UHV Library guide recognized by government information resource
A University of Houston-Victoria Library government information guide recently was recognized by the U.S. Government Publishing Office and will be placed on a list of examples for other depository libraries to consult.
The website was selected by the U.S. Government Publishing Office as an “exemplary” digital depository website. The Government Publishing Office publishes and distributes official government publications to Congress, federal agencies, federal depository libraries and the public. A federal depository library includes access to government publications, such as congressional bills, laws, regulations and more. The UHV Library is part of the Federal Depository Library Program and provides free access to federal government information to UHV, Victoria College and the community.
“I am so pleased that the efforts of our staff have been recognized by the GPO and shared with the larger community of libraries offering the same services to bring government information to our users,” said Karen Locher, senior director of the UHV Library. “Recognition for hard work is always appreciated, and UHV has a light shone on it from afar.”
The UHV Library was designated in 1973 as a federal depository library. There are more than 1,100 designated federal depository libraries located throughout the country, the District of Columbia, the Federated States of Micronesia and U.S. territories, according to the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s website.
“Our UHV Library staff work hard every day to ensure that UHV faculty, staff and students and Victoria-area residents have access to the resources they need,” said Chance Glenn, UHV provost and vice president for academic affairs. “This is a well-deserved recognition, and we applaud the work of our library staff.”
JoAnna McCulley, who has been the UHV Library catalog librarian since 2015, has updated the library’s depository website for the last three years. While there are some physical documents and items in the library, most of the collection is available online. To make information easily accessible on the UHV Library government information website, McCulley has created search boxes for the congress.gov, usa.gov and govinfo.gov web pages on the library’s website. Patrons can conduct a quick search from the UHV Library government information webpage before being directed to those government sites for the information they are seeking. Users also can search through the Catalog of Government Publications from the UHV Library website.
At the beginning of the month, McCulley received an email from an outreach librarian with the Government Publishing Office about the UHV Library digital depository website, complimenting the website’s overall content and the search boxes. The outreach librarian also asked that the website be included on the Government Publishing Office website as an “outstanding example of providing digital government information.”
“Seeing that the work we are doing is helping other depositories find ways to support the public feels really good,” McCulley said. “I feel like I am moving in the right direction of what is necessary for the website as I try to make the collection more visible to continue to provide support for our faculty, staff, students and the community.”
McCulley found the news exciting because the content on the website was new when she began supervising the page three years ago. She plans to continue to update the page to ensure that library patrons can continue to have the best access to government information.
“JoAnna is just great,” Locher said. “She took on the responsibility as our Government Publishing Office liaison and has done a really wonderful job of getting word out to our users and also to keep the librarians informed about new information and services.”
The UHV Library is located in UHV University Commons, 3006 N. Ben Wilson St. and is open to residents of Victoria and surrounding areas. To obtain a free UHV Library card, contact the library at 361-570-4166. For more information about the library, go to library.uhv.edu.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
