Clearinghouse History and Operations
The Beginning
Prior to 1972 there was no comprehensive program in the state for collecting and
preserving Nebraska government publications. In 1971 the Nebraska Library
Commission began surveying other states and Nebraska libraries to find out how
such a program should work and drafting proposed legislation to give the program
legal authority. In January 1972 LB 1284 was introduced in the Nebraska Legislature, passed and
signed by the Governor in March establishing the Nebraska Publications
Clearinghouse. The program was launched in July of
that year.
State Depository Program
"There is hereby created, as a division of the Nebraska Library Commission, a Nebraska
Publications Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse shall establish and operate a
publications collection and depository system for the use of Nebraska citizens"
The original legislation has been amended several times to exclude
Junior Colleges and reduce the number of mandatory copies that agencies must
send, but the basic operation of the program remains the same.
Federal Depository Program
The legislation also directed the Library Commission to provide access to
federal publications. "The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse shall provide
access to local, state, federal and other governmental publications to state
agencies and legislators and through interlibrary loan service to citizens of
the state." The Commission began participating
in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) in 1972. It served as Nebraska's
Regional Federal Depository until 1984, when Love Library at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
became the Regional. The Commission is now a selective depository and has
reduced its selections to about 2% of the publications offered through the program.
How Publications are Collected
Agencies are currently defined as
"every state office, officer, department,
division, bureau, board, commission, and agency of the state and, when
applicable, all subdivisions of each, including state institutions of higher
education defined as all state-supported colleges and universities"The first challenge facing the new Clearinghouse service was creating a
comprehensive list of these agencies. The next challenge was getting
them to send their publications. Unlike some other states, Nebraska does
not use a central printing agency that could make extra copies for the documents
program. A network of contact persons is used instead.
"Every state agency head or his or her appointed records officer shall
notify the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse of his or her identity." Every few years
the Library Commission sends agency directors letters with a
form for designating an agency contact person. The contacts are sent a
packet of information about the Clearinghouse service.
In the early years of the program agencies supplied more copies to the
Clearinghouse than they do now and both the statutorily designated recipients
and the contract depositories received paper publications. Space restrictions at
the depositories, cost limitations for the agencies, and a desire to preserve
publications in a long-lasting format resulted in a reduction in the number of
paper copies normally required from each agency.
The current statute reads "The records officer shall upon release of a state publication deposit
four copies and a short summary, including author, title, and subject, of each
of its state publications with the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse for
record purposes.... Additional copies, including sale items, shall also be
deposited in the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse in quantities certified to
the agencies by the clearinghouse as required to meet the needs of the Nebraska
publications depository system, with the exception that the University of
Nebraska Press shall only be required to deposit four copies of its
publications."
One copy is kept at the Library Commission and copies are forwarded to the
Historical Society and Library of Congress. Until the spring of 2005 microfiche copies were produced from the fourth copy and distributed to Nebraska depositories.
State Agency Responsibilities
Processing and Cataloging
Once the list of agencies was compiled in 1972 a classification system based on
agency names (NEDOCS) was created and the first
Guide to State Agencies
was published. The Guide lists agencies with their five digit
alpha-numeric code and traces agency creation, mergers, discontinuance, and
classification number changes. Originally a print publication reissued every few
years, the Guide is now continuously updated online.
The Statute states that "The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse shall
publish and distribute regularly to contracting depository libraries, other
libraries, state agencies and legislators, an official list of state
publications with an annual cumulation. The official list shall provide a record
of each agency's publishing and show author, agency, title and subject
approaches." From 1972 until 1991
The Nebraska State Publications Checklist was produced. The
Checklist included abstracts
with a title, subject and agency index. It was issued on microfiche
several times a year with an annual cumulation. In 1992 the
Checklist was discontinued and publications began receiving full OCLC
cataloging. Nebraska publications now are listed in the WorldCat, the OCLC
database of catalog records contributed by its member libraries worldwide.
The WorldCat can be searched without cost by any Nebraska citizen from
NebraskAccess with a driver's license number or password
obtained from their local library. Older records from the Checklist
can also be searched using the Library Commission catalog. Publications
received are listed in What's Up Doc
and compiled into an annual publication.
The Depository Program
Contrary to what the word "clearinghouse" might make one think, the Library
Commission is not a warehouse distributing giveaway or sale
copies of Nebraska publications. The Commission is in fact prohibited by
law from doing that. At first copies were forwarded
to the Nebraska State Historical Society, Library of Congress, and Center for
Research Libraries. This was amended later to exclude the Center for
Research Libraries.
The legislation also authorized the Library Commission to "enter into
depository contracts with any municipal or county public library, state college
or state university library, and out-of-state research libraries. The
requirements for eligibility to contract as a depository library shall be
established by the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The standards shall
include and take into consideration the type of library, ability to preserve
such publications and to make them available for public use, and also such
geographical locations as will make the publications conveniently accessible to
residents in all areas of the state."
By 1975 contracts had been signed with six institutions willing to serve as
depositories. More depositories were added over the years, bringing the
total since 1990 to 13 plus the Nebraska State Historical Society.
Depository
Library Responsibilities
Making Government Information Accessible
Internet technology has created an opportunity to greatly improve public
access to government information. Most state agencies now post key
publications to their web sites, and much legislative information is
available online. The Library Commission was already making extensive use of
the Internet to direct users to Nebraska government information, and had
created
special web sites such as
Nebraska
State Government Publications Online and
Nebraska
Legislators, Past and Present. In 2005 breakdown of the microfiche camera at the state Records Management Division led to a decision to discontinue fiche production and redirect the program toward providing online access to the same high-priority documents that were formerly sent to depositories on microfiche. They are downloaded or scanned, archived on a Library Commission server, and searchable via Nebraska State Government Publications Online and the NLC catalog. Instead of microfiche, depositories receive regular alerts via What's Up Doc blog postings
which include stable urls that can be used in library catalog records.
The Library Commission partners with the Official State of Nebraska Web
Site to offer an "Ask a Librarian" link citizens can use to email, or
telephone our reference desk. Many government information
links are provided from our
NebraskAccess site.
Resources for Government Information
Formats and distribution methods may change, but the Publications Clearinghouse will continue to use new
technology and strategies for making government information accessible to
Nebraskans.