Abstract

In January 1995, the Depository Services Program in Canada began distributing its Weekly Checklist over the Internet. This listing of Canadian government documents was published using several common Internet services. The project revealed a number of important differences in the design and implementation of print, FTP, Gopher and World Wide Web versions of the same information. The form in which information is published affects the ability to provide specific editions for target audiences, the amount of information delivered at one time over the network, the presentation format of bibliographic information, and the degree of interactivity possible. Organizations must take these differences into account when choosing a publications medium.

Introduction

The Depository Services Program (DSP) is the body in Canada which is responsible for ensuring that Canadians have access to documents produced by their federal government. The program is currently administered by the Publishing division of the Canada Communication Group, the printing and publishing arm of the Canadian federal government. Program participants include federal government departments which supply copies of their priced and unpriced publications to the DSP for distribution, and depository institutions (mostly public and academic libraries) which acquire, house and loan Canadian government documents. In 1995, there were more than 650 depository institutions in Canada, and another 100 depositories world-wide.

Depository institutions are either full or selective. Each week the fifty-two full depositories automatically receive a shipment of publications the DSP is releasing for that week. The selective depositories, however, must choose and order the publications they want to acquire for their collections. The tool they use to do this is the Weekly Checklist of Canadian Government Publications. Until recently the Weekly Checklist has been available only in printed form, and sent to depositories by mail. After the selective depositories receive the Checklist, they make their selections by ticking off boxes on a pre-printed order form and mailing this form back to the DSP for processing.

The Internet Publishing Project

In 1994, the DSP decided to provide access over the Internet to the information contained in the Weekly Checklist. The objectives of the project stemmed from the original goal of making government publications easily accessible. For depository institutions, this meant not only informing them of new publications using fast, inexpensive and widely available electronic services, but also providing a quick and easy method for ordering them. Mailing, or even faxing, a pre-printed order form for processing can be a slow, multi-step procedure, and depository librarians were keen to find a better method. In addition, it was hoped that by publishing the Weekly Checklist over the Internet, some improvements in the printed product could be introduced, without any negative effect on the production of the current printed list.

For technical, economic and security reasons, the decision was made not to offer DSP clients direct access to the production database which is used for managing the bibliographic data used in the Weekly Checklist. The decision was also taken to maintain the current database and procedures so that the Weekly Checklist could still be produced in a print format until such time as it could be re-introduced as a "print on demand" product. In the Internet publication process, data would be processed automatically by computer programs and scripts, and downloaded from the production database to computers connected through a local area network to the Internet, with each computer offering one or more Internet services, including FTP, Gopher and the World Wide Web (see references for URLs).

In implementing this variety of electronic formats, it became clear that the form in which the information was published determined to a large extent the functionality that it was possible to provide to end users. The project required the design of several distinct electronic products, and the differences between the print version and these products, and between the different electronic products, brought into focus a number of important design issues, including the provision of specific editions; the amount of information delivered over the network at one time; the way in which bibliographic information is present; and the degree of interactivity possible. This paper discusses these ways in which the form of electronic publication determines the content that can be provided, and the choices that face electronic publishers using these kind of publication services.

Differences in print and electronic versions

Editions targeted to a specific audience

One of the challenges in providing a listing of Canadian government documents, particularly in print, derives from the fact that the Canadian federal government has two official languages, English and French. Canadian government publications are usually produced in both official languages, either in separate English and French editions, or in a single bilingual edition where both language versions are found in the same physical document. Publications which provide access to federal government information, such as the Weekly Checklist, should similarly provide for the needs of both English and French-speaking users, but this linguistic duality presents problems. Records for different government documents in each issue of the Checklist must be listed in a particular order, and the most natural grouping for this kind of information is by the originating department or agency. For English-speakers these different groupings should obviously appear in sequence by the English name of the agency, and for French-speakers in sequence by the French name of the agency, which is often significantly different in terms of its placement in an alphabetical list (e.g. Labour Canada versus Travail Canada). Providing convenient access both by French and English agency name requires producing two editions of each checklist, both with the same information, but with a different sequence of sections and sub-sections.

Unfortunately, producing two paper editions of one publication is costly, and therefore the current paper-format Checklist is a single edition containing records organized alphabetically by the English name of an agency. This imposes an unwanted inconvenience on French-speaking users. Fortunately this economic restriction does not apply to electronic products: the cost of producing two or more editions of the same electronic publication is only very marginally greater than the cost of producing a single version, particularly when most of the work involved in producing the list is done automatically by computer. As a result, electronic publications can be produced in multiple different versions, each one adapted to the needs of a particular subgroup of the general user population. From the DSP's point of view, one of the main benefits of the electronic publishing project has been the possibility of improving on the printed format of the Checklist by providing separate English and French editions in all the Internet services, thereby better serving users in Canada's two linguistic communities.

Information delivery

The print version of the Weekly Checklist provides all its information in a single physical document. In the case of an electronic version of a publication transported over a network like the Internet, there are at least two possible approaches for delivering information. The first approach is to try to deliver the entire Checklist electronically at one access. The disadvantage of this approach is that the user may have to wait some time when first accessing a list (which averages about 100 kilobytes), particularly in the case of depository libraries using SLIP or PPP connections with speeds of 14,400 bits per second over ordinary telephone lines. The advantage of this approach, however, is that the user can subsequently consult parts of that Checklist very quickly, since all the data will already be stored (if only temporarily) on the client computer. The second approach is to deliver only one part of the list at a time: in general, the user does not have to wait as long to begin consulting the list; on the other hand, a user wishing to browse the entire list must wait more often as each part of the document is delivered.

Clearly the design choice depends on who the user is and how the list is to be used. If users are more likely to consult only a small portion of a list (as might be the case of a library interested only in publications on a specific subject such as the environment) then it would be more efficient to supply only the part of the list that was of interest. In the case of selective depositories, however, it is more likely that users will want to see the entire list because they will want to scan every section of it for publications which can be ordered through the Depository Program. Therefore a longer wait while the entire list is transferred is preferable, since there would then be little or no perceptible wait while the user browsed through the list or viewed different parts of it. Since the prime user community for the electronic version of the Checklist consists of selective depository libraries (mostly academic and public libraries), a design decision was made to favour delivering the entire text of the list.

However it was possible, within the design of some of the electronic services, to facilitate faster access to specific parts of the list. In the World Wide Web service, the entire Checklist in HTML format is served to the client through one network access, but a table of contents at the beginning allows users only interested in a specific department to move rapidly to that department's publications once the entire list has been transferred. In the Gopher service, menus provide users with a choice between viewing the complete text of a given issue of the Checklist, or accessing the list in small sections divided up by author department or agency, thus catering to both types of users. Only in the FTP version of the Checklist is there no option to consult part of the list only: this was not feasible in part because it is difficult through a directory structure alone to provide easy-to-use pointers to the many different segments of a Checklist.

Presentation format

The printed version of the Weekly Checklist relies heavily on typographical and layout conventions to make the list as easy as possible to browse and to use as a bibliographic control and ordering tool (fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Many of these formatting and typographic devices are not present in electronic publishing services, or may be present in some and not in others. In developing electronic versions of the Checklist it was necessary to re-think the entire presentation of records in the Checklist, and to adapt the presentation of information according to the facilities provided by the different Internet services.

For example, a two-column page layout is used to show the relationship between titles which are published separately in English and French: the descriptions for English publications are printed in the left hand column and the descriptions for French language publications in the right hand column; bilingual publications have entries in both columns. The user knows if there is an equivalent French edition of an English title (or English edition of a French title) by scanning the column opposite. Conveying this kind of relationship through a spatial relationship avoids having to list explicitly information about the other language editions, thereby saving space and making records easier to read. None of the Internet publishing services provide for this kind of multi-column layout. (The HTML encoding used in the World Wide Web service uses only the most standard and universal tags in order to ensure wide accessibility). Therefore in all electronic version of the Checklist, the title of the version in the other language was introduced into the record itself, accompanied by a label such as Title in French:. English and French editions of the same publication were listed one after the other.

In the print version of the Checklist, a variety of typographic devices has also been used to present the information in the most efficient and useful way possible. These devices include:

• hanging indentation to separate records or different parts of a bibliographic record;
• the use of fonts of different sizes and weights appearances (bold, italic, all capitals) to indicate information of greater or lesser importance (such as different levels of headings, Canadian versus foreign costs of publications, special notes versus principal bibliographic data elements, and so on);
• special typographic characters such as bullets, boxes, stars and daggers to indicate distribution and sales policies for each publication.

In cases where electronic services provided some typographic facilities, it was decided to use them to present an attractive and readable record format. In the World Wide Web version of the Checklist, where HTML is used to markup documents, it was possible to use some generic typographic devices to indicate different kinds of information. For example, different levels of HTML headings where used for the different levels of heading within the text of the list; main title information in each record was marked with HTML tags for bold to make it stand out from the rest of the citation; italic text was used for titles within titles and for certain less important elements of information (fig. 2).

Fig. 2

The use of these distinctive typographic elements meant that it was possible in the Web version of the Checklist to approximate the same field order and position as was used in the printed product, making it easier for users to adapt to the electronic service.

In cases where the electronic service did not allow for that, it was decided to adopt different techniques. To meet the needs of as wide a clientele as possible with as little overhead as possible, in the Gopher and FTP versions of the Checklist were supplied only in a plain ASCII text format. This format does not allow for different font sizes and weights, so informational elements within the record such as titles could not be printed in bold or italic. Instead, a labelled format was used with literal strings printed to identify different parts of the record (fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Finally, in the printed Checklist, bullets, stars and daggers printed at the end of each citation are used as a concise and visually simple way to present the different distribution categories into which a publication may fall. While these visual cues are an efficient technique for frequent users of the Checklist, members of a broader public, not necessarily familiar with the significance of two bullets at the end of a record, would need to consult the preface of the publication in order to determine the policy for that particular publication, or even worse, would ignore the symbols altogether. In all services, because it is difficult to move quickly to a an explanation at the beginning or end of a document, this feature was replaced with a literal string briefly noting the distribution policy. In the WWW service, however, it was easy to provide access to distribution policy statements by introducing a hypertext link into each record, so that a user could click on the literal "Distribution:" (or "Diffusion:" in French) and consult a full explanation the one of four possible distribution policies that applied to that particular document. In this respect the WWW version of the Checklist is a definite improvement on the print version.

Interactivity

The Weekly Checklist provides an ordering tool for selective depository libraries. In the printed version of the list, a numbered symbol is placed next to those titles which depositories are entitled to order through the Program, and a form is provided at the end of each list, which can be checked as appropriate and mailed or faxed back to the DSP. One of the objectives of the electronic version of the Checklist was to provide this ordering capability to depositories electronically so that they could select and order their publications more quickly. However not all services chosen to deliver the Checklist provide the same degree of support for interactivity required for online ordering. As a result, four different means of ordering publications are used, with high to low interactivity.

World Wide Web forms

The World Wide Web Checklist provides a fairly sophisticated ordering tool with the highest degree of interactivity of all the services. Each Checklist on the Web site is in fact an HTML form which can be viewed through a graphical browser such as Netscape or Mosaic. Each item which can be ordered by selective depositories has a check box and item number beside it. Users click on the corresponding box whenever they wish to order an item.

. After browsing through the list, users can scroll down to a Send button, where a click will call up an order form (fig. 5).

Fig. 5

On the order form, users must fill in the name and client number of the depository library, and they can review their order, since a text area displays to the user all the selected items they have chosen from the list using the corresponding clickable boxes. If the listing is acceptable, a user can click on a Submit button to have the order information sent by electronic mail to an order fulfillment address at the DSP.

Gopher+ ASK blocks

Forms are also provided for ordering publications from the Gopher list for Gopher clients that support the Gopher+ protocol and ASK blocks. However the interactivity is less than the World Wide Web form. Users must note down the number of each item they wish to order as they browse the list, and then enter that information in a subsequent screen (fig. 6), accessed as a separate item on the menu for each specific list. Specific forms are provided for each list which contain the list number, but the user must also fill in information identifying the depository library. As with the WWW, when the form is complete, the information is forwarded as e-mail to the standard DSP address.

Fig. 6

E-mail

Selective depositories which do not use either Gopher or the World Wide Web to consult the checklist, or do not use client software that supports forms, can still send orders to DSP directly via e-mail. This service provides faster response times than ordinary mail; however the interactivity is reduced again, since the user must note down item numbers and then later enter all order information using software quite separate from the browsing software. The extra speed for order fulfillment is offset by a considerably more awkward and labour-intensive process.

Printed forms

The print version of the Checklist provides a pre-printed order form in a "check box" format. The advantage of this format is that users can process the printed order form at the same time as they are browsing the list, easily flip back and forth between order form and list. In a sense, this form of ordering is easier to use than some of the electronic formats, since it is relatively easy for a user switch between browsing and ordering. However the main disadvantage is that users of the print version have to take the extra step of sending their order form through the mail.

Of the four different options, the World Wide Web service clearly provides the most interactive and convenient way for selective depositories to order publications. It is hoped that with future developments, such as Java applets, interactivity and ease of use will be further increased.

Conclusion

The Depository Services Program's Internet project started as a means of making the information published in the Weekly Checklist more accessible for selective depository institutions, and to speed up the ordering process. The experience of publishing the Checklist using print and a variety of electronic Internet services (FTP, Gopher and World Wide Web) has highlighted some of the important differences in these different media for this type of publication. The DSP is currently developing a search service which would allow for retrospective searching of individual information objects which have appeared previously in the Weekly Checklist, based on such standard bibliographic search criteria such as title, author, and subject, in effect replacing a printed Quarterly Catalogue which has not been produced for some years due to cost constraints. Given the experience of the first phase of this project, we are anticipating that this new service, too, will provide new ways to present information and highlight new differences in the way information can be distributed to users over the Internet.

References

Dolan, E. (1989) The depository dilemma: a study of the free distribution of Canadian federal government publications to depository libraries in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association.

A manager's guide and checklist for print, electronic and alternative media. (1994). Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada.

Treasury Board Secretariat (1995). Internet publishing guide: working draft November 1, 1995. [Ottawa]: Treasury Board.

Weekly checklist of Canadian Government publications. (1978 - ) Ottawa: Canada Communications Group. Anonymous FTP: ftp://ftp.ccg-gcc.ca World Wide Web URL: http://www.ccg-gcc.ca/dsp-psd/index-e.html (English edition) or http://www.ccg-gcc.ca/dsp-psd/index-f.html (French edition). Gopher URL: gopher://gopher.dsp-psd.ccg-gcc.ca.

© 1996, American Society for Information Science. Permission to copy and distribute this document is hereby granted provided that this copyright notice is retained on all copies and that copies are not altered.