ML23352A285
| ML23352A285 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/15/2023 |
| From: | Stephanie Blaney NRC/OCIO/GEMSD/FLICB |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML23352A285 (6) | |
Text
December 15, 2023 MEMORANDUM TO:
File FROM:
Stephanie Blaney, Branch Chief
/RA/
FOIA, Library, and Information Collections Branch Data, Information Management, and Enterprise Governance Division Office of the Chief Information Officer
SUBJECT:
ADAMS PUBLIC USER GROUP MEETING MINUTES, NOVEMBER 14, 2023 This memorandum accompanies a summary of the 39th meeting of the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) User Group. This public meeting took place virtually on Tuesday, November 14, 2023, through the Public Document Room of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Enclosures:
- 1. ADAMS User Group Meeting Summary
- 2. Meeting Announcement: ML23286A103 CONTACT: Anne Goel, OCIO/DIMED/FLICB/LT (301) 415-2819
2 Tuesday, November 14, 2023 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
Microsoft Teams Web Meeting Agenda for Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) User Group Meeting #39
- 1. Welcome
- 2. Overview of Public Document Room services
- 3. ADAMS How-To instructional videos
- 4. Removal of some digitized documents previously available to the public
- 5. ADAMS and Public Document Room downtime notices
- 6. Questions from the user group
- 7. Adjournment Next Meeting: Autumn 2024
3 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Meeting Summary
Title:
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) User Group Meeting Meeting Identifier: ML23286A103 Date of Meeting: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Location: Microsoft Teams Web Conference Type of Meeting: Category 3 Purpose of the Meeting(s): To provide updates on ADAMS and answer questions from public ADAMS users.
Welcome and General Details:
Anne Goel of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) welcomed everyone and asked for people to introduce themselves in the chat, if comfortable. She introduced herself and asked other members of the Library Team to do so as well.
In addition to the Library Team, attendees included approximately 5 NRC employees and 33 members of the public, representing a variety of organizations.
Ms. Goel explained that although the ADAMS User Group had not met since November 2022, everyone is welcome to send questions to the Public Document Room (PDR) staff at any time.
She referred attendees to the displayed slide containing the phone number, email address, and website for the PDR. She also explained that the PDR is open for in-person visits by appointment. Users may contact the PDR by email at PDR.Resource@nrc.gov or by phone at 301-415-4737 or 1-800-397-4209 as well as by filling out the web contact form at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/contact-pdr.html.
She then displayed the agenda for the meeting.
Removal from Web-Based ADAMS of Some Digitized Documents Previously Available Publicly:
Ms. Goel introduced one new topic for discussion. The NRC had to remove documents from Web-Based ADAMS (WBA) that had been marked as publicly available in the WBA Legacy Library and were subsequently made publicly available when digitized during the recent digitization project. However, about 1 year ago, it was discovered that some of these documents contained personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive unclassified non safeguards information (SUNSI). This constituted a spill and, subsequently, about 800,000 documents had to be pulled back and made non-publicly available. Members of the public may notice that some Legacy Library documents previously available publicly are no longer so.
4 Researchers can contact the PDR for assistance in finding and confirming the availability of documents. The most effective way to have them made available in the WBA Public Library is to request a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) review of each document.
ADAMS and Public Document Room Downtime Notices and ADAMS How-To Instructional Videos:
The PDR staff shared that sometimes WBA is unavailable because of maintenance, or the PDR may periodically be closed. Ms. Goel demonstrated how users can find notifications about such problems or closures on the NRC website. Announcements can be found on https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under Notice to ADAMS Users. She also demonstrated the links to WBA from that web page as well as the link (about halfway down the page) to videos demonstrating various ADAMS searches (ADAMS How-To Video Series). She pointed out the ADAMS Legacy Digitized Document Search video, which provides useful information to check whether a Legacy Library document has been digitized. The search provides a kind of crosswalk between Public Legacy Library records and Public (Main) Library documents that have been digitized and are publicly available.
Questions from the ADAMS User Group Attendees:
The PDR staff received one question by email for the meeting regarding the withholding of proprietary information within documents. Right now, the nonproprietary document that is released after redaction contains only blank spaces. The requester wanted to know whether information about how much information has been redacted can be added within that space (e.g., two paragraphs have been redacted). The PDR staff forwarded the question to the appropriate office for consideration.
The meeting was then opened for questions from the participants either by discussion or in Teams chat:
Question in Teams chat: For the 800K documents removed, is there a way to access the list? The answer is no, there is no list. Ms. Goel explained general guidelines, including one in which the NRC is the authoring body. For example, if the document is marked public in the WBA Legacy Library but is not available in the WBA Public (Main)
Library and the NRC is the authoring body, it may be one of the documents that had been withdrawn. Sardar Zuberi (PDR staff) stated that the citation is still in the WBA Legacy Library, so searches for pre-1999 documents can still be made in the Legacy Library, and queries will result in a list of documents that are all stored on microfiche.
Researchers can then contact the PDR to determine availability.
A participant stated that the WBA Legacy Library provides information about documents pertaining to nuclear reactors and uranium mills; for instance, there is a docket for the White Mesa Uranium Mill, which was licensed in 1979 by the NRC. Currently, when this participant conducts research, there is a gap in the document results list pertaining to White Mesa Uranium Mill between the years 1981 to 1997. She knows a lot of the White Mesa documents were not written by the NRC but were authored, for instance, by the licensee. As a result, she believes a lot of documents in addition to those authored by the NRC have been removed. She stated she will take heed of the need to submit a FOIA request so the document(s) can be placed in the WBA Public Library because that information about uranium mills is important to communities. Ms. Zuberi responded that not everything has been digitized yet and the requester can send an email to the PDR so
5 the PDR staff can do the research about the document(s). If the document is on docket microfiche, the staff can physically look at it. The participant also mentioned that she has Bibliographic Retrieval System printouts listing publicly available uranium mill docket documents. She checked the docket in the WBA Public Library a while back, and fewer documents are available now than before. Ms. Goel explained that, in the case of the NUDOCS documents, most of those documents have been digitized, but even before the PII/sensitive information spill, six document types were being withheld from public availability due to the need for an updated SUNSI review. These documents include final safety analysis reports, updated final safety analysis reports, fire protection plans, emergency plans, emergency plan implementing procedures, and emergency plan and postexercise evaluations (Federal Emergency Management Agency evaluation). If the participant has a list of documents that were previously publicly available, Ms. Goel asked her to please send the list to the PDR staff. Grace Canty (NRC/OCIO) added in the Teams chat the categories of other types of documents removed: Registry of Sealed Source Device, material licenses, and documents not routinely released to the public and requiring a SUNSI review (e.g., dockets 30, 40, 70). Ms. Goel reiterated that this final category includes documents that may have been immediately released as publicly available in the past but that now first require a SUNSI review.
Another participant asked in the Teams chat if there are any changes or updates anticipated for the ADAMS API. The question was addressed by Roy Choudhury (NRC/OCIO), who said that a cognitive search for internal Public (Main) Library documents was successfully deployed, and the search retrieves an accurate number of documents. There is a discussion of whether the application programming interface (API) should be updated or whether the cognitive search should be integrated into the WBA Public Library, or both. The NRC is aware that WBA is old and has some issues indexing from time to time, though no updates have occurred as of now. The participant asked that if there is any new functionality, the agency should post a notification because the participant has built from the current API and things will break if any changes take place.
Ms. Goel read a question posted in Teams chat: So in searching the Legacy library, you are just searching titles, correct? She responded that WBA Legacy Library searches include all metadata (all indexed fields), but they do not search the body of a document.
Ms. Zuberi stated that users can search as a keyword or as title contains.
Another participant followed up with a question about document properties. He tries to find groups of documents and sometimes sees the Case Reference number and Keyword entries in the documents properties. He asked about the logic as to when a Case Reference number is applied. Ms. Goel replied that the keyword for the Public (Main) Library is more for internal use, though it is displayed in the public WBA interface and that a Case Reference number is used in specific instances. She asked Ms. Canty to respond as well. Ms. Canty stated the Case Reference number can be used to populate document identifiers as some licensees may have their own identifier for their documents. She gave the example of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Also, in some cases, the report number is not included with the submission of a NUREG or report, but the number is referenced within the document itself. In that case, the report number is placed in the Case Reference number field. The participant summarized the discussion as indicating that the number is supplied by the submitter. Ms. Canty stated that the number is not just from the submitter; it can also be applied by the NRC during the indexing process. It is used to capture information that is useful for a search. Ms. Zuberi
6 said to right-click on the document result to get the information. Ms. Goel said that the Case Reference number can be similar to the Document Report number and that she sometimes does not know which field to search, but, referencing Ms. Cantys answer, perhaps in those cases it is in the Case Reference field when the report number is only referenced in the document but is not actually assigned to that document.
Adjournment:
As there were no more questions from online participants either in the Teams chat or through the meeting audio, Ms. Goel displayed the slide with the PDRs contact information and reiterated that people should not hesitate to contact the PDR with any questions.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:28 p.m.