Hi, Michael and Hallie -

As a peripheral map person (in case y'all don't know, I worked for Mr. Buffum at the Geography and Map Division of LoC for about two years while I was an undergraduate geography major at GWU); I with the guy from MIT who's worried about old maps disappearing.  In my case, besides old printed paper maps, I'm concerned about the data in Open File Reports which may be missed.  One resource that I use a lot is the Friends of the Pleistocene Field Trip Report on Death Valley National Park.  I've had it in my web bookmarks since I first found it in 2006 thanks to one of the interpretive rangers at Death Valley.  Today I tried to access the link and it's no longer available, at least at the link I've been using, though I sent a query to the folks at USGS asking for the new link (if there is such a thing). 

This is not the only document that I use on a regular basis that was originally developed as an Open File Report; it is simply the most obvious example.

I don't know what I could contribute, but I'd be willing to help if your decision is to broaden the documents that are addressed as a "scholarly protective function", for lack of a better term.  My concern is that, in the case of OFRs, professional geologists and others have put significant work into a lot of these documents and they should be protected as a scholarly resource.

Good luck with this project.

virginia