Friday, June 02, 2006

The Librarian Challenges You...

The following email arrived in my inbox earlier this week. The challenge is... how far can you read into this email without having some sort of physical reaction? The reaction can be as small as a little nervous tic, or as big as crossing your eyes, sniggering, or fainting. Let's see who has the strongest willpower... (This is a public document, but I've taken her name out just so people don't contact her and laugh at her. It's not her fault she works where she does.)

Subject: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Local Public Documents Room

The Government Printing Office (GPO), which administers the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), is aware that several libraries that house material formerly a part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Local Public Documents Rooms (LPDR) have been contacted recently by Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or local power plant staff regarding this material.

The NRC closed the LPDR program in 1999 and, as a result of an agreement between GPO and the NRC, this material became part of the FDLP. An announcement appeared in Administrative Notes, March 15, 2000 (available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/ad031500.html#1). A number of former LPDR libraries that are not participants in the FDLP, including your library, elected to retain their NRC collections.

If the NRC has contacted your library regarding this material, please inform GPO by completing the form available at http://gpo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/gpo.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_cat_lvl1=3&p_cat_lvl2=125.

GPO is contacting NRC headquarters to determine the reasons for the recent inquiries about this material and anticipated actions, if any. I will share any information that GPO finds out from the NRC with both FDLP and non-FDLP libraries currently holding these materials.

GPO asked all FDLP libraries contacted by the NRC to cooperate with any information requests, and I encourage you to do the same. Although there has been no formal request from the NRC to withdraw any material, I would like to remind you that, as a result of the 1999 transfer, much of this material is now covered by the regulations of the FDLP and can only be withdrawn by the NRC under the guidelines set forth in GPO's policy on the Withdrawal of Federal Information Products from GPO's Information Dissemination (ID) Programs. This policy is available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/policies/id72_06-21-05.pdf. Any request to withdraw materials in this collection would be communicated to you by GPO.

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind you to contact your nearest regional Federal depository library if, at some future time, your library is no longer able to support public access to this collection, so arrangements can be made to transfer the material to an FDLP library. A list of the regional Federal depository libraries is available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/regionals2004.pdf.

Please contact me if you have any questions about this matter. I will be back in touch with you with any new information GPO gathers about these inquiries.

Jxxx Rxxxxxx
Managing Director, Information Dissemination (Superintendent of Documents)
U.S. Government Printing Office
Phone: xxx
Fax: xxx

7 comments:

Chris said...

Unbelievable.

Staci said...

I didnt get past the first two lines before I was distracted by something shiney.

Jessica said...

Ugh.
FYI, my brain went AWOL ASAP.

Jason said...

This woman needs to spend another year in 7th grade.

On the other hand, she's got a potential second career as an executive at IBM based on her skill with three-letter acronyms (TLAs).

Brant said...

I thought it was only the military suffered from acronymea.

Chris said...

I told Elizabeth I made it through it and she looked at me like I was insane. I told her "Hey, I worked for IBM - that's normal".

Anonymous said...

I made it all the way through. I am lucky enough to work on military medical brochures from time to time. (ATIC and JMIP and DMLSS, oh my!)