Government Information in Canada/Information gouvernementale au Canada, Volume 3, number/numéro 4 (Spring/printemps 1997)

The Depository Services Program (DSP) introduced Gopher and Web versions of its Weekly Checklist in February 1995. The DSP moved to Internet publishing in an attempt to provide its clients with a better ordering tool. Ultimately, World Wide Web technology made the Checklist faster and easier to use and today, with its Checklist, searchable catalogue, directory of Depository Libraries, and offering of electronic publications, the DSP's Web site is on its way to becoming a locator service for Canadian government information. The DSP's Web site can be found at: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca.

Le Programme des services aux dépositaires (PSD) a lancé les versions de logiciel de recherche Gopher et Web dans sa Liste hebdomadaire en février 1995. Le DSP fait maintenant l'édition sur Internet afin d'essayer de fournir un meilleur outil de commande à ses clients. Finalement, la technologie du réseau WWW a rendu la Liste hebdomadaire plus rapide et plus facile à utiliser et aujourd'hui avec sa Liste hebdomadaire, son catalogue consultable, son annuaire des bibliothèques de dépôt et l'offre de publication électronique, le site web du PSD est à devenir un service repère pour les informations du gouvernement canadien. Le site web du PSD est situé à : http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca.

Introduction

The Depository Services Program (DSP) is the service in Canada that is responsible for placing Canadian government publications in the government documents collections of libraries. The participants include federal government departments and agencies, which supply copies of their free and priced publications to the DSP for distribution, and depository institutions (mostly public and academic libraries), which acquire, house, and loan Canadian government documents. Currently there are more than 650 depository institutions in Canada, and another 100 depositories world-wide. Depository libraries are either full or selective. The fifty-two full depositories automatically receive a shipment of all publications being released by the DSP for a given week. Selective depositories, on the other hand, must request copies of publications that they are entitled to receive from the DSP.

The printed tool selective depositories use to order government publications is the Weekly Checklist of Canadian government publications. In its paper format, the Checklist is made up of several pages that describe titles published during a given week (effectively a mini stock catalogue), and an order form printed on the inside back cover. Not all titles listed in the Checklist are available through the Program (additional ordering information is given for those that are not), but those which are available have an order number beside them, which corresponds to a selection box on the order form. Each week a new issue of the Checklist is mailed to selective depositories. Library staff review the available selections and fill in their order form accordingly, then mail the completed form back to the DSP for processing.

Building a Better Checklist

In 1993 the DSP began exploring the possibility of publishing the Checklist on the Internet, and the first Gopher and Web editions were published in February 1995. Our primary motivation for publishing the Weekly Checklist on the Internet was to provide a better ordering tool. Like many other government publishers, we realized that Internet publishing had certain advantages over traditional publishing methods. For example, although we continue to distribute a paper version of the Checklist, publishing on the Internet meant that we actually need not rely on a physical copy--paper, CD-ROM, diskette or microfiche--of the Checklist. Since the success of the Depository Services Program rests largely on the speed at which copies of publications can be put in depository library collections, speeding up the time it takes to deliver ordering information is key. Posting a publication on the Internet eliminates time required to print and mail it, which speeds up the delivery time considerably. This is true in the case of the Checklist, which is posted on the DSP's site several days before the print copy is mailed to Depositories.

The move to publishing via the Internet also provided us with an opportunity to make some improvements to the way information is accessed in the Weekly Checklist. For example, as a Canadian federal government program, the DSP is obliged to provide information in both official languages of English and French. We meet this requirement in the paper version of the Weekly Checklist by printing information in parallel columns with relationships between titles shown by proximity, i.e. the English description for a title is printed in the left column and the French description, if there is one, is shown in the right column. The reader knows whether there is a parallel title by the layout of the page. In an effort to reduce printing costs, only one version of the printed Checklist is produced, which is sorted in English alphabetical order. Since English and French author names frequently differ--think of Health Canada and Santé Canada--this approach makes the Checklist a little awkward for Francophones to use. In Internet publishing, however, the number of pages produced has much less of an impact on overall production costs. Therefore, we were able to publish separate French and English versions of the Checklist, one sorted in English alphabetical order and the other in French alphabetical order. Relationships between titles, which are shown by proximity on the printed page, are now shown with relationship notes embedded in the listings (see figure 1).

The Real Advantage

We soon realized that the real advantage to Internet publishing would come from publishing an HTML or Web version of the Checklist. In both the original Gopher and Web versions of the Checklist, users had to manually enter the titles they wanted to order by typing information into a blank order form. This was tiresome for end users, and left open room for errors. As HTML markup matured, however, we were able to develop a more interactive, and foolproof Checklist. The new Checklist on the Web featured selection boxes beside those titles which were available from the Program (see figure 1).

Users could now browse through the Checklist, and select the titles they wanted to order by pointing and clicking on the selection boxes. Selected titles were automatically entered into a form which could then be sent to the DSP for processing via email. Neither the print, nor even the Gopher version could provide us with this kind of immediacy. Unfortunately, in most cases it is not possible to print the contents of an HTML form, so users were unable to print a copy of their orders for their records (a reason why one or two libraries continued to use the Gopher version, which we ceased publishing in early 1997.) This Spring we added a feature that emails a copy of the order back to the selective depository so that depositories now automatically receive a copy of their order for their records.

But there was another, probably even more significant advantage to publishing on the Web. At roughly the same time as the DSP started looking into Web publishing, many of the publications we list in the Checklist were themselves starting to appear on Web sites. In fact, a year or so into the process, some of these publications were being published on the Internet only. From work the DSP had done with the Internet Document Identification Action Group (co-chaired by the Program's Assistant Director, Bruno Gnassi and Nancy Brodie, National Library of Canada), we knew that the Universal Resource Locator, or URL (now known as "Earls"), is the key to finding these virtual publications. So we decided to start including URLs in the bibliographic data we collect about publications and listing this in the Weekly Checklist. While URLs maybe helpful in the print and Gopher versions, the real benefit comes in the HTML version of the Checklist. What is obvious today was a revelation to us in early 1995: if the URLs are present in the data we use to produce the Web version, we could turn these URLs into hyperlinks, meaning users could go directly from the Weekly Checklist to full text versions of the publications (see figure 2). In short, the Weekly Checklist on the Web started to make the transition from an ordering tool to a locator service.

More than an Order Form

Although the Weekly Checklist specifically functions as an ordering tool, it also serves as a useful reference guide to Canadian government publications. This is true whether you are working in the acquisitions department of a depository library, or whether you are a patron of a depository library looking for government information held in that library's collection. Our initial goal for publishing on the Internet was to make the Checklist readily available to selective depositories ordering from the Program. But the Internet is by nature a very public place and the tool, which we had developed specifically for depository librarians could be now be used by other librarians as well, whether or not the printed Checklist is directly mailed to their library. When we introduced the Internet Checklist at CLA in Calgary in 1995, one librarian told us that she was in the habit of browsing the Weekly Checklist to find out what was available free from the government. She used this Checklist information, she told us, to order these free publications directly from the author departments. Similar feedback got us looking at this broader view of who could benefit from Checklist information, and working on developing two new products for the Web site.

The first thing we looked at was the actual content of the Weekly Checklist and how it was delivered on the Web site. By early 1996, the Weekly Checklist had grown to include three basic kinds of listings: those for government titles that can be ordered in hard copy from the Program, hot linked URLs for titles that are free and available on the Internet, and ordering information for government publications that are not available through the Program. All of this information put together creates a fairly hefty document, which is slow to download and difficult to navigate, especially if you are looking only for items you are entitled to order. So we started posting a smaller version of the Checklist, which includes only titles that selective libraries can order through the Program. Next, we consciously started to gear the Checklist to "everyone else"--reference librarians, non-depository libraries, the general public--anyone, in other words, who cannot actually order publications from the Program but wants to get at publications produced by the Canadian government. We started this process by posting another smaller version of the Checklist, which includes only the hot linked URLs to Web sites containing government documents (see figure 3).

The next important step was developing a searchable retrospective catalogue of Weekly Checklist information. As anyone who orders publications from the Checklist knows, each issue has a "shelf life" of only ten weeks. After the ten week period has past, the Checklist issue stops working as an ordering tool because the selective depositories are no longer entitled to order from it. However most of the bibliographic and much of the ordering information remains valid long after the ten weeks ordering period has past. For example, any title that was deposited with a library through the Program is always available either in the library itself or through interlibrary loan. (Academic libraries, which may restrict access to other parts of their collections, are required to provide public access to their depository collection.) A title listed in the Checklist that was not available from the Program, but was listed in the Checklist for information purposes, may still be available directly from the author department quite a while after it first appeared in the Checklist. Non-depository libraries and the general public can both make use of these kinds of information.

In other words, retrospective Checklist information is very useful. What is not very useful is five-years-plus worth of individual checklists, posted in an archival directory. So we decided to develop a search engine for this data (http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/search_form-e.html), which had to satisfy two requirements. First, because we hope that eventually users will be able to search our catalogue and others in a distributed fashion, the search engine had to provide information about government information in a standard, open record format. We opted to use the emerging Canadian GILS record standard, which had been developed from the GILS record standard already in use in the United States. GILS was a natural choice for us because it had been specifically developed to present information about government services available over the Internet, because it was developed to facilitate open, distributed searching, and because the Canadian version had been expanded to include additional required elements such as titles of specific documents and language. Second, we felt that our search engine had to provide the kind of sophisticated search capability librarians have come to expect from online catalogues. Internet search tools tended to rely largely on simple key word searching over individual records or an entire database. So we offered the kind of precision that can be had only by searching on fields of information such as title, author, subject, and ISBN. Further, we offered an online version of our controlled List of Subject Terms so that subject searching could be done in a meaningful way. We then tried to present this sophisticated functionality simply with lots of online help files, so that the "average" Internet surfer could also find information in the catalogue effectively (see figure 4).

Other Web Site Features

In 1995, Web sites did not fulfill the core business function they frequently do today. In fact, when we started publishing the Checklist over the Internet "back then," we didn't consciously plan to develop a "Web site." Over the first year, however, we started building up the site by posting information about the Program such as phone numbers and email addresses for Program staff and the Program's newsletter (What's Up Doc?). Our site grew with and responded to trends elsewhere in Internet publishing. For example, early on we tried to feature a comprehensive list of links to other federal government Web sites, but eventually abandoned this practice after Treasury Board officially gave the Government of Canada Web site the mandate to collect this information in August 1995 (see Government of Canada Internet Guide, http://www.canada.gc.ca/programs/guide/1_1_4e.html). We also contributed to interdepartmental working groups on Internet use in government, and spent a lot of time working out the best ways to present information on a Web site. For example while our end users are sophisticated, typically the equipment on their desk tops is not, so we made very conscious choices about using relatively unsophisticated HTML and gifs on our Web pages.

Over time, however, we made two more significant additions to our Web site. The first addition was a directory of Depository Libraries (http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/dsp-psd/AboutDSP/DepoNew/table-e.html). This directory was made up of ten English and ten French HTML files listing all libraries in the depository program, arranged by geographic location, and sorted alphabetically by name of institution. Earlier this year we added a search feature to the directory. Now end users can find information either by browsing the static HTML listings or by searching for a specific library name or location. This directory is an important addition to the site because it helps visitors know where they can actually get hold of Canadian government publications they find references to in our Web products like the Checklist and the catalogue. This is particularly useful information for the vast majority of government publications kept in full depository library collections that are still available in traditional formats only.

The second substantial addition to the Web site was our "Electronic Publications" section (http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/dsp-psd/epubs-e.html). This section of the site grew out of work we had done in partnership with Statistics Canada for the Electronic Publications Pilot (EPP). For the EPP we looked at ways of providing and managing restricted access to publications on an otherwise public medium like the Internet. The solution we adopted was to create secure directories of documents. We made these directories accessible to depository libraries participating in the Pilot, and controlled access via the libraries IP address(es). At roughly the same time, several author departments also began putting files into secure directories, and began charging end users to access them. We made arrangements with two of these departments--Industry Canada and Finance--to redistribute their priced Internet publications on our Web site. We put the priced documents in a secure directory, and as we had done with the EPP, provided free access to depository libraries. Anyone coming to our site from a location other than a depository library is not able to view these documents. Phase II of the EPP will see a similar arrangement for Statistics Canada publications, in other words, all depository libraries will have access to these publications on our Web site.

Conclusion

Internet publishing has changed the Weekly Checklist significantly. The Checklist is now faster and easier to use and access. On the Web, the Checklist has started to make the transition from an ordering tool to a locator service for Canadian government publications. The DSP's Web site has developed into a service in its own right, featuring resources like our directory of depository libraries, and full-text electronic documents. Our continuing challenge is to ensure that each of these pieces--the directory, the titles listed, the full-text publications--work together effectively. However our ultimate challenge, which mostly requires sociological rather than technological change, is to ensure that the Weekly Checklist on the Internet is used by the depository library community as the Canadian government locator service it has become.

References

Davies, Ron and Tanis Chalk (1996) "Form and Function: Publishing the Canadian Government Weekly Checklist on the Internet" ASIS 1996 Annual Conference Proceedings [Baltimore]: American Society for Information Science [http://www.asis.org/annual-96/ElectronicProceedings/DaviesChalk/davies-chalk.html].

Dolan, E. (1989) The depository dilemma: a study of the free distribution of Canadian federal government publications to depository libraries in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association.

A manager's guide and checklist for print, electronic and alternative media. (1994). Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada.

Treasury Board Secretariat (1996). Government of Canada Internet Guide [Ottawa]: Treasury Board. [http://www.canada.gc.ca/programs/guide/1_1_4e.html].

Weekly checklist of Canadian government publications. (1978- ) Ottawa: Canada Communications Group.

Web site: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/dsp-psd/index-e.html