional work at the policy level to complement the Treasury Board's Communications Policy and Directive on Recordkeeping.

Carla Graebner made a specific request of Library and Archives Canada with regards to its preservation of documents. She asked whether LAC would make an explicit statement ensuring its continued commitment to obtaining, preserving and supporting access to materials in perpetuity. Louise asked whether DSP would please make background information and current issues related to its E-Collection available on the Web site. Gay said that he would undertake to have information from the handout added to description of the E-Collection that is already available on the Web site.

Parking-lot Discussions

It was agreed that Elizabeth Sander would circulate a draft of the Action Items arising from DSP-LAC 2011 by Thursday, September 1 and that members would read and comment on the draft document by Friday, September 9. The next meeting was tentatively scheduled for August 27 and 28, 2012.

Meeting Evaluation

There was some discussion about whether it might be preferable for the meeting to take place on a single day rather than on two days in the future and whether the presentations could be eliminated. Some members expressed disagreement with these suggestions.

Once again, appreciation was expressed for the binders of handouts that were distributed. This reminded other members of their wish that materials be provided in electronic format. Gay Lepkey said that, in the future, DSP would provide electronic versions of materials in advance of the meeting, on the understanding that document versions may not be final.