for the Hearing of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee on the Nomination of Bruce James
to be Public Printer, Government Printing Office
October 3, 2002
The American Library Association and the Special Libraries Association appreciate this opportunity to submit to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee our comments on the role of the Public Printer in access to and dissemination of federal government information. Mr. James will face many challenges of critical importance that will affect how the public will be able to find and use government information. These are discussed below.
As Committee members are keenly aware, the Founders were committed to the principle that public access to government information is a basic right of the American public so that all person can participate in our democracy and hold our government accountable. The Federal Depository Library Program was established more than a hundred and fifty years ago so that our Government could meet its affirmative obligation to efficiently and equitably disseminate and provide broad public no-fee access to its information.
Other government responsibilities include guaranteeing the authenticity and integrity of its information; creating the necessary tools so that government information can be easily located; ensuring that government information remains in the public domain; and guaranteeing its continuous, permanent availability and preservation. There is also a strong Federal responsibility to adequately fund these functions for the public good, for the health and safety of all the public, and the economic well-being of our Nation.
The Federal Depository Library Program
Government information librarians working with and for the American public, rich and poor, young and old, rural and urban, know first-hand the importance and impact that government information has on the health and lives of the American public. The more than 1300 Federal Depository Libraries spread across this great Nation, including public, academic, law, special, federal agency, research and medical libraries, provide access to tremendous amounts of critically and historically important federal government information in all formats and on a wide variety of subjects.
GPO provides federal agencies with an efficient and transparent mechanism to meet Title 44 U.S.C. obligations in keeping the American public informed of federal agency operations, plans, and activities. The integral part of the mechanism is the Federal Depository Library Program. GPO procures and manages the printing contracts for agency publications, facilitating agencies' compliance with Section 501 provisions of Title 44. GPO secures the copies required for depository libraries and distributes these copies to the libraries at no cost to the issuing agency. GPO also catalogs and classifies each publication. This process has proven to be the most cost-effective, efficient, and productive means of information dissemination between federal agencies and the American public. In the highly decentralized world of electronic information, there is a critical need for centrally coordinated library-related services through the Superintendent of Documents. More than thirteen hundred depository libraries individually making arrangements with hundreds of federal agencies for access to government information equals chaos and inequitable service. The government's responsibility to make available to depository libraries government publications in both tangible and electronic formats is successful because of the necessary partnerships developed between the federal government, the GPO, and the Federal Depository libraries.
The FDLP is also an incredible source of historic and archival information. The depository library, located in each Congressional district, provides access to current congressional and federal agency information, and also is an access point and repository for the nation's history. Regional depository libraries in particular, located in almost every state, contain a wealth of historic federal and congressional information. Government information librarians working within these depository libraries maintain these valuable resources are available for all the American public and assure public access to government information.
We strongly believe that the Public Printer, in conjunction with GPO, should continue to take and provide a leadership role in federal agency printing procurement and permanent public access. We hope that Mr. James will continue the Public Printer's role as a staunch advocate of this position.
Fugitive Publications
Documents distributed in paper or microfiche through the FDLP are preserved permanently in the regional depository libraries that serve all states, thereby providing multiple points of permanent public access. Librarians and users continue to be frustrated, however, by having to track down missing or fugitive documents; by the persistent removal of important government resources from the public domain; by agencies that contract with private publishers and fail to supply important government resources to the Superintendent of Documents for distribution to depository libraries; or by agencies that enter into licensing agreements that prevent or curtail the distribution and use of government information. The information becomes inaccessible and thus useless to the American public whose tax dollars have supported its creation. These actions are counter to the principles of public access that we all uphold. They have fiscal implications as well in that they increase the costs to government and to libraries in administering and providing access to government information, and to the public in locating and using government information.
Permanent Public Access in the Electronic Environment
Today Congress, government agencies, and the courts are increasingly using state of the art technologies to create and disseminate more government information through the Internet. Anticipating the need for virtually centralized public access, Congress enacted the GPO Electronic Information Access Act of 1993 (Public Law 103-40) mandating the creation of GPO Access, a central access point within the Government Printing Office (GPO) for electronic government information. Just as the government has an affirmative obligation to provide current access to its information, in the digital arena this obligation extends to ensuring the preservation of and permanent public access to electronic government publications. GPO should continue to foster and to play an important role in federal agency information dissemination practices and permanent public access.
We believe that a system of permanent public access can be accomplished through a comprehensively coordinated program that includes Federal agencies, the Superintendent of Documents, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress and other national libraries, depository libraries, and other library partners. We encourage Mr. James to pursue initiatives already instituted and to advance this process.
Locating, Using and Trusting Government Information
The government's obligation to the public includes creating the necessary finding tools so that government information, in whatever format, can be easily located and used. Numerous studies have concluded what many frustrated users of government information, including librarians, know for a fact-that locating the government data or document one needs is often exceedingly frustrating because "finding tools" are inadequate and not comprehensive. This problem is complicated by the fact that web-based government information that one might have accessed a month or year ago may have disappeared from an agency web site into a black hole. While many agencies do a great job of posting important electronic documents to their web site, there is often no recognition of the value of that information to the public and the need for it to be available for continuous future use and for preservation.
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