As you know, this is a time of great change in delivery of government information service in libraries. The future is uncertain, but it is likely to bring one of four possibilities:

• Profiting from the creativity of library professionals and government leaders, depositories may devise a vigorous, innovative program to handle the new information formats that is useful to patrons, efficient and saves money.
• Many libraries will drop out of the Depository Library Program, but it will continue to run in some form, though less effectively, with those who remain.
• Responding to pressures to commercialize the delivery of government information the Program will be ended by unilateral government action.
• Government will take responsibility to place information online for everyone to use from home, office, etc.

It is important to face these issues together and share our collective wisdom to find solutions. A conference is planned for Tuesday, October 30, 2001, 9 am-4 pm at the Black Bear Inn, Orono, Maine about 1.5 miles northwest of the University of Maine.  Theme: "Will there be or not be Federal Depositories in 2006? (And if not, so what?)".    Lunch will be provided.  

Conference mission and goals

On October 30, 2001 we will have a gathering such as has not occurred in our region since representatives of the three states met in the early 1960's and decided to locate the Regional Depository in Orono. We are going to look at depository service from "top to bottom." Everything is on the table. I hope you are as excited about the conference and its possibilities as I.

The mission of the upcoming depository library conference is to address your major needs for information and ideas on the future of government information service. You and your library are the key part of the equation. Further, you are experts yourselves:  please think about how you want to participate.  At the very least, send me questions you want me to forward to our speakers, panelists group discussion leaders and closing session facilitator to help guide them in composing their presentations or leading their sessions, to be most useful to you. 

The title of the conference and the suggested agenda are deliberately provocative, but it is not framed as a debate. Instead this should be a time to air all the significant concerns for the future of depository libraries, and to make reasonable progress, that day, in how to deal with them and plot our future course, individually and collectively.

The flow of the day is:

• background on how we've organized our depository system within our states and within the region
• some indications of the changes in the environment of government publications and government information
• the evolution of the "electronic transition" and why we should not or should have depositories
• the present reality of change, and what some libraries are doing to cope with and to profit from the change
• strategizing for the future
• discussion of where and how we will follow through on the results of the conference.

An agenda page, with the conference schedule and presenters' biographies, is also posted on this site.  Some articles and other literature, and web sites,  recommended by our presenters and others as helpful for advance reading in preparation for the conference, are listed on a separate page .

"A different conference"

Registration and reregistration information

Please plan on attending with those in your organization who have a stake in the future of depository service including your director, government document depository coordinator, reference librarians, catalogers and collection developers.  Your participation will be vital to the future of library service in our three states. Encourage others in your state who could not make it on September 13 to consider the rescheduled date of October 30.   Even if you had previously registered please reconfirm by phone (207-581-1661), or e-mail kathleen.brown@umit.maine.edu the names of those from your library who will attend.  If you know in advance that you will attend the pre-conference reception, 5 - 6:30 pm, Monday, October 29, please mention it to Kathleen when you register.  Otherwise, feel free to just drop in, as no reservation is needed for the reception.

Lodging/Restaurants in the Orono/Bangor area

• Please click on these links: Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce for Orono/Bangor area lodging and restaurant information, and from the Maine Restaurant Association.

Travel options and directions