Southwestern Pennsylvania Documents Group
Minutes.  February 27, 2003, 3:30 PM

Location: Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh

Present: Amy Lovell, Allegheny County Law Library/Duquesne Law Library; Jane Smith, Slippery Rock University; Tom Twiss, Hillman Library,University of Pittsburgh; Jennifer Gilley, Penn State New Kensington; Carol Ladebue, Allegheny County Law Library/Duquesne Law Library; Jackie
Bolte, La Roche College; Wendy Mann, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh; Barry Schles, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh;Peggy Tseng, Bethel Park Public Library; John Doncevic, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; David Konieczko, Barco Law Library, University of
Pittsburgh; Renee Audia, Barco Law Library, University of Pittsburgh; Theresa McDevitt, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Chairs: John Doncevic, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; Wendy Mann, University of Pittsburgh

Everyone introduced themselves and mentioned reasons why they were interested in the group. The most popular reasons were to build a support network and provide training.

Then we proceeded to discuss how we should organize our group. Federal depository libraries from southwestern PA were contacted for this meeting. These included libraries in Lawrence, Butler, Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland, Indiana, and Cambria counties. (There are no FDLP libraries in Greene, Fayette, Somerset, Beaver, or Armstrong counties.) There seemed to be agreement that we would probably not get participation from depositories outside of these counties. A number of people contacted for this meeting expressed a desire to participate, but
could not make it to this meeting.

We agreed to rotate the location of meetings. We will plan on having two meetings per year-- one in late August, and one in mid-December. The rotating chair of the group will be a person from the institution which will host the next meeting. The chair will send out messages approximately a month in advance of the next meeting asking for discussion topics. That person will also chair the meeting and then
send out minutes.

Ideas for training/discussion included: census, GIS, workflow issues, handling and choosing electronic documents, Marcive records, and claiming documents. We could also invite companies selling government publications-related products to come to our meetings to do presentations. The organization will be called the Southwestern Pennsylvania Documents Group.

The next meeting will be at La Roche College in late August. Jackie Bolte will chair, and will e-mail suggestions of possible dates about a month before the meeting.

Theresa McDevitt volunteered to create a web page for the group. It will include minutes, a directory of the group, and links to pages that people from each institution think would be useful (for example: library home page, library catalog, and/or government publications pages).

Several people mentioned that they have not received responses recently from the Regional Documents Librarian, Kathleen Hale, to their lists of withdrawals. She will be at the upcoming meeting of DOMA-- the docs group of the state universities-- at California University. We should
check to see if all of our group could be invited. Possibly some of us could meet with Ms. Hale there.

Meeting adjourned at 4:45 PM.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Tom Twiss, University of Pittsburgh.