[WEB4LIB] PDF tax-forms: links or download locally and link

[Peter Jorgensen]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Jerry Kuntz wrote:

> This question is primarily a concern at public libraries, but I'd also like
> to hear if any Web4lib subscribers have views.
> PDF tax form files can be real bandwidth hogs to download, yet are in such
> heavy demand that we have created prominent links to the federal and state
> form sites on our member library web pages. Have any libraries opted to
> alleviate the bandwidth demands by pre-loading  PDF tax  forms on their LAN
> or individual pcs, and creating links to them?

We just have links to the federal and state sites; we do get volumes of 
reproducibles that cover the more commonly needed forms, and that greatly 
reduces the need for downloading from the website.  In previous years, 
we've also had a CD-ROM from the IRS that included just about everything 
on the website, but for whatever reason we didn't get that this year.

Peter Jorgensen
Reference Department, Lincoln City Libraries
Lincoln, Nebraska
peterj at rand.lcl.lib.ne.us