ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program Vol. 18, no. 05 GP 3.16/3-2:18/05 March 15, 1997 The Electronic Transition - A Progress Report Remarks by Gil Baldwin Chief, Library Division, Library Programs Service U.S. Government Printing Office GODORT Federal Documents Task Force American Library Association Midwinter Meeting Saturday, February 15, 1997 Washington, DC Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Washington in February, where we've been known to commemorate President's Day with some truly monumental snowfalls. This morning I want to review the progress of the transition to a more electronic FDLP, and how we see things now that we're about a year into the transition. We now have some practical experience behind us, and we can look at things from a vantage point in the midst of a transition period. In the midst of all these changes, I'm coming at this as a series of impressions; glances out of the rear view mirror as we hit that information highway. A critical observation has to do with the uneven pace of change. Our situation is often "two steps forward, one step back." The enormous strides in electronic technologies have forever changed how Government information is compiled, disseminated, located, and used, and how we do business in our libraries, but the information policy area has lagged behind. Every day we are encountering situations in which the current statutes and regulations, and especially how they are interpreted and enforced, need to evolve to catch up with information technologies. In the Strategic Plan for the transition that we put together about one year ago, we envisioned four ways in which GPO can bring electronic Government information products into the FDLP. Let's revisit these, and see how they're panning out: 1. We said that "GPO can identify, describe and link the public to the wealth of distributed Government information products maintained at Government electronic information services for free public use." In general, this is working well. We have our Pathway Services, Monthly Catalog on the Web, and so forth. Between these we are pointing to over 2,000 agency Internet products and sites, and this number is expanding rapidly. 2. We also said that "GPO can establish reimbursable agreements with agencies that provide fee-based Government electronic information services in order to provide free public access to their information through the FDLP." Now we're beginning to see some problems, especially in the policy arena, in terms of what we can pay for. 3. We went on to say that GPO should "ride" agency requisitions and pay for depository copies of tangible electronic information products, such as CD-ROM discs or their software licenses, even if they are not produced or procured through GPO. This ability could be quite useful in getting content for the Program, but we still have limits about what we can pay for. 4. GPO can obtain from agencies electronic source files for information the agencies do not wish to disseminate through their own Government electronic information services. These files can be made available through the GPO Access services, made available by an external partner, or even disseminated to depository libraries in CD-ROM or other tangible format. In general this situation is workable from a policy perspective. Where we run into problems is that what we receive from agencies is replete with technical challenges, and likely to be quite expensive to present in a useful way. What Can the FDLP Pay For? Let's shift now to what the FDLP can pay for. The guiding language here is from Title 44, Section 1903: * If an agency obtains printing from or through GPO, the FDLP pays for the depository copies and their distribution. * If the agency bypasses GPO, the FDLP pays for the distribution, but the agency pays for the copies. This is a critical point, and it has affected our ability to develop "cost-sharing" solutions which could have brought more products into the FDLP. How can this model be applied in the electronic information age? Consider these scenarios: * An agency produces a CD-ROM through GPO, but uses a unique software. The FDLP rides for copies, pays for software licenses for depository users, and pays for distribution. Inasmuch as software licensing expenses are analogous to the expenses which have routinely been borne by the Salaries & Expenses appropriation to deliver copies of printed products to the depository libraries, we are able pay the software licensing costs when an agency produces its CD-ROMs through GPO. An example of this is the National Trade Data Bank from STAT-USA. * An agency produces a CD-ROM on its own, bypassing GPO, but agrees to provide depository copies. The CD uses another unique software, which must be licensed. Clearly, FDLP can pay for distribution, but following Section 1903, the agency should bear the cost of the software licensing required to use the product. * An agency decides to cease production of a CD-ROM title which was distributed to depositories, but wants to give us a reproducible CD that could be replicated for the libraries. The agency's product is now produced only as a "one-off" product, on-demand, and sold to the public; there is no production run per se. What can we do to keep the content in the FDLP? Robin and I are facing this situation right now with the Digital Raster Graphics CDS from the U.S. Geological Survey. Depository Library Program Issues What we're finding as we work through these various electronic product scenarios is that policy situations keep coming up. And as I alluded to earlier, many of these have to do with interpretations of and compliance with existing laws and regulations. Here are some examples: * We believe that agencies have an obligation to deliver their products to the Superintendent of Documents for distribution to the Federal depository libraries. This was articulated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Circular A-130, Management of Federal Information Resources, which states that agencies shall at a minimum "provide electronic information dissemination products to the Government Printing Office for distribution to depository libraries." * The broadest range of content should be available to the FDLP. Section 1902 defines the scope of the Program as: Government publications, except those determined by their issuing components to be required for official use only or for strictly administrative or operational purposes which have no public interest or educational value and publications classified for reasons of national security ... * You should be wary of any attempt to narrow the scope of the FDLP to only those products which were "intended for public dissemination." This redefinition could reduce the amount of information in the program by as much as 80%. * We need broad affirmation that electronic products belong in the FDLP, in order to provide the broadest possible public access. We should support a definition of "Government publication" which explicitly includes information in electronic formats, and recognizes that such formats may now include tangible electronic products, such as CD-ROMs, and intangible products such as those published via the Internet. * Existing policies which prohibit exclusive arrangements, or copyright-like restrictions which take the information out of the public domain, should be enforced. * Historically there have been cases where Government information products have not been included in the FDLP because they were not produced or procured through the Government Printing Office. Agencies should be directed to supply copies to the FDLP of any tangible products, including CD-ROMs, which are produced or procured elsewhere than through GPO. These are the kinds of issues that we encounter daily now, as we make our way through the electronic transition. Agency Cooperation with the FDLP Robin is going to cover a number of specific cases of both successes and failures to keep agency information in the FDLP, but I wanted to make a more general comment on the issue of cooperation, since many of my last points involve cooperation and compliance. In terms of our legal authority, and the avenues open to us to get content into the FDLP, here's what LPS considers cooperation from an agency in providing access to its electronic products: * Agencies produce their products through GPO, which affords the FDLP the opportunity to ride for depository copies. * Agencies provide the requisite depository library copies to GPO, free of any encumbrances such as software license fees or copyright-like restrictions. * In the case of online services, the agency provides no-fee access to the FDLP. Often these are viewed as compliance issues, and as such have at times been contentious, or become interpreted in narrow ways. When we go out to talk to agencies we are trying to accentuate the positive: how GPO can assist the agency in meeting its public information mission, effectively and at low cost. In the long run we may gain more through this kind of approach than by stressing compliance and enforcement. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to note that the issues of compliance and enforcement have the attention of the Joint Committee on Printing (JCP). I'd like to read you a brief excerpt from the statement of Senator John Warner, Chairman of the JCP, before the House Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations: In other cases, where agencies have attempted to circumvent the GPO printing procurement process, government publications, published at taxpayer expense, have become fugitive documents ... This year, at the request of the Joint Committee on Printing, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the House Oversight Committee are seeking language in all authorizing and appropriating bills requiring every agency of the Federal government to comply with Title 44, as Congress moves to update this law in light of modern technology. Every means available will be used to obtain compliance by Federal agencies with Title 44, especially with regard to the Federal Depository Library Program. We welcome this commitment, and hope that it will improve the situation concerning fugitive information. Status of Strategic Plan Goals In our Strategic Plan, issued in the June 1996 Study report, we laid out some goals for where we thought the Program could be by the end of FY 1998. Assuming funding at or near the FY 1996 level, we predicted we could provide about 50% of FDLP information electronically. Let's revisit some of those goals and see how we're doing. The plan referred to: * Pointing to products accessible via agency electronic information services. We are enabling users to locate and connect to agency electronic services through the GPO Pathway Services. Pathway "Browse Titles" is the current awareness tool, and the Monthly Catalog on the Web provides a complete description and subject access. We will continue developing these efforts through funding from the FDLP and the Cataloging & Indexing Program. * In terms of processing and mounting agency-provided electronic source files on GPO Access, we are currently exploring options to use electronic image files, such as those provided by the Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE reports account for about 1/3 of all the titles in the FDLP, and the solution to this problem may give us access to other products never before in the FDLP. However, our investigations suggest that mounting agency source files is complicated and may prove expensive. * Distribution of CD-ROMs continues to increase. We'll probably peak out at about 1,000 CD-ROM titles per year in the program, and then it will begin to taper off, as some agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, are moving from producing CD-ROMs to on-demand CD-ROM publishing of customized products. We are exploring options to keep such information in the FDLP, when there is no production run to ride for copies, and the information is not available via the Internet. * Scanning agency print products for mounting on GPO Access or disseminating in tangible format as text or image files is generally only appropriate as a last resort to obtain an electronic version of a product. We are focussing our efforts upon obtaining electronic source data files from the originating agency, since most print products are now created electronically. Since Congress agreed that the more deliberate, five- to seven-year transition was appropriate, the speed of our transition is now closely aligned with what the publishing agencies are doing. We see the FDLP evolving, so as agencies move to electronic publishing, the FDLP can incorporate those products into the program. * We wanted to see all depository libraries capable of serving the public with electronic Government information products. Since the beginning of FY 1997, all depositories have been expected to be able to offer users the ability to access, search, view, download and, to some extent, print information located on the Internet. This may be done by providing the user with direct access to a computer work station, or by conducting mediated searches at the user's request. By now we believe that the great majority of the libraries are able to meet these minimum requirements. * We hoped to achieve a depository product mix of about 50% electronic, 30% paper, and 20% microfiche. We may be closer than you think. Since the GPO Access service is funded from the Superintendent of Documents Salaries & Expenses appropriation, we consider GPO Access as the online information delivery vehicle for the FDLP. In FY 1996, depository libraries received about 1.7 million copies per month of tangible products; e.g., paper or microfiche. By way of comparison, documents downloaded from GPO Access over the same period averaged 2.4 million per month. Although these figures are not entirely comparable, since many GPO Access users do not come through depository libraries or gateways, there is evidence that we are moving along well toward meeting this goal. Electronic Transition Staff I believe that much of our progress in the electronic area has come thanks to our Electronic Transition Staff (ETS), and in particular to our visiting experts from the library community. We've been fortunate to be able to get very high-quality people for ETS, both from the library community and from within LPS. Lee Morey from our Cataloging staff and Joe Paskoski from the Inspection Team are doing really good things with Pathway Services and Web initiatives, and I'm really pleased about their contributions. In general ETS brainstorms projects, sells them to management, gets them up and running, and then we incorporate them into our line operations. Unfortunately, our visiting experts can only stay with us one year, and the clock is running. So we're testing the waters. LPS is interested in talking to persons to fill one-year appointments as Expert Consultants to work on the electronic transition. We are looking for two librarians or other information professionals associated with the depository library community who have a demonstrated interest and expertise in the creation, dissemination, use, or permanent public accessibility of electronic Government information products, and who would like to work with LPS on related issues and projects for the next year. While there is no specific starting date, we would prefer to bring new people on board before those currently filling the positions finish their one-year assignments. If you are interested in one of these positions, please contact me, Duncan, or Jay Young to arrange for an interview or to get more information. Now I want to shift to some specific initiatives and observations. Revising Workstation Specifications In the spring of 1996 we issued a revised set of "Recommended Minimum Specifications for Public Access Work Stations in Federal Depository Libraries." These recommended specifications were intended to assist depository librarians who are planning purchases of new public access work stations capable of using most text-based FDLP electronic information products. We later issued a supplemental set of specifications for use with electronic spatial data, to run Geographic Information System (GIS) software, or to print maps from electronic sources. Now it's time to revisit those specifications, and to update them to reflect technological changes. Lee Morey of our Electronic Transition Staff (ETS) is coordinating the next generation draft workstation specs. She has a draft here for you look at and get back to us with your comments. We've also asked the Government Information Technology Committee to take a look at it and give us some feedback. "Core Documents of Democracy" on GPO Access A new project that I've asked Duncan Aldrich and Joe Paskoski to work on is called "Core Documents of Democracy" on GPO Access. It's a proposal for a basic electronic depository collection, one which will provide American citizens direct online access to the basic Federal Government documents that define our democratic society. We're thinking of a core group of current and historical Government publications which can be made available for free, permanent, public access via the GPO Access service. These titles contain information which is vital to the democratic process and critical to an informed electorate. They support the public's right to know about the essential activities of their Government. Immediate online access to authenticated versions of these Core Documents of Democracy increases in importance as Americans grow ever more dependent on remote electronic access to basic information resources, both past and present. I'm very interested in your reactions to this proposal, and your suggestions on what titles should be included. Our thinking is somewhat preliminary at this point, but we are using the "Core Paper Titles" list of 24 essential titles from the Strategic Plan as a starting point. These titles, which are vital enough that they should be maintained in the depository program in paper, and also vital enough that they should form the nucleus of the electronic core collection on GPO Access. We plan to have a more fully developed proposal and Web page mockups for discussions by the April Conference and Council meetings. Bound Serial Set and Congressional Record In the House Report accompanying the FY 1997 Legislative Branch appropriations act, Congress directed us to change the format and distribution for the bound U.S. Congressional Serial Set. We have been directed to produce a CD-ROM Serial Set, and to limit the distribution of the bound Serial Set to regional depositories, one library in each State without a regional, and 13 international exchange libraries. In our Strategic Plan, included in the Study report, GPO took the position that both the Serial Set and the bound Congressional Record are "core titles" which, because of their historical and research value, should remain in the FDLP in paper format. We proposed that, at a minimum, regional depositories and one library in each of the seven States which lack a regional should receive both products. This distribution pattern was the existing situation for the bound Record, and involved a substantial cut for the Serial Set. We have repeatedly communicated the library community's concerns about the bound Serial Set to the Congress, most recently in the Public Printer's statement to the House Legislative Branch appropriations subcommittee at our hearing on February 11. [Text available on GPO Access and in Administrative Notes, v. 18, no. 4, 2/28/97] As you know, we conducted a survey to determine interest in purchasing the bound Serial Set, using the deposit account as the method of payment. To date 21 libraries have filed letters of intent indicating their interest in purchasing the bound Set. Likewise, we passed on your concerns about the bound Congressional Record, which Congress directed us to replace with CD-ROM. Since 1990, the bound Congressional Record has been distributed to each regional depository library, one depository library in each of the seven States which lack a regional, two depository libraries in the District of Columbia, and one in Puerto Rico. In total, distribution to depository libraries requires 62 bound Congressional Record sets. This distribution plan was proposed to the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing (JCP) in a letter from the Public Printer dated July 26, 1990, and approved by the JCP in the Chairman's reply dated August 7, 1990. " GPO has been advised of very serious concerns within the depository library community about the discontinuation of the paper format bound Congressional Record in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), and I want to bring these concerns to your attention. Depository librarians view the bound Congressional Record as an essential reference resource which should be maintained in the FDLP in paper format. There are also legitimate questions about the permanency of the CD-ROM format, from an archival media standpoint, as well as issues concerning computer hardware and software obsolescence. The depository library community considers the permanent Congressional Record one of the core documents of our democracy, one which should, at a minimum, be preserved in paper format for the free use of the public in every State. In addition, the bound Congressional Record Index, which is produced as part of the permanent Congressional Record set, has been distributed to 876 depository libraries." This distribution will also be affected by the reductions directed in the FY 1997 legislative branch appropriations act language. Inasmuch as the $100,000 limitation on printing the bound CR would cover only 56 sets, it was assumed that the FDLP would get only CD-ROM. We have prepared a letter for the Joint Committee on Printing apprising them of the details of the current bound Record distribution, and requesting direction on how the few remaining paper copies are to be apportioned. One solution could be that JCP might direct GPO to continue producing the 62 sets of the bound Record for depositories, but to accomplish this within existing funding. LPS Staffing No doubt some of you are aware of our interest in hiring new inspectors, and in talking to people interested in working as Expert Consultants on temporary appointments, but I think you should know what the LPS staffing situation is in general. In the past year, we've lost about 10% of our staff, from retirements or people getting hired into other areas of GPO. Mr. Carl Redd, long-time Chief of our Distribution Division retired in January, and he's greatly missed. But we've also lost inspectors, depository line workers, a fork lift driver, microfiche technicians, a claims clerk, a shipping list data processor, a cataloger, and a program analyst. Some of these positions simply will not be refilled, and the workload must be absorbed by the existing staff. Other positions, especially those for professional librarians, are so specialized that they must be filled with outside hires. Even though we are thankful to be able to recruit for these jobs, the process takes a long time to complete. The staffing situation in LPS reflects the trend in GPO as a whole. In the mid-1970's, GPO employed nearly 8,500 persons. Today, we have 3,680 on board, and expect to be down to 3,600 by the end of the fiscal year, fewer than at any time in this century. In the past four years, GPO's staffing has been reduced by 25%. Financial Situation Last Tuesday (Feb. 11), the Public Printer testified before the House Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations. For FY 1998, we are requesting $30.5 million for the four programs funded by the Superintendent of Documents appropriation: Depository Library Distribution, Cataloging and Indexing, International Exchange, and By-Law Distribution. This is an increase of $1.4 million, or 4.8% over the amount approved for FY 1997. Most of the increase is related to price level increases, pay, and related costs. Of the $30.5 million, 85% is for the FDLP, 12% for Cataloging and Indexing, and less that 2% each for By-Law Distribution and International Exchange. As we predicted during our planning sessions, we are seeing increases in spending related to expanding the capacity of the GPO Access system, acquiring, processing and mounting electronic source data files, and CD-ROM software licensing fees. The public testimony was heard on February 12, and we appreciate the support for our request expressed by Bob Oakley, of Georgetown University Law Library, who presented the combined statement on behalf of the Library Associations. At this point, of course, we don't know what the outcome of the appropriations process will be, but we feel confident that we will be able to continue to operate the FDLP and keep the electronic transition moving.