================================================================= ALAWON Volume 5, Number 38 ISSN 1069-7799 June 27, 1996 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATIONS BILL APPROVED DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ISSUES MEMORANDUM ON GPO PRINTING _________________________________________________________________ LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATIONS BILL APPROVED On June 26, the House Appropriations Committee approved the legislative branch appropriations bill for FY 1997, with floor action planned sometime the week of July 8. The bill recommends $1.68 billion to pay for the operations of the House, Senate, and legislative branch agencies, including the Library of Congress and the Government Printing Office. The report on the bill (no number yet), continues to stress the use of electronic format and telecommunications technologies: "The agencies of the Legislative Branch are striving toward a CyberCongress mode whereby information can be shared more easily among the agencies and with the public at large." Among the examples given of the "inexorable movement toward the CyberCongress", is that the Superintendent of Documents is pursuing a program to transition the Federal Depository Library Program to electronic format with a reasonable period of time. Government Printing Office. Report language indicates that the House has agreed to the five to seven year time frame for the move to electronic format recommended by the Government Printing Office, the library community, and others. Last year, the House pushed for a two-year transition to a more electronic depository program, stirring a great deal of constituent comment to Congress. The Committee commended the Public Printer and the Superintendent of Documents for their leadership in preparing the transition proposals, and gave credit to the working group representatives of other interested organizations (like ALA) who participated. The Committee recommended $29,077,000 for FY 1997 for the Office of Superintendent of Documents. The largest share of this sum would go for the operations of the Federal Depository Library Program. This is a reduction of $1,230,000 from FY 1996 and $1,750,000 less than the Public Printer requested for next year. The Committee denied the $500,000 requested for technology grants to help depositories transition to a more electronic program. Additionally, the Committee said that $1,200,000 could be saved by converting most serial sets to CD-ROM. Regional depositories plus one depository in each state without a designated regional, and the international exchange program will continue to receive paper copies of the serial set. Justifying this change the report states: "It should be noted that serial set documents are approximately six years old before they are made available and are duplicative since the individual paper copies of these documents are now distributed to depository libraries simultaneously with their first printings." The Committee expects to save another $50,000 in this account by converting the Bound Congressional Record to CD-ROM. The report says that CD-ROMs can be made available at a fraction of the cost of the paper sets, and will be very flexible research tools in library or office settings. Additionally, "The bill provides $100,000 for a more limited number of printed, permanent Records which can be produced from the less expensive CD-ROM format data base setup. These copies can be distributed at the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing. For those offices and institutions that cannot do without paper copies, CD-ROMs can be printed by commercial printing establishments at a much smaller cost than current charges against the Congressional printing and binding appropriations....Also, the GPO, in consultation with the Library of Congress, should plan to make the CD-ROM version of the permanent Record available on Internet to the broadest possible audience." Library of Congress. The Committee recommended a total of $330,758,000 for the Library of Congress in FY 1997, an increase of $6,058,000 over the current fiscal year. This total includes $62,641,000 for the Congressional Research Service; $44,964,000 for books for the blind and physically handicapped; and a total of $33,402,000 for the copyright office (including the authority to spend $22,269,000 in receipts). At the Committee mark up, Representative David Obey (D-WI), ranking minority, said that he may offer a floor amendment that would freeze the Library's funding at FY 1996 levels. The Committee approved an amendment by voice vote to instruct the Library of Congress to prepare a plan to transfer the Folklife Center to the Smithsonian Institution. The report on the bill points out that 25.5 percent of the funding for the Library is for support of Congress. The balance is general government or public service in nature, such as the Copyright Office, National Library Service, Federal Research Division, and the many services conducted for the nation's libraries. _________________________________________________________________ DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ISSUES MEMORANDUM ON GPO PRINTING Walter Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, on May 31 issued an 18-page memorandum based on a request by the General Services Administration to analyze the constitutional implications of the involvement of the Government Printing Office in executive branch printing and duplicating. The Department of Justice found that "the GPO is subject to congressional control, and conclude that the GPO's extensive control over executive branch printing is unconstitutional under the doctrine of separation of powers." In 1993, Dellinger wrote another memorandum to GSA stating that the statute in question "does not violate the separation of powers by delegating executive authority to the GPO." In a June 11, 1996 letter, GPO's General Counsel, Anthony Zagami, pointed out to Dellinger that there have been no procedural changes or statutory modifications of any substance that would warrant a different conclusion such as that contained in the recent memorandum. Zagami requested that the Justice Department review this matter once again and return to the opinions expressed prior to the May 31, 1996, memorandum. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname]" to . ALAWON archives gopher.ala.org; select Washington Office Newsline. Web page HTTP://www.ala.org/alawashington.html. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Contributors:Anne A. Heanue All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================