CIC-Google Government Documents Project

The libraries of the CIC universities are partnering with Google to digitize a comprehensive collection of U.S. Federal Documents. It is believed this collection will comprise between 1 and 1.5 million volumes.
The workflow and scanning process for the initiative is being tested by the University of Minnesota, which is sending Google a substantial number of duplicate holdings from its St. Paul campus. Digital facsimiles of successfully scanned Federal Documents from Minnesota -- and eventually other CIC institutions -- will be returned to the HathiTrust Digital Repository, where public domain material can be universally accessed.

This project is part of an overarching CIC Library Director-led initiative to assess the opportunities HathiTrust might provide for more cost-effective management of less frequently used print resources. With three CIC universities designated as comprehensive Regional Depositories for print documents (Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin), it is anticipated the Selective Depositories might be in a position to make coordinated decisions about print retention. The U.S. Federal Documents collection is one of several categories of material where our libraries believe they can achieve efficiencies by better managing the relationship between digital and print resources, with assurances that an adequate number of print copies are available for future use.

The CIC Library Directors have charged the CIC Steering Committee on Federal Documents Digitization with responsibility to plan this initiative.
A principles document has been developed to provide additional information on the project basics. Comments and questions are welcomed and may be directed to the Steering Committee co-chairs, Kirsten Clark
(clark881@umn.edu) and Marianne Ryan (marianne@purdue.edu), or other members of the committee.