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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 15, 2002 GP 3.16/3-2:23/14 (Vol. 23, no. 14) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Superintendent of Documents’ Perspective Remarks by Francis J. Buckley, Jr. Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office Before the Depository Library Council and Federal Depository Library Conference Arlington, VA Monday, October 21, 2002 Introduction Good morning, and welcome! These open meetings of the Depository Library Council and Federal Depository Library Conference are opportunities for participants in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and users of government information to give us advice, recommendations, and suggestions for the administration of the program. It’s your opportunity for input and interaction with Government Printing Office (GPO) staff and many agency representatives participating in the conference. We hope you make the most of it and we welcome your comments. Status of the Program First of all, I would like to say that the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) is healthy and dynamic. Currently, there are 1296 libraries in the depository program. Last year we saw 19 libraries withdraw from the program for various reasons, and two libraries joined. You all can attest to the volume of use of the program in your libraries, as well as attest to the importance of that access to your users. New titles continue to be added to the program, in both tangible and electronic formats. In FY 2002, GPO distributed nearly 5 million copies of over 14,000 tangible products in print, microform, and CD-ROM formats to depository libraries. In addition, virtually every depository library and everyone with Internet capability also has access to the vast range of information made available online via GPO Access. In FY 2002, over 10,000 online titles and about another 10,000 links to agency titles were added to GPO Access, for a total of over 20,000 new online titles that year alone. As of September 2002, the GPO Access Web site provided access to more than 140,000 titles on GPO servers and over 91,000 additional titles through links to other Federal agency Web sites. GPO Access averaged close to 31 million document retrievals per month last year, for a total of approximately 372 million document retrievals in FY 2002. Since 1994, GPO Access retrievals have exceeded 1.5 billion. This is equivalent to over 36 billion typewritten pages. This is also an extremely cost effective service; we estimate the cost of delivering these electronic resources in FY 2002 averaged less than 1¢ per retrieval. Campaign to Promote the FDLP Now Underway As many of you already know, GPO has produced a new marketing plan featuring the theme "U.S. Government Information: Make the Connection at a Federal Depository Library." GPO’s efforts, while aimed primarily at the various constituencies in the library community (administrators, reference staff, and bibliographers), also are intended to reach out to the faculty, business, students, government, and the general public. In addition to developing new marketing materials for librarians to use, GPO is taking an active role in promoting the FDLP. We have contracted with the North American Precis Syndicate (NAPS) to provide information about the FDLP to daily and weekly newspapers and radio stations across the country. One- and two-column filler pieces and a radio spot were developed for distribution to these media outlets as Public Service Announcements. With the campaign still in its early stages, the pieces have already seen much use by the media with a wide-range of audiences. As of October 8, the radio spot has been broadcast at least 265 times on 162 radio stations in 46 different states, which cumulatively serve 4,623,720 listeners. During the same time frame, the one-column ad that uses the new campaign graphic has generated 308 known newspaper articles in 22 different states with a readership of 11,620,272. There is an online order form on the FDLP Desktop Web site so depository librarians can order copies of marketing materials to help them promote their collections. In addition to reprints of the PSA articles, we have also produced a poster, a bookmark, and a brochure, all with the theme "U.S. Government Information: Make the Connection at a Federal Depository Library." All of these can be ordered at no cost via the online order form, and already we have had a terrific response from depository librarians. Information Security Concerns As you know, the challenge for our program for many years has been to be as inclusive as possible, to identify public interest materials produced through GPO or agency publishing channels, to provide bibliographic control for the materials, and to provide the publications to depository libraries for public access. Post 9-11 that mission has not changed, but agency sensitivity to what should be distributed to the public has been heightened. As a result of concerns about information security, as well as concerns regarding implementation of the new data quality guidelines, we have heard that agencies are publishing less and posting less on their own websites, but we have no way to quantify that yet. We have had no new requests to withdraw publications from the Depository Library Program. The Office of Management and Budget is apparently continuing to work on proposals in regard to sensitive but unclassified information. In another aspect of information security, as well as to improve performance, GPO is establishing a geographically separate mirror site and backup facility for GPO Access in Pueblo, Colorado. All of the data associated with GPO Access is currently backed up on equipment located in Washington, DC. Beginning with the most frequently used GPO Access resources, GPO will steadily add to the resources and data at this facility until it is a complete mirror site for GPO Access. This will include the portion of the FDLP Electronic Collection Archive maintained by GPO. T.C. Evans will speak to this process in more detail shortly. Documents Sales Service (DSS) I want to make a few comments about our other major information dissemination program - the Document Sales Service (DSS). The sales program currently offers approximately 10,000 U.S. Government publications on a wide array of subjects for sale to the public. These are sold by mail, telephone, fax, electronic and e-mail orders, as well as through GPO Bookstores across the country. We also list our titles on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other online commercial bookselling sites. The program operates on a cost-recovery basis with no appropriated funds. Consumer-oriented publications are also either sold or distributed at no charge through the Consumer Information Center, in Pueblo, Colorado, which we operate on behalf of the General Services Administration. In recent years, the volume of sales through GPO’s sales of publications program has been declining. The free availability of publications on GPO Access and other Government web sites has been the primary reason for this decline, although the reduction in the number of general interest publications produced by agencies as well as competition from other Government publications sales outlets has contributed to it. Various cost reduction measures have been undertaken including staff reduction through attrition, space consolidation, and reducing inventory. Prices have been increased and an ongoing effort is being made to identify and close GPO bookstores not able to recover their operating expenses. As a result, bookstores in San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Birmingham and one of the two stores in Washington, D.C. were closed. We are in the process of closing the bookstores in Cleveland and Columbus. Conclusion In the development of the FDLP and our distribution programs, we have seen many milestones and many changes. For more than 150 years GPO has assured the public’s right-to-know. Through our tangible distribution programs and our (relatively) new electronic information dissemination component, GPO now delivers more content to users than ever before. The FDLP and other Superintendent of Documents programs, together with the help of depository libraries and librarians, will continue to provide the public with access to official, public Government information. I want to thank all of you for being here today and I look forward to talking to many of you individually. Please enjoy the conference!