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) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GPO Access: Present and Future Remarks by T.C. Evans Director, Office of Electronic Information Services U.S. Government Printing Office Before the Depository Library Council and Federal Depository Library Conference Arlington, VA Monday, October 21, 2002 Introduction I appreciate the opportunity to update the Depository Library Council and the library community on the current and future state of GPO Access. Hopefully, you have a copy of our printed GPO Access update. It contains a variety of statistical information on GPO Access, as well as what is new and on the horizon. While there are a number of exciting changes on the way for GPO Access, system performance problems continue to frustrate users. Time-outs due to slow system response and other types of errors are far too common, particularly during the busiest hours of the workday. Even successful transactions take far too long on many of the most popular applications. I deeply regret this poor service and I assure you that steps are being taken to remedy the situation both now and for the future. We continue to use the Keynote performance measurement service to track performance from the user perspective in 10 major cities in the United States. Based on results from these measurements, our Production department is working to reconfigure some of the servers and the load balancing equipment to optimize their efficiency, and additional servers are being prepared to provide additional capacity where needed. An effort is also underway to explore options to break up large files wherever possible and to look for more efficient ways to present them for download. One of the methods being examined is to akamaize as many of the static offerings as possible so that they can be delivered through the Akamai content delivery network, which would spread the load out to local servers and lessen the burden on the main GPO Access system. This would potentially ease the load on other resources so that searching would show an improved response time. While these adjustments should help performance in the short run, a new platform to replace the aging WAIS system is essential to resolve our performance problems in the long run. Work on this important effort is well underway and a procurement of the next generation software for GPO Access should begin in the near future. Users should see the initial benefits of the new software by the end of FY 2003. This new XML platform should afford users both enhanced performance and usability. The most popular GPO Access resources will be switched to the new platform first and work will continue until all products and services have been updated. These improvement efforts also include work towards establishing a geographically separate mirror site and backup facility for GPO Access in Pueblo, Colorado. Plans are being finalized and construction on the facility should begin very soon, with backup data storage being the initial goal and progressing to a complete mirror site that shares the load with the systems in Washington as well as providing safe backup. In addition to striving towards better performance, work continues to translate what we learn from our users into more usable GPO Access pages. Many of you have worked along with us on this effort and this hard work is about to pay dividends. The feedback provided through user support contacts, open forums, focus groups, and usability studies has paved the way for a new look and feel for GPO Access. As this process is finalized, you will once again have a chance to play a vital role in the outcome. There will be numerous opportunities during this conference for you to contribute to the new look of GPO Access by providing feedback on what has been done so far. Some of you have been invited to explore specific aspects of the new design in a focus group. Others will contribute in the open forum to be held this afternoon. And for those who cannot participate in either of those sessions, there will be a computer set up out in the Promenade area throughout the conference. EIDS staff will be available to show you what has been done so far and get your suggestions on how to make it even better. I will not be able to give you a precise date for the release of the new pages, because your comments will determine how much more work is needed before they can go live, but we hope to make them available in the very near future. Online Survey Results The analysis of the results from our annual online survey was recently completed and some of the results proved quite interesting. The number of responses received was roughly equivalent to last year, but the configuration of respondents changed a fair amount. There were far fewer depository library responses and an increase in the number of respondents who identified themselves as part of the general public. After learning this, it was not surprising to see the reported usage frequency decline this year. A general decline in the stated use of GPO Access finding aids was reported, including the Catalog of Government Publications and the Sales Product Catalog. The only two that showed increases in the survey were New Electronic Titles and Browse a Topic. Product performance drew the expected poor ratings, with particular emphasis on the problems encountered when using the CFR and FR. As it turned out, the less popular the resource, the better the performance rating it received. On the plus side, ratings for the GPO Access User Support Team rose significantly in the areas of product knowledge, technical knowledge, complaint resolution, courtesy, accessibility, and response time. On the down side, even though the number of responses rating complaint resolution as excellent increased significantly, the number of respondents rating our complaint resolution as poor also went up. I can assure you that we will be working hard to make that number go down in the next survey. The planned procurement of a customer relationship management (CRM) software package in the coming months will go a long way towards accomplishing this, as well as strengthening the areas of support that already receive strong ratings. In addition to supporting the generation of a knowledgebase that can serve to speed the resolution of frequently asked questions, it will also provide a web chat capability so that our support specialists can help users directly from the page they are on in GPO Access. The number of respondents who stated that they found GPO Access through a search engine increased by almost a third over last year. Approximately 30% reported finding us through a search engine compared to about 20% last year. This finding supports our continued efforts to maximize our visibility on major search engines. Search Engine Results We have continued our work on the search engine project, and the just completed 8th evaluation found an overall increase in successful returns. This included gains in Top-5, Top-10, and Top-30 returns, with Top-5 returns increasing to a new high of 26% of the test searches. Some of these Top-5 increases came from interesting players, with Hotbot, iWon, and Alltheweb recording huge increases. AOL showed the most dramatic increase, with its Top-5 returns increasing by more than 300%. Unfortunately, FirstGov fell dramatically, dropping from second ranked search engine in the last evaluation to tenth this time. My staff will work with the FirstGov folks to attempt and reverse this decline. Based on what we have learned from paid keyword positioning for the U.S. Government Online Bookstore, testing a revised plan for promoting both the Online Bookstore and the CFR portions of GPO Access is nearing completion. It builds on what we learned ourselves and through the advice of a consultant to produce a flexible and economical strategy designed to place top bids on a variety of keywords shown to be popular with Internet searchers. Joint effort with STAT-USA My staff has continued working hand-in-hand with STAT-USA to improve the availability and usability of their information products at depository libraries. The use of the STAT-USA module in GPO Access training classes has proven to be a success, and STAT-USA is conducting training sessions of their own using the materials we prepared for inclusion in the GPO Access manual. STAT-USA representatives have also participated in the GPO Access training classes held in Mobile, Alabama and helped out in the GPO Access booth at the Florida EdTech Conference. The cooperative efforts between GPO and STAT-USA have led to an expansion of the partnership to include free depository access to USA Trade Online. EIDS will be incorporating USA Trade Online into existing GPO Access training classes and information on USA Trade Online will be added to the STAT-USA/Internet insert of the GPO Access Training Manual. We have enjoyed the opportunity to team up with STAT-USA to provide public access to and awareness of STAT-USA products. In the future, we hope the partnership between GPO and STAT-USA will make it possible to provide additional public access benefits through the Federal Depository Library Program. New Booth for GPO Access A new booth was acquired for use at trade shows and conferences to promote the products and services of GPO Access, as well as the Federal Depository Library and Sales programs. The new booth debuted at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, along with a new set of flyers to promote the various components of GPO Access. These flyers are available for your use and can be ordered along with the other promotional materials for the FDLP. What’s new on GPO Access There are a number of recent changes to GPO Access that should be mentioned. The most notable are: * A clickable map of the United States is now available for locating Federal depository libraries. * The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (George H.W. Bush, 1992-1993, Vol. 1) is now available. * The new edition of the United States Government Manual (FY2002/2003) is also available. * The May 2002 revision of the Congressional Pictorial Directory is now available on GPO Access. * Two more chapters of the Deschler-Brown Precedents of the United States House of Representatives are available. They are: o Volume 16, Chapter 32 (House Document No. 94-661). o Volume 16, Chapter 33 (House Document No. 94-661). * A listserve for those who wish to be notified of FDLP electronic-only items available for sale is available. It is called GPO-ELSALE-L and there are already 130 subscribers. * Three new Federal Web sites are now hosted on GPO Access: o The United States Capitol Police, < http://www.uscapitolpolice.gov >. o The Millenial Housing Commission, < http://www.mhc.gov >. o Office of Independent Counsel, Donald C. Smaltz - In Re: Secretary of Agriculture Alphonso Michael Espy, < http://www.oic.gov >. What’s on the Horizon 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: * The use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to authenticate the PDF versions of congressional bills will begin at the start of the new Congress (108th). Users with a free software reader will be able to confirm that a bill was approved for submission to GPO by the appropriate congressional authority and that it has not been altered since it was signed. We will post information about the free reader on library community listserves and publish it in Administrative Notes before this takes effect. * A new listserv that will enable subscribers to be notified when a new Public Law is put up on the system should be made available in the near future. * An adult version of Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government is being designed in response to intense user feedback. * Future enhancements for the U.S. Government Online Bookstore include improved online ordering for foreign customers and providing the ability to hand off an order created by a user to another person for approval and/or completion. This is being pursued in direct response to feedback from users who are unable to directly purchase from the U.S. Government Online Bookstore, but must go through others in their organization to make purchases. As you can tell, change is a constant with GPO Access. As its offerings and popularity continue to grow, our efforts to provide the best possible service will make every effort to keep pace. Once again I remind you that your feedback plays a vital role in this development process. Participation in this afternoon’s open forum is an excellent opportunity to add your voice to the process, but a comment or suggestion sent to the GPO Access User Support Team serves well at any time. Thank you, and I look forward to talking with you during the conference.