ASERL Centers of Excellence @ FSU

Welcome to the Florida State University Libraries guide to Centers of Excellence (COE).

The government documents listed in this guide are a permanent part of our collection, as many of them remain undigitized and serve as valuable primary literature for historical and research purposes.

This guide serves to gather information on all of our COE collections all in one place. Please contact us if there is anything we can do to assist in your research.

This program seeks to provide workable solutions to address the increasing cost of managing, preserving, and providing access to large collections of Federal government publications through the creation of several comprehensive collections, known as "Centers of Excellence" (COE)*, of U.S. government information from each Federal government agency. Built upon the foundation of existing holdings at Federal Depository libraries, these collections will become more complete with assistance from both Regionals, libraries who collect government information comprehensively, and Selectives, libraries who collect government information selectively, in the ten Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) states.

Contact information:

Mohamed Berray, Social Sciences Librarian for Political Sciences, Public Policy, International Affairs & Coordinator for Government Information Information. Florida State University Libraries, 0027L Strozier Library, 116 Honors Ways, Tallahassee, FL 32306. Email: mberray@fsu.edu.

*The phrase Center of Excellence is used here as it is used within the U.S. FDLP to identify a library establishing a collection and related services focused on a specific Federal agency or subject area represented by Federal documents. This is distinct from, and unrelated to, the Florida program of the same name that is intended to bridge the gap between academia and industry.

Thanks to the University of Florida Libraries for permission to adapt their own COE Library Guide for FSU Libraries.

Centers of Excellence will:

• inventory holdings and ensure accurate cataloging and holdings records for the extant collection;
• actively replace damaged or lost pieces;
• seek to fill holes in their collections, as necessary;
• provide active preservation for the collection;
• catalog the pieces that they own on OCLC, the worldwide union catalog for libraries, and identify them as the archival copy, and
• participate in the Government Publication Office's (GPO) program to set holdings on OCLC for Regionals free of charge, if eligible;
• enhance the visibility of, and accessibility to, their collection through digitization of holdings or linking to available public domain digital copies, as feasible;
• actively participate in interlibrary loan/Document Delivery agreements, and;
• provide expert reference service for and promote the use of their collection.

ASERL believes creating these COEs will result in more reliable and predictable access to Federal publications for all libraries and citizens in the Southeastern states by specifying which Federal Depository libraries have the most complete holdings for each agency. ASERL appreciates the effort that all service points at their “centers” are putting into making sure their users know about the availability of these rich resources.