Clerical questions are dealt with in detail in the material on my computer. Using the 
"find" command (except for SimpleText), one can find info on specific "tricky " titles 
and SuDoc stems. Otherwise, the "instructions]" folders are my updates of instructions 
for check-in of materials. But here is some basic orientation.

*What is the stuff on the shelves in Room 313?
1.	"OCLC" Docs that have not yielded a catalog record from Marcive in several tries 
either because they are deemed serials [see next question] or for unknown reasons 
(probably, GPO never did a record and doesn't plan to). These can be checked for 
records on OCLC. [The problem shelf in the Processing Room has items we haven't 
given up on getting a Marcive record for, though if students are doing the checkins, 
serials will begin to appear amongst them].
2.	Office reference materials, esp. the Instructions to Depository Libraries, double 
especially the List of Classes and the Superseded List (both online now if the paper is 
out of date for some items).
3.	Interesting old material, which may or may not be interesting to you.
4.	CD-ROM's which are all catalog-noted as "IN ROOM 313." Theoretically, they are 
available for checkout, but no one has ever asked. See the two nearest terminals in ref 
to see what we put out there as updated. The two sets of Trademark CD's and one of 
USAPat CD's are not stamped, but have catalog records.
5.	Paper Dept. of Commerce guides to electronic resources. Some may be obsolete. 
They are all cataloged, quick and dirty, in some cases.
6.	Video collection. Cataloged. Some others are checked out .
7.	Top shelf with bound vols. The Red Congressional Record came by mistake and 
should be offered as N&O via State Historical Society. Old search tools. If you don't 
want them, they should go in the Treasure Room. Congressional Serial Set, to the 
cataloger for cataloging info.

*Okay, we have the FTP load from Marcive and the relevant shipment box but some 
things don't hit with a cataloging record. Why not?

Arrival of materials and records are not perfectly synchronized. A whole shipping list 
may not have electronic records for ten days or a new tapeload may have records ten days 
before the relevant shipping list items arrive. It's like the arrival of your itemized Visa 
bill, arriving after the ordering of merchandise but sometimes before delivery. But if you 
had "standing orders" with merchants, you might see the itemized bill before you knew 
anything was on its way, etc.

Some are "deemed" serials by GPO and/or Marcive. And we don't pay the extra $500 or 
so for serials. "Deeming" is historical rather than intuitive. Here's something that has a 
masthead, date, volume and issue number and we get a monograph record for each one. 
Here's a weighty volume with no such serial type info, but it is deemed a serial.

For most serials, we have a bib record and check-in boxes or item records. For a few we 
have "Library Has" records functioning as item records. Code of Federal Regulations is 
the best example. My practice has been to continue whatever check-in format Kendall 
Hobbs put in place, whether I always follow his logic or not; it is simply too 
tedious/thankless a task to standardize all the retro records. The serials that lack bib 
records need OCLC records. Obviously, OCLC will help clear up what is/is not a serial in 
some cases.

*Even after we have all the check-in instructions down cold and OCLC searching going 
forward, there are items that we still can't figure out. What do we do?

If you ask on GOVDOC-L, one to ten people will answer and there will be a consensus or 
not, maybe somebody at FDLP will wade in with the official word. At the FDLP Admin 
site are various online sources of uptodate bulletins and info and an "ask LPS" service 
which is slower than GOVDOC-L but is less embarrassing if the question is perceived as 
foolish or elementary and, hopefully, will be the Official Word on the question. There is 
also: ask the Regional, who may or may not know "off the top."

*What about the GovDoc online pages, especially the semi-personal ones? Depending on 
who you are and how much you know, you can jump right in with or without a lot of help 
from the Systems Officer. I have had a student check the URL's of all the sites down to 
the agency level and these should be rechecked periodically. Whether you want to keep 
my semi-personal page substituting your name and personal info or start from scratch, 
have a care with three items. You should make a download and/or hard copy of the 
Cross-Training Guide to use until you redo it yourself. The two WIFDULB sites are used 
by some people both in and out of state for various purposes and would be missed. 
If you feel strongly about getting rid of them, tell the State Historical Society in Madison 
and see if they want them.