Selection practices for Web-based government publications in state depository library programs: Comparing active and passive approaches

This paper describes a comparative case study of the capture and selection practices used to populate electronic depositories of born-digital state government publications. The three case sites illustrate differences in collection building approaches, technological infrastructures, and statutory contexts. The findings reveal two basic modes of selection practices—active selection and passive selection, and three selection models based on the loci of selection control—library selection, liaison selection, and creator selection. Also, the findings suggest the power of defining and selecting government publications for state depositories is shifting from government agencies to state libraries in the active selection model. The authors argue for the need to attend to Web publications in non-traditional formats (e.g., an interactive HTML document) and to include common publications produced for lay citizens (e.g., brochures, fact sheets, FAQs, etc.) in the permanent collections in order to fully document government activities for the historical record.