ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 12, Number 44
May 21, 2003

In This Issue: PUBLIC PRINTER TESTIFIES BEFORE HOUSE LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

On May 20, Bruce R. James, Public Printer of the United States, accompanied by his Chief of Staff, General Frank Partlow, Bill Turri and Judy Russell, the Superintendent of Documents, testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Legislative on the Government Printing Office's FY2004 budget request.  

Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA), chaired the meeting, with Representatives John Culberson (R-TX); David Price (D-NC), and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) in attendance.

Mr. James' printed statement was similar to that submitted at the GPO hearing in the Senate on March 27 (see ALAWON, v. 12, No. 28, 3/28/03). 

James said he had challenged the library community to help him develop a new model for the depository library system and said his two immediate goals for FY2004 were to maintain the quality of the information product and also the quality of GPO service.  

The Chair, Representative Kingston asked if the $10 million buy-out of employees would result in $18 million in savings, would GPO return the $8 million to Congress.  James answered that a 10 percent reduction of employment would serve to break even and that there was need for investment in new technology.  Kingston questioned that the increases asked by GPO of 13.9 percent were higher than the President's overall four percent request.  James responded by citing the need for capitol equipment and improvement in GPO Access, the electronic distribution system that needs to be upgraded.  He said archaic technology makes GPO vulnerable and improving the system will save by providing solutions to that vulnerability.

Representative Price asked James what the current state of play was between the OMB directive about decentralizing publishing and GPO's position as sole source.  James said he had met and would continue to meet with Mr. Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget and he wants to resolve this issue before Mr. Daniels leaves office.  James said the proposed regulations promulgated by OMB would have two effects on GPO, 1. it would raise the cost of printing and 2 it would position GPO to continue operations with less revenue to pay for them.

Price further asked about researchers and historians who are also stakeholders in trying to retrieve information years from now, and whether James had considered that area.  James replied that Price had identified one of the most important areas GPO is considering how to be certain that government documents "are available broadly to our citizens at no cost," and how information would be preserved forever so that an individual can retrieve information.  He said librarians and archivists are also confronting this problem since more than half of the information now produced is digital.  He said this was a problem that needed sustained work.  James said another area was authenticity.  Paper is more obviously authentic than information downloaded from the Internet.  One of the challenges is to find ways to authenticate and deal with which "version" first, second or third printing or edition.  He said he had engaged the library community in the question of what should be saved.

Rep. Kingston said many Members of Congress had been asked by universities to archive their papers, but that videotape of speeches deteriorates quickly.  He asked could film be transferred to digital storage devices.  James said the Congressional biographical directory might contain expanded information now that there is new technology to do so.  Kingston asked him to answer questions for the record later on any waste fraud or abuse issues, and James said he would respond for the record.



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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell, Claudette Tennant. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.