ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 11, Number 94
November 21, 2002

In This Issue: Bruce James Confirmed as Public Printer 

Bruce James was confirmed as the 24th Public Printer of the United States on November 20, 2002 by unanimous consent of the Senate.

James is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and was CEO of Barclays Law Publishers until retiring in 1993 at the age of 51. He is the Chairman of the Congressional Roundtable of Printing Industries of America, a trustee of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, was president of Printing Industries of California (a trade association for more than 7,000 printing firms), executive board member of the Government Affairs Council of the Printing Industries of America, and member of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) and World Affairs Council. 

At his nomination hearing, in response to a question from Senator Dayton regarding the May 3, 2002 OMB memoranda directing agencies to contract out printing, away from GPO, Mr. James stated that he would act according to current law. Title 44 U.S.C. requires the government and federal agencies to contract printing services through GPO. He also stated that he sees the controversy as "an issue between Congress and the Executive," but said that he would explore the reasoning behind OMB Director Mitch Daniels' decision to issue the memo. James told the Senators, "I'm coming to Washington to follow the law, which I will do until you change it." James noted that librarians across the country are concerned about the effect of Daniels' proposed change on the federal depository library system, which maintains copies of federal documents so that the public can access them for free, and said that executive branch agencies don't do as good a job as the Printing Office in ensuring that copies of documents are sent to the libraries.

James also promised to modernize the Printing Office and indicated that its mission will change "from strictly putting ink on paper to electronically managing information." In charting out the printing office's future, James said he plans to gather input from customers, employee unions and others.

In a recent interview with Rochester Institute of Technology magazine (found at http://www.rit.edu/~umagwww/fall2002/singledOut.html) James said, "The Government Printing Office has been such a force throughout the last two centuries." He noted, "I remember as a youngster in this business in the '60s and '70s that the Government Printing Office was the technological leader in the application of new technology. It certainly wouldn't be characterized as being the leader at this point. They're doing a lot of marvelous things, but it has not been the industry leader in some time."  James also noted that laws enacted long before the digital era regulate the process, so it's no easy matter to replace printed documents with electronic distribution of official information. Moreover, he pointed out that with electronic information, authenticity and long-term storage are considerations. 

"So there are a lot of challenges in front of us to make certain that we can take advantage of technologies that will be available," remarked James. "What I hope to do is lead our government in developing a plan that's more relevant to the 21st century in how we're going to collect, process and distribute information."

ALA will work with GPO to ensure that the right of the public to no-fee access to government information, particularly through depository libraries, is protected and enhanced in that process.


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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.