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gils: Summary of the 9-4-96 meeting of the OIW-SIG-LA GILS Subgroup

gils: Summary of the 9/4/96 meeting of the OIW/SIG-LA GILS Subgroup

Summary of the 9/4/96 meeting of the OIW/SIG-LA GILS Subgroup

Steve Hufford (Hufford.Steve@epamail.epa.gov)
16 Sep 96 11:34:15 

Message-Id: <9609161545.AA4153@epahub2.rtptok.epa.gov>
To: gils <gils@cni.org>
From: Steve Hufford <Hufford.Steve@epamail.epa.gov>
Date: 16 Sep 96 11:34:15 
Subject: Summary of the 9/4/96 meeting of the OIW/SIG-LA GILS Subgroup


Summary of the 9/4/96 Meeting of the OIW/SIG-LA GILS Subgroup 
U.S. Government Printing Office

Organizations represented: Dept. of Interior/Fish and Wildlife Service, 
Dept. of the Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency , Government 
Printing Office, National Commission on Libraries and Information 
Sciences, National Labor Relations Board, U.S. Information Agency

The 1996 GILS Conference

The group discussed the conference, scheduled for November 13/14, 1996 
and emphasized the need for all attendees to register via the conference 
website (http://www.dtic.mil/gils).  There are already about two hundred 
registrants, representing a wide range of interests and many different 
organizations.  This growing list of participants is available on-line, 
as part of the conference website.   The website also includes the 
conference agenda and logistical information.

The group discussed availability of a hardcopy conference brochure, 
produced by NARA, suitable for distribution at meetings of information 
professionals (contact Jenny Heaps at 301-713-7100 ext. 227 to obtain 
copies if you are interested). 

There is room for one more federal GILS implementor as a panelist on the 
Implementors Experiences panel the second morning of the conference 
(contact Steve Hufford if you are interested in participating in the 
panel).

Department/Agency/Bureau status and plans

USIA -- A database/system is under construction to house descriptions of 
the many documents currently being declassified at USIA.  The potential 
linkages between this system and GILS were discussed.

Treasury -- There has been progress on a Federal Register notice 
announcing the availability of Treasurys GILS and requesting feedback from 
the public.  Treasury is engaged in GILS records management work, and is 
also prototyping a new method for developing and collecting new candidate 
GILS entries.

GPO -- Government Printing Office continues its outreach work in training 
depository librarians about GPO Access and its GILS component.  GPO has 
implemented a user feedback module, using the suggested generic language, 
to solicit comments from users.  GPO has also added to GPO Access a link 
to the conference website.  The GILS database usage statistics from July 
show a slight decrease from June, probably reflecting a summer slowdown.  
Including July, year-to-date total searches of the GILS database come to 
roughly 131,000, along with 191,000 total retrievals.  Clearly, there is 
a certain demand for the type of help GILS supplies in locating US Federal 
government information.

Dept. Of Interior/FWS -- Fish and Wildlife Service continues its work to 
improve its GILS, in context of the overall DOI GILS, by providing five 
comprehensive entries covering FWS information resources.  FWS continues 
to take advantage of its organization-wide emphasis on automating 
information resources via the web.

EPA -- Environmental Protection Agency is working to add records 
disposition schedule numbers into all its GILS entries, is updating its 
online reference documents, and is answering about 150 emails weekly 
requesting additional assistance in finding EPA information.

National Labor Relations Board -- has previously made its GILS component 
available and is investigating alternative technical platforms for its 
GILS.

Logistics and Topics for Future Meetings

The group discussed several major themes appropriate for future Subgroup 
meetings, including records management requirements and deadlines, 
users -- how to characterize them and meet their needs, needs for the 
evaluation of the US Federal GILS, and criteria for evaluating GILS.  
Several organizations volunteered to host the Subgroup meetings remaining 
in this calendar year.

Logistics for Next Meeting

The next meeting of the GILS Subgroup/SIG has tentatively been set for 
10:00am on October 17, 1996 at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.  One 
of the main topics will be gathering GILS usage statistics to support 
the evaluation of the US Federal GILS.  

Full logistics to follow...

Meetings of the GILS Subgroup are open to anyone:  public and private 
agencies, organizations, associations, or enterprises, whether profit, 
non-profit, or academic; government at Federal, state, and local levels, 
whether U.S., international or other nations; and any other interested 
parties.

The GILS Subgroup is operating in an information sharing mode.  The 
business of the GILS Subgroup is conducted primarily through electronic 
mail on the GILS discussion list.  To subscribe, send e-mail to 
LISTPROC@CNI.ORG and in the message write: 

SUBSCRIBE GILS <your name>

Summaries of prior GILS Subgroup meetings can be found under "Documents 
related to GILS" as part of the Technical Topics and Other Information 
area at <http://www.usgs.gov/gils>.

Steve Hufford, US Environmental Protection Agency
hufford.steve@epamail.epa.gov     phone: 202-260-9732     fax: 202-401-8390

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