Documents Librarianship in Indiana: A Historical Review

Abstract

A topic of conversation and concern during ALA Midwinter was the announcement by Judith Russell, Superintendent of Documents, that “GPO will produce and distribute only 50 titles in print, those listed on the “Essential Titles for Public Use in Paper Format.” Everything else will be distributed to depository libraries in electronic format only. This decision had been mentioned at previous meetings of U.S. Federal Depository Librarians but never with a firm date for implementation, October 1, 2005. With all federal government information available on the Internet, will all librarians become “government information librarians” or will the specialist, “the documents librarian,” become even more important within the profession in order to maneuver the maze of our government’s actions on the information superhighway? This article provides a preliminary historical overview of how the specialty of government information grew within the profession with emphasis on its development within Indiana. Perhaps understanding its beginnings will assist in assessing future directions for this area of librarianship.