GPO proposes limiting access to govdocs

deborah writes “Although the GPO has reported an $11 million surplus in the last fiscal year, they want to gut the depository program. Beginning October 1, they intend to print only 50 essential documents, distributing the remaining documents electronically. They’ll distribute $500 to libraries to purchase any remaining titles they need through print on demand. Note that $500 won’t go very far. Not surprisingly, the ALA and GODORT in particular are annoyed.”

February 6, 2005 by Uncategorized 6

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6 Responses

  1. Daniel says:
    February 7, 2005 at 2:34 am

    That’s $500 for selectives, $1500 for regionals
    According to reports, there will be a two-tiered Print on Demand allowance: $500 for selective depositories, and $1500 for regional depository libraries. For my library, I don’t think $500/yr would allow us to continue to receive Alaska nautical charts, which we keep past versions of so people can examine how the coastline has changed over the years and often marked the location of camps and other landmarks visible from the sea.

    Some additional background on these reported changes can be found on the open archives of govdoc-l.

    As of Friday, February 4th, GPO had not issued anything in writing about their proposal. But I’ve spoken to people who were at Midwinter and based on their testimony, I think the proposal is being accurately reported, and I think the Government Printing office is being serious.

    This is an issue that should concern more that ALA and GODORT. Without a mechanism and funding for long-term preservation, there is much government information that may simply unreadable or gone from the public record in the next few decades. The American people deserve much better.

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  2. opaqueentity says:
    February 7, 2005 at 6:17 pm

    Sounds familiar
    Did anyone see that episode of The West Wing when Josh was given the task of canning loads of reports because they cost too much money to provide but was convinced of their value by a student?

    Reply
  3. Korpios says:
    February 7, 2005 at 10:35 pm

    In Favor of Pure Electronic Archives

    We were discussing this last week in my US Government Information Sources class. While my professor (a legal librarian) is less than thrilled about it, I (along with several others) thought that this was smart, responsible, future-looking behavior on the part of the GPO.

    My chief concerns with moving to fully electronic archives are disaster recovery (not that this isn’t an issue with highly flammable paper) and increased ease of “yanking” material on behalf of requesting agencies. Both could be addressed by turning depository libraries into full-scale “light archives” mirroring the electronic collection locally, periodically checking for updates with the GPO, and automatically performing regular integrity cross-checks with other such archives across the nation.

    Reply
  4. Daniel says:
    February 8, 2005 at 1:06 am

    Re:In Favor of Pure Electronic Archives
    “Both could be addressed by turning depository libraries into full-scale “light archives” mirroring the electronic collection locally, periodically checking for updates with the GPO, and automatically performing regular integrity cross-checks with other such archives across the nation.”

    If this were the proposal, I’d have a *lot* fewer problems with it — even though we still don’t know how to preserve digital documents indefinitely.

    Digital as access is fabulous! People have unbelievably more access to what the gov’t publicly produces now than at any time in the past. No one has to tromp to a depository to get basic Census data, though taking the trip would help you understand the data better.

    Digital as preservation so far has a bad track record, with material produced as the late 1980s (remember Wordstar or Wang?) being unreadable by equipment around today. Until we can assure that bits can live as long as paper or microfilm, our most important documents deserve to be saved in a tangible format.

    Before too long, GPO will be doing just that with their “Collection of last resort”, which will contain tangible copies of “born-digital” documents – at least the printable ones. Last time I checked, they had no facility for the CLR. Until one is up, I don’t think we can risk all-digital.

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  5. Curmudgeony says:
    February 8, 2005 at 7:40 am

    Re:In Favor of Pure Electronic Archives
    Call me paranoid, but if government reports exist only in electronic form, what keeps the powers that be from tampering with or deleting those reports?

    Reply
  6. Daniel says:
    February 9, 2005 at 5:59 am

    Re:In Favor of Pure Electronic Archives
    Well, if the government holds all copies? Nothing, except the rule of law.

    That’s why any all-electronic archive should be a distributed one. GPO should make it easy for those libraries with will and server space to request electronic documents by their depository profile.

    It’s not just, or even primarily, gov’t ill will that should worry us. How about natural disasters, computer viruses and terror attacks upon one or two gov’t information repositories; or even budget cuts or privatization down the road? A distributed respository system addresses all of these problems. It’s already worked for 150 years and with a few format changes could last another 150.

    Reply

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