ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program --------------------------------------------------------------------- July 15, 2000 GP 3.16/3-2:21/10 (Vol. 21, no. 10) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Update on GPO Activities Remarks by Francis J. Buckley, Jr. Superintendent of Documents Before the Federal Documents Task Force Government Documents Round Table American Library Association Saturday, July 8, 2000 Chicago, IL Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here in Chicago on the heels of our nation's 224th birthday. Indeed, 224 years ago today, in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rang out from the tower of Pennsylvania's old State House, calling citizens to hear the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel John Nixon. Four days earlier the historic document had been adopted by the Continental Congress, but the Liberty Bell was not rung until the Declaration of Independence returned from the printer on July 8 - now there's some irony for you! The Declaration of Independence, a government document that remains even today in its original printed format, is available for all to read and see. It is ironic that in this fast-paced age of technology we are not sure that government documents produced today in electronic formats will be accessible or available in another 224 years. The FDLP's Role In a recent depository publication (yes, I do look at and read depository items) from the National Institute for Literacy titled "Equipped for the Future Research Report," there is an interesting analysis of the four purposes for learning. This report is only available in paper by the way. To quote from the report the purposes of learning are for people: * To have access to information and orient themselves to the world; * To give voice to their ideas and opinions and to have the confidence that their voice will be heard and taken into account; * To solve problems and make decisions on their own, acting independently, as a parent, citizen, and worker, for the good of their families, their communities; and their nation; * To be able to keep on learning in order to keep up with a rapidly changing world. (Equipped for the Future Research Report: Building the Framework, 1992-1997 by Juliet Merrifield. March 2000 Y3.L71:2EQ5/4) The Equipped for the Future project objective is to identify what adults need to know and be able to do to fulfill their roles as parents, citizens, and workers, as key roles for public policy. The citizen role is described as taking action to make a difference in terms of voting and participation in the democratic process as well as local steps such as taking part in a community clean-up or volunteering in schools. The areas of responsibility in the citizen role are to: * Become and stay informed * Form and express opinions and ideas * Work Together * Take action to strengthen communities By now I'm sure you can see where I'm headed. As we've said repeatedly, equal, ready, access to government information is a basic necessity for people to participate in our democratic society, as well as to enrich their lives by using the vast range of information collected, compiled, or produced by the Federal Government at taxpayer expense for education, business, or personal interests. Although I'm preaching to the choir here, I wanted to emphasize that fulfilling the basic needs of the public for access to Federal Government information is the objective of GPO and the Superintendent of Documents Programs. In fact, our cataloging and indexing, depository library and GPO Access legislative mandates require that we do so. Funding Issues But to accomplish our mission, we must have adequate resources. This year the FY 2001 appropriations process has involved us all in extensive discussions and debate over the Salaries and Expenses appropriation that funds the FDLP, the Cataloging and Indexing Program, the International Exchange Service (IES), and the By Law Distribution Program. Although I presume, and hope that you have all been following our appropriations process closely, I'd like to briefly review what has happened thus far. As a result of budget resolutions limiting expenditures to save money for social security and tax cuts, and directing over half the remaining discretionary funds for defense, the House allocation for the Legislative Branch was lower, much lower, than the current year's appropriation. We had asked for an increase in the S&E appropriation from $29.9 to $34.5 million to continue our transition for the FDLP to a more electronic program (over half the items now being distributed are online), to hire additional catalogers, and additional staff to bring resources onto GPO Access, as well as to provide for other program expenses reflective of the growing demands due to the high rates of use of our programs. However, as I am sure you are aware, in order to stay within the budget allocation, the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee reported a bill (HR 4516) cutting the S&E by over 60% to $11.6 million, providing funds only for the cataloging and indexing program and GPO Access and effectively closing down the remaining operations. The GPO's Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation was cut by nearly $8 million. In particular, the committee cut funds for the administration of the FDLP, distribution of materials in tangible media, the IES and the By Law Distribution, with the philosophy that all government information was online, or soon would be! In H. Report 106-635, the committee also proposed the transfer of Superintendent of Documents functions to the Library of Congress and directed the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to initiate a study of how such a transfer might be accomplished. (As an aside, two such previous studies have not recommended this action.) In addition, the committee did not provide funding for publication of the U.S. Code, Our Flag, the Congressional Directory, Serial Sets, and other publications "not absolutely essential to the day-to-day operations and legislative activities of the House and Senate" (their words, not ours.) By contrast, the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, working within a higher budget allocation, proposed essentially level funding for the S&E appropriation. The $30.3 million they recommended is just about $300,000 over the current year, not nearly enough to cover all of our anticipated $900,000 in price increases and contractually required wage increases in FY 2001. In late June, the full House voted on the Legislative Branch appropriations and approved an amendment restoring $13.6 million to the S&E for distribution of documents only in physical form and nearly $500,000 for January 2001 cost of living (COLA) increases. In addition, they restored $1.6 million for the Congressional Printing and Binding COLAs, $1.7 million for printing Inaugural materials, telephone directories and miscellaneous publications, $130,000 for treaties and international agreements and $728,000 for the Congressional Directory. They did not provide funds for dual distribution of any online titles, for the International Exchange Service Program (IES), By Law Distribution, or printing of the U.S. Code. We understand the Senate is working on a package of amendments to the House bill to reflect their funding proposal. Once that is passed, both bills will be referred to a conference committee. Mr. DiMario has already sent a detailed letter to the potential conferees urging adoption of the Senate figures and a number of other items, which Larry Romans posted on GOVDOC-L last week. Time is passing rapidly. Congress will only be in session until late July. They will then take an "August recess" and will not be back until after Labor Day. We may not see a resolution to this process until September, the last month of the fiscal year, unless, of course, there is an impasse and we have to operate under continuing resolutions at the beginning of the next fiscal year. The amendment to the House bill restoring funds for the S&E appropriations is due in large measure to constituent concerns about the abrupt transition to a completely online program and the elimination of tangible products from the program, many of which are not online. ALA, AALL, ARL, NCLIS, and other organizations, depository libraries and depository librarians, and public interest groups have been weighing in on these issues. On behalf of Mr. DiMario and the Government Printing Office, I want to thank you, members of the library community, for your staunch support for the FDLP as our funding was threatened. Indeed, it was librarians who have helped to protect the core of the depository program. In fact, the June 21 issue of Roll Call reported: "The extra money [in the House bill] represents a partial victory for advocates of the Federal Depository Library Program, which catalogs and indexes government publications and distributes copies of the U.S. Code to 1,337 libraries around the country. The House's original GPO budget eviscerated the program, with some Republican appropriators arguing that it was not necessary, now that the GPO puts so much information online. But after a lobbying campaign that included letters to lawmakers from groups such as the American Association of Law Libraries, some of the funding for the FDLP has been restored. An aide involved in the negotiations said the extra money will be enough for the GPO to continue to distribute paper copies of publications that are not put online. But the agency will no longer be able to print items that are already on its Web site." The FDLP and other Superintendent of Documents programs are your programs. We welcome your advice, comments, suggestions, and participation. We appreciate that you are active citizens, speaking out to us and to your legislators to get what you want. Gil Baldwin will have more to say about the program changes we are making and those we are considering in order to live within our appropriations this year and next. In the time remaining, I would like to talk briefly about a few other concerns. Sales Program I know that many of you here this morning are not only constituents of the FDLP, but are also customers of GPO's Sales Program. As I have mentioned to you on other occasions, the Sales Program is continuing to lose money. We are putting in place a number of cost-cutting measures, but in order to make up some of the deficits we are facing, we will be implementing a general price increase in the next few months. We continue to place more titles with dot.com booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble and are seeing some benefits from this arrangement. In talking to you, those who buy our wares or who have users who do, I want to tell you that we are looking at our order processing and ways in which to improve customer service issues. Indeed, all current trends point towards the fact that our customers want to be able to quickly and easily search for, locate, and order Federal Government publications. We are investigating ways to facilitate these needs by improving the ability of customers to find exactly what they are looking for at the U.S. Government Online Bookstore. Also, we are working on integrating ordering capabilities with GPO Access online "publications" that have purchasable counterparts. Most importantly, we want to take steps to process customer orders as quickly as possible. T.C. Evans will provide you with more details about these improvements in his speech later this morning. In addition, T.C. will report on a number of other electronic initiatives in government. But I would like to comment on the recent announcement of a new firstgov.gov web portal to Federal Government online information. This project is based on a voluntary proposal from Eric Brewer, co-founder of Inktomi, to develop a free search service covering all Federal web pages. He is working with the President's Management Council, the Chief Information Officers Council, GSA, and NPR, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. It is part of the initiative to develop e-government. It would initially be run by a non-profit organization currently being established. After it has been operational for a couple of years, Mr. Brewer proposed to turn it over to the government to run. Permanent Public Access I have mentioned previously that GPO has been hosting meetings of participants representing U.S. Federal agencies, the national libraries, Congressional committees, public interest groups, and other organizations interested in issues regarding the preservation of, and access to, Government information published electronically. We are now holding quarterly meetings. In March staff from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) gave a presentation about their Electronic Records Archives Program Building the Archives of the Future. George Barnum and Steve Kerchoff from the Library Programs Service provided an update on the implementation of GPO's Electronic Collection Plan and our nascent digital archive. There were some new faces at the June roundtable meeting, which brought some new perspectives to the discussion. It also helps to have a mix of people from both within and outside of the government including Daniel Greenstein, of the Digital Library Future Federation. I was pleased that John Stevenson, an incoming member of the Depository Library Council, was able to attend the meeting on June 19. John will be monitoring permanent public access issues for the council, so I am sure he will continue to participate (when he can) in these discussions. Staff from the Library Programs Service and the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS), in conjunction with our Production Department, have set up a public website on GPO Access that includes information about the group and its members, its goals, and links to resources relevant to the topic. I hope you will take a look at the site, which can be found at www.gpo.gov/ppa. I believe that the activities related to these permanent public access meetings and creation of the website will put GPO on the map as a leader in this area. Depository Library Council I know that Maggie Farrell, incoming chair of the Depository Library Council to the Public Printer, will be talking with you about the successful council meeting that was held in Newport, RI this past April. The Council put forth a number of recommendations which members of my staff will be responding to in the coming months. I know that Maggie will discuss those recommendations and related activities with you. FDLP staff is preparing for the big Federal Depository Conference and Fall Council meeting that will be held October 22-25 at a familiar spot to many of you, the Westpark, now a Holiday Inn, in Rosslyn, VA. We expect another great turnout for this meeting and as usual, there is a terrific line-up of speakers in addition to the council meeting. Conclusion Let me conclude by recognizing another recent GOVDOC-L posting, this one from Melody Kelly from the University of North Texas, noting that the Depository Program has historical antecedents going back to the Declaration of Independence: "Did you know that (the) mission of our Depository Libraries is connected to one of the charges made against King George III in the Declaration of Independence? As I listened to the annual July 4th NPR reading of the Declaration yesterday on "Morning Edition," the word "Depository" caught my attention. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world... He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures... Ms. Kelly went on to say: "Of course the Founders were thinking of ready access to public records for the legislative representatives themselves, but I believe a case could be made that permanent, convenient access to public records for all citizens was the intent. After all the placement of congressional materials in local libraries began in 1813. As the current Congress considers GPO budget cuts and rushes to embrace the Internet without making adequate provision for the publishing, distribution, and preservation of their own legislative materials, we should remind them that the Revolution was fought to ensure ready access to essential public records of governmental activities." All I can add to that is "well said," and thank you for this opportunity to speak with you this morning.