F e d e r a l D e p o s i t o r y L i b r a r y P r o g r a m ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program [ PDF version ] [ Back Issues ] --------------------------------------------------------------------- May 1, 2001 GP 3.16/3-2:22/07 (Vol. 22, no. 07) --------------------------------------------------------------------- GPO Access Update Remarks by T.C. Evans Director, Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Depository Library Council Meeting San Antonio, TX April 2, 2001 Introduction I appreciate the opportunity to update the Depository Library Council and the library community on the current and future state of GPO Access. The good people back at GPO who make it all happen have been hard at work, so there is plenty to report. As always, I tip my hat to their efforts to keep this ever-growing colossus moving forward. Hopefully, you have a copy of our GPO Access update [see p. 23]. It contains size and usage numbers, as well as what is new and on the horizon. Size GPO Access continues to grow, with almost 1,900 official government databases offered through some 80 applications. At this time, approximately 203,000 electronic titles are available through the FDLP Electronic Collection, with 119,000 titles on GPO servers and almost 84,000 titles linked to from GPO Access. Usage GPO Access usage continues to amaze, with recent months bringing us to some significant milestones. The more than 26 million retrievals in October propelled total usage of GPO Access to over 1 billion documents retrieved since the service premiered in 1994. January produced the highest total to date, with more than 32 million documents downloaded. It will be interesting to watch these totals in upcoming months, particularly as the implementation of our new contract with the Akamai content delivery network progresses. The improved response time, particularly for downloading large files, should enable users to more successfully retrieve documents as more and more GPO Access applications become "akamaized." Yes, you heard correctly. The process of "akamaizing" the site refers to the work necessary to deliver files through the Akamai network of more than 8,500 servers geographically dispersed around the world when a user clicks on a link on a GPO Access page, including search results. Simply put, this allows us to dramatically spread the load for delivering requested files and makes it likely that a user is downloading a file from a server located near them rather than all the way from Washington, D.C. As an example, let me describe the difference this would make in delivering the Supreme Court decision on the election. Instead of the millions of users all trying to download the file from GPO servers at the same time, a maximum of 8,500 requests would arrive at GPO from the Akamai servers, who would then serve up the files to users in their areas when those users clicked on that link on the Supreme Court Web site. Akamai servers first check to see if they have the file in cache, and if not, look in their region and beyond in expanding arcs until coming to GPO as a last resort. Once they initially pull the file from GPO, it is held in cache on the local server to handle requests from users for a period of time established by GPO. This process began with the Supreme Court Web site hosted on GPO Access and the daily table of contents to the Federal Register. Our Production department will be working to carry this work to other GPO Access applications as soon as possible, based on priorities we have provided that are based on usage popularity. While we believe that this will serve to reduce most of the problems being experienced by users, we will continue to strive towards other improvements that will benefit our users. This includes a geographically separate mirror site under development at the GPO regional facility in Denver, Colorado. Work has begun to expand the available bandwidth at the facility and the specs for the necessary hardware and software are being drawn up so that they may be procured and put in place. We have developed a plan for migrating copies of the databases that matches the popularity of the databases at the main GPO Access site. When complete, this site will provide backup in the event that the main GPO Access site cannot be reached and could be brought in play to relieve use burdens in times of heavy demand for popular information. We are also actively engaged in expanding our ability to measure the performance of the GPO Access system from the user's perspective. Two different tracks will be pursued concurrently. The first track involves a contract with the Keynote performance measurement service. This contract will provide information on the performance of the system as it would be experienced by users who are both geographically and technologically diverse. The initial focus will be on 12 of the most popular applications on GPO Access. In addition to measuring the basics such as page load times, it will also measure performance of transactions such as searches and file downloads. The second track will rely on volunteers from our user communities to act as our eyes and ears to test system performance. For our initial examination, my staff has developed a short set of exercises to be performed by volunteer users in relation to the degree of improvement realized through our new relationship with the Akamai content delivery network. Users will record the results and pass them through e-mail to Selene Dalecky for aggregation and analysis. Copies of these exercises are available as a handout in the back of the room. I urge you to take a few minutes and help us with this important task. For those of you who can volunteer to help us for a few minutes each month, a new set of exercises will be sent out each month to get an accurate assessment of key issues at that time. In both cases, we need volunteers from all areas of the country and with all kinds of technology. I assure you that we will limit the size of the tasks to something that will not be overly intrusive on your valuable time, but that will provide us with data of great significance. Referrals to GPO Access from Other Web Sites We have begun monitoring the number of referrals to GPO Access from other Web sites. This is accomplished through the use of referral logs that record the host domain from which a referred user was directed to one of the pages on GPO Access. It has been most gratifying to see just how many referrals occur in the short time we have been analyzing these logs, as well as the broad array of sites who direct users to us. Part of our referral review has been to track the number of times users are referred to us from depository Web sites. While some have remained remarkably consistent, it has been interesting to speculate on the vacillation of others. During the first four months of measurement we have recorded referrals from 660 of the 796 registered depository sites and we hope to see referrals from the rest as we move forward in time. Part of the impetus for reviewing referral logs came from a request to determine how many referrals we have been receiving from FirstGov. In the first two months, their totals represented about one half of one percent of the total referrals received. The third month declined to about one quarter of one percent and the total declined further in the fourth month, falling to just over three one hundredths of one percent. My staff is in the process of completing an update of an analysis first conducted when FirstGov premiered to see how well their site directs users to the products and services of GPO Access. The primary goal of these analyses is to provide a basis for working with the developers of FirstGov to ensure that their coverage of the resources of GPO Access is maximized. I have recently spoken with the director of FirstGov, who expressed great interest in seeing our analysis and in working with us to help users discover GPO Access. What's new on GPO Access There are a number of recent changes to GPO Access that should be mentioned. The most notable are: * The new Davis-Bacon Wage Determination site. This site provides free access to wage determinations issued by the U.S. Department of Labor under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor determines prevailing wage rates to be paid on Federally funded or assisted construction projects. * A summary of the President's budget plan titled "A Blueprint for New Beginnings - A Responsible Budget for America's Priorities" * My staff has recently completed the Third Edition of the GPO Access Legislative Resources Comparison Report. I would also like to pass along a word of thanks to Mary Alice Baish of AALL and Suzanne Campbell in the GPO Law Library for their excellent assistance in this effort. The report compares the congressional and other legislative branch information available on GPO Access with data available on other government and non-government Web sites. I am pleased to report that GPO Access continues to excel among the compared sites, providing access to 19 of the 22 legislative resources measured. All versions of the Legislative Comparison Report are available on the Federal Bulletin Board. What's on the Horizon for GPO Access As always, work is under way to add more content to GPO Access and to refine access to the materials already provided. Some key examples of current efforts are: * An eCFR application, which will be updated daily as opposed to the current quarterly updated Code of Federal Regulations application, should be fully available by summer. * As a result of the development of the free eCFR application, the Sales program is developing a new e-mail subscription service. Customers will be able to purchase subscriptions that will allow them to be notified via e-mail of any changes in one or more CFR titles and/or parts, as they are published in the Federal Register. * We will be conducting the first Ben's Guide focus group on May 9, 2001 in Long Island, New York. The focus group is being offered in conjunction with a speech at the Long Island Library Conference. We will be meeting with students from local schools in an attempt to gain feedback about Ben's Guide from a student's perspective. Currently, classes from grades K-2 and 3-5 have volunteered to participate. Efforts to gather input from grades 6-8 and 9-12 as well as a parent, teacher, and librarian perspectives are still being explored. * We are also undertaking an examination of Section 508 of the Workforce Investment Act, which is meant to increase accessibility for the disabled in the workplace, to determine how it might apply to GPO Access Web pages. In particular, we are looking at how the sixteen Section 508 standards increase accessibility, and how each of these standards might be applied to the GPO Access Web site and its hosted sites to make them more accessible. * We are constantly looking for valuable feedback to improve the usability of GPO Access. A number of methods are used for this purpose, including focus groups, online surveys, and of course, questions and comments received by the GPO Access User Support Team on a daily basis. In addition to these mechanisms, we have started doing usability testing at a usability-testing lab at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington DC, in order to get immediate feedback on how users find government information on GPO Access. This will provide us with another measure of the effectiveness and efficiency of our site, as well as the satisfaction of users. One of the interesting things learned in the first series of tests involved ways in which users utilize our site contents page, which should lead to some significant improvements on that important resource. If you are interested in participating in future usability studies for GPO Access, or hosting them at your institution, please contact us. The contact information is in the handout. Authentication/PKI Another topic that has been of great interest during the electronic transition is authentication of the electronic versions of official print publications. This is particularly true when the decision is made to rely solely on that electronic version and cease the dual distribution in paper. We are working towards utilizing Public Key Infrastructure, or PKI, to ensure non-repudiation evidence that the file retrieved by the user from GPO Access was created by the appropriate authority and that it has not been altered since it was created. In accordance with Section 706 of Title 44 USC, GPO produces the official print versions of Congressional Bills. These printed versions of these important instruments are universally accepted as such. By establishing PKI certificate authority for those responsible for producing both these printed copies and the exact duplicate electronic versions, GPO can provide evidence to the user that the electronic version was created as part of the official process. In addition to this validation, the user of these authenticated files will be able to easily ascertain that this official file has not been altered since its creation, as well as when it was signed by the creating authority. This will be accomplished through the use of a free reader installed on users' machines that works in conjunction with their Web browsers and helper applications such as the ADOBE Acrobat Reader. The law also validates the use of digital signatures. In section 101 of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (Public Law 106-226), it states "a signature, contract, or other record relating to such transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form." GPO will embark on this important effort with diligent speed, but the size and complexity of this project should not be underestimated. In an article in the February 2001 issue of Imaging and Document Solutions Magazine, Jim Minihan stated "The legislation largely puts to rest the issue of the acceptance of electronic documents." He went on to say, however, "Be advised that building a PKI is an enormous undertaking, especially if unrelated third parties will rely on the signatures." This is certainly the case with Congressional Bills and all of the official Federal documents made available through GPO Access, so GPO will be careful to take sufficient time to do it right. While neither this action, nor anything else that GPO can do will force acceptance of electronic versions by outside parties, it is the most positive means of guaranteeing that the user has received the same official text that appeared in the print version. Hopefully, in conjunction with the recently passed law, it will help foster the acceptance of the electronic version in official matters. Search Engine Project Our ongoing effort to improve the accessibility of GPO Access resources through popular search engines continues. Unfortunately, despite our efforts, performance has continued to decline. The evidence suggests that much of the decline can be attributed to the growing trend towards various methods of paid positioning. Because of our commitment to achieving the best possible results for searchers whose needs could be met by the resources of GPO Access, we are in the process of testing some of these methods. These tests will initially focus on the U.S. Government Online Bookstore portion of GPO Access, the results will be studied, and a decision will be made regarding how to proceed in terms of the rest of the site. All of our reports from this project are available on the Federal Bulletin Board. I would like to note in closing that a look at the eCFR application has been added to the topics for the GPO Access open forum on Tuesday. Thank you for your attention and I look forward to discussing your ideas for a better GPO Access during the conference.