Monroe Mayor James E. Mayo’s office will officially declare Thursday, Sept. 25, as “University of Louisiana at Monroe Documents Depository Program Day.”

The proclamation will be presented tomorrow at the ULM Library’s “Celebrating 60 Years of Documents” program reception from 4–5:30 p.m. in the library’s Special Collections section (Passman Room on the ULM Library’s fifth floor). Representatives from the mayor’s office and the ULM administration will be on hand, along with ULM’s mascot Ace. Members of the media are encouraged to attend.

Program activities officially begin at 1 p.m. in the ULM Conference Center (located on the ULM Library’s seventh floor), as guest speakers Charlene Cain and Lori Smith offer related lectures.

The library will commemorate 60 years as a charter member of the Louisiana State Documents Depository Program (start date: Dec. 11, 1948) and 45 years as a member of the Federal Depository Libraries Program (start date: Feb. 5, 1963).

The mayor’s proclamation declares:

“WHEREAS, The free and full dissemination of governmentally produced information is essential to an informed citizenry in a democracy; and

“WHEREAS, The United States Congress established the Federal Depository Library Program in 1813, to provide free, unimpeded, local access to official information from the federal government; and

“WHEREAS, The State of Louisiana, in 1948, devised an effective method to achieve the desired and proper dissemination of official state information by means of the Louisiana State Documents Depository Program and has continuously maintained it for 60 year[s]; and

“WHEREAS, Louisiana Governmental Agencies and Public Academic Institutions and Federal Agencies have supported the depository programs by submitting their public documents; and

“WHEREAS, The University of Louisiana at Monroe became a member of the Louisiana State Documents Depository Program on December 11, 1948 and became a member of the Federal Depository Library Program on February 5, 1963; and

“WHEREAS, The staff at The University of Louisiana at Monroe has developed and maintained collections of state and federal documents and provided free service and access to the public; and

“WHEREAS, The University of Louisiana at Monroe and the University Library directors have supported the depository libraries by providing staff, space, equipment, auxiliary services and public access.

“Now, therefore, I, James E. Mayo, Mayor of the City of Monroe, Louisiana, on behalf of the Monroe City Council and our citizens do hereby proclaim Thursday, September 25, 2008, as ‘University of Louisiana at Monroe Documents Depository Program Day’ and call upon the community and partner organizations to celebrate with appropriate ceremonies to acknowledge the University Library’s sixty years of public documents service.”

More about the “Celebrating 60 Years of Documents” program at ULM:
Guest Charlene Cain, head of Access Services at the LSU Law Library, will speak from 1 – 2 p.m. in the ULM Conference Center. Her lecture is about “The Cornerstone of Democratic Values: The Librarian’s Role in Access to Government Information.”

From 2:15 – 3:15 p.m., also in the ULM Conference Center, guest Lori Smith, Government Documents Department Head at Sims Memorial Library, Southeastern Louisiana University, will give a lecture titled “Government Sources 101: An Introduction to Online Government Publications and Web Sites.”

For more information, contact Dr. Karen Cook at: (318) 342-3043 or at kcook@ulm.edu.

Both the state and federal depository programs constitute a proverbial library within a library—supporting the university students, faculty, administration, and staff, but also providing free community access to government publications. There are approximately 240,000 federal and State of Louisiana publications at the ULM Library.

For more information, contact: (318) 342-1066 or email govdocs@ulm.edu.