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Transportation Tips, San Antonio

Transportation Tips: The San Antonio International Airport is serviced by most airlines. It is about 10 miles north and 15 minutes away from downtown.

Shuttle: SATRANS, a passenger van shuttle, is available at $8.00 per passenger one way. Round trip is $14.00. SATRANS operates 7 days per week from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. The shuttle departs from the SATRANS kiosk located outside both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. Shuttles leave every 10 minutes from the airport to downtown hotels and do not require a reservation, but reservations are required for the return trip to the airport from the hotel. The telephone number is 210-281-9900.

Taxicab: Taxi companies operate minivans as well as sedans. All cabs charge the same rates. The average one-way fare from the airport to downtown is $15.00 plus tip. The fare can be divided among the number of passengers in the cab.

Driving from the airport: Take U.S. Highway 281 South to I-35 South. Exit at Main Street and turn left under the highway. Turn left onto Pecan St. The Adam’s Mark is at the corner of Pecan and Soledad, one block from Main Street.

Preliminary Agenda
Spring 2001 Depository Library Council Meeting

Adam's Mark San Antonio Riverwalk
111 Pecan Street East
San Antonio, Texas

Sunday, April 1
Afternoon			Location
4:00-5:00	Orientation to the Depository Library Council This session is designed to acquaint first time attendees with how the Council works and to preview Council activities over the next 2 ½ days Sandy Morton-Schwalb, LPS, Facilitator		Rose Garden
6:00	Informal pre-dinner get-together to network by food preference		Hotel Lobby
7:30-10:00	Depository Library Council Working Session [open to all]		TBA
Monday, April 2
Morning
8:00	Registration and Coffee with Council and GPO Staff		Grand Foyer
8:30	Welcome and Remarks Robin Haun-Mohamed, Chief, Depository Services Maggie Farrell, Council Chair		Texas Ballroom B
8:45	GPO Update Francis J. Buckley, Jr., Superintendent of Documents Gil Baldwin, Director, Library Programs Service T.C. Evans, Director, Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS)		Texas Ballroom B
10:00	Break		Grand Foyer
10:30	FDLP Electronic Collection Update George D. Barnum, Electronic Collection Manager		Texas Ballroom B
11:15	GPO Information Exchange: Council and Audience Q&A		Texas Ballroom B
12:00	Lunch
Afternoon
2:00	Welcome from the Public Printer Michael F. DiMario, Public Printer		Texas Ballroom B
2:15	GAO Report on SuDocs Operation: Summary Speaker TBA
2:45	Break		Grand Foyer
3:15 - 5:00	Depository Library Council Working Session [open to all] Council Committee Reports and Recommendations for Council Action		Executive Salon 4
3:15 - 5:00	New Documents Staff Informal session to answer questions about depository issues Robin Haun-Mohamed, Chief, Depository Services, Facilitator Vicki A. Barber, Chief, Depository Distribution Division, LPS, Facilitator		Texas Ballroom A
3:15	Reference Service Standards for Federal Depository Libraries Steve Beleu, Director, U.S. Government Information, Oklahoma Department of Libraries		Texas Ballroom C
4:15	San Antonio Missions NHP Rosalind Rock, Park Historian, San Antonio Missions NHP		Texas Ballroom C
5:00	Adjourn
6:00-8:00	Reception		San Antonio Public Library
Tuesday, April 3
Morning
8:00	Coffee with Council and GPO Staff		Grand Foyer
8:30	Depository Library Council - Plenary Session Local Strategies for Ongoing Access to Electronic U.S. Government Information: Possible Solutions Tim Byrne, Head, Government Publications, University of Colorado Carrie Ottow, Government Publications Librarian, Oregon State University Louise Malcomb, Head, Government Publications Dept., Indiana University, Bloomington		Texas Ballroom B
9:30	Depository Library Council - Plenary Session NCLIS Assessment of the Federal Government's Public Information Dissemination Policies and Practices: Update Judith C. Russell, Deputy Director, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science		Texas Ballroom B
10:15	Break		Grand Foyer
10:45	Depository Library Council Working Session [open to all]		Executive Salon 4
10:45	Census Bureau Information Products: Update Paula K. Wright, Information Services Specialist, Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce		Texas Ballroom C
10:45	GPO Access Open Forum (Ben's Guide, Interactive Training CD-ROM, Online Bookstore, and other topics suggested by attendees) T.C. Evans, Director, EIDS, Facilitator		Texas Ballroom A
12:00	Lunch
Afternoon
2:00	Regional Librarians [open to all] Models of Partnerships for Permanent Public Access to Government Information: Issues and Challenges for Regional Libraries Speakers TBA		Texas Ballroom C
2:00	San Antonio Public Library		Tour
2:00-5:00	Depository Library Council Working Session [open to all]		Executive Salon 4
2:00	Performance Measures for Federal Agency Web Sites T.C. Evans, Director, EIDS		Texas Ballroom A
3:15	Break		Grand Foyer
3:45	Regional Librarians [open to all] You Don't Have to Keep Up With the Jones! Ways We Can Work Together Part I: Gathering Collection Information from the Regionals Ridley R. Kessler, Jr., Documents Librarian, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill William Sudduth, Head, Documents/Microforms, University of South Carolina Part II: Regionals Web Pages Ann Marie Sanders, Depository Librarian, Library of Michigan		Texas Ballroom C
3:45	Family History: Getting the Most Out of Published Government Documents (the Title Doesn't Have to Say Genealogy to Be Useful) Gay E. Carter, Reference/Documents Librarian, University of Houston, Clear Lake		Texas Ballroom A
5:00	Adjourn
7:00 - 9:00	Depository Library Council Working Session [open to all]		Executive Salon 4
Wednesday, April 4
Morning
8:00	Coffee with Council and GPO Staff		Grand Foyer
8:30-12:00	Depository Library Council Working Session [open to all]		Executive Salon 4
8:30	Program and Speakers TBA		Executive Salon 5
8:30	Incorporating Federal Government Resources in Virtual Libraries Judy Andrews, Government Information Librarian, Portland State University Beth Goble, Government Information Coordinator, Nebraska Library Commission Speaker TBA		TBA
10:00	Break		Grand Foyer
10:30	LPS Systems Modernization Discussion Group Laurie Beyer-Hall, Supervisory Program Analyst, Library Programs Service Vicki Barber, Chief, Depository Distribution Division		Executive Salon 5
10:30	Electronic Spanish Language Information Resource Locators Megan Fitch, Federal Depository Librarian, University of Nevada, Las Vegas John Barnett, Head, Downtown Campus Library, University of Texas at San Antonio		TBA
10:30	San Antonio Public Library		Tour
12:00	Lunch
Afternoon
2:00	Depository Library Council: Plenary Session Report of draft recommendations and action items, including audience response and comments		Texas Ballroom B
3:30	Adjourn

Register Now for Interagency Depository Seminar

There is still space available for the 14th Annual Interagency Depository Seminar, to be held in Washington, DC from May 30 through June 6, 2001. The weeklong seminar will consist of an overview of various agencies' information products and activities as they relate to Federal depository libraries. If you have any questions about the seminar, please contact the Chief, Depository Services, by telephone on 202-512-1119; by fax on 202-512-1432; or by e-mail at <rhaun-mohamed@gpo.gov>. The preliminary agenda and further details about the seminar were published in the October 15, 2000 issue of Administrative Notes (v. 21, #14).

Your Ideas Needed for 2001 Federal Depository Conference

Once again, the Library Programs Service is seeking assistance from the depository community to identify topics, potential agencies, speakers, and information products for the 2001 Federal Depository Conference. Your ideas are needed! The 2001 conference, regional meeting, and Depository Library Council meeting will be held at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Alexandria, VA on October 14-17, 2001. If you would like to volunteer as a speaker or can identify potential speakers or topics, please contact Robin Haun-Mohamed by telephone on 202-512-1119; by fax on 202-512-1432; or by e-mail on <rhaun-mohamed@gpo.gov> no later than May 4.

A new section of Frequently Asked Questions has been added to the Electronic Collection section of the FDLP Desktop at <http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/ec/faq.html#1>. The questions have been gathered from inquiries about LPS’ electronic collection and archiving activities received over the last year. Topics include collection development, archiving, PURLs, New Electronic Titles, and the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. Additional questions may be added to the page over time. Please send suggestions to George Barnum, Electronic Collection Manager, <gbarnum@gpo.gov>.

GPO Update

Remarks by Francis J. Buckley, Jr.
Superintendent of Documents
Before the Federal Documents Task Force
Government Documents Round Table
American Library Association
January 13, 2001
Washington, DC

Welcome

Good morning! It’s a pleasure to welcome you to Washington, DC for ALA Midwinter–not only is this the Nation’s capital, but for those of us from GPO, this is only a Metro ride away from home! To let you know what you’re in for, as if you didn’t know, here are some quotes from Frommer’s Irreverent Guide to Washington, DC:

• "Washington is…a city of paper pushers (okay, computer inputters now). It produces hardly anything except laws, policy, and opinions. Washington has 15,000 lobbyists and only 5,000 journalists to keep an eye on them; it also has 56 lawyers for every 1,000 residents, compared to a mere 8 per 1,000 in New York City."

• Yes, Washington is a special place, and yes, it is fun to visit. You come here to walk in the footsteps of history (corny as it sounds), to behold soul-stirring monuments, to observe close at hand the workings of government, to visit august museums of art and of the sciences. But if it’s urban electricity you’re after, you’d be better off in Cleveland."

And a quote from Steve Kerchoff, who worked with us last year as a Transition Specialist, writing about places to eat in Washington, in the latest issue of American Libraries:

"ALA Members coming to Washington, DC for Mid-winter this month might be laboring under the impression that political life defines our nation’s capital. Don’t believe it for a minute. Politics merely gives Washingtonians something to discuss over lunch, for this city revolves around not politics but food."

As Mr. DiMario and Andy Sherman said, we are in the midst of changes as we transition to a new Administration.

I recently was asked to talk to the Federal Publishers Committee about trends in government information and what the future holds. At the time I said that the crystal ball they issued me when I came to Washington was very cloudy and murky, but I could take a stab at it.

So, what are the trends in Federal publishing? Well, today there are many and unfortunately they are widely divergent.

As you know, in 1999 GPO and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) produced a report examining trends in electronic publishing in the U.S. Government. The survey report, "Assessment of Government Information Products," found an overall lack of Government information policy about electronic publishing, dissemination, and permanent public access or information life cycle management. One conclusion of the assessment is that "responsibility for electronic publishing within agencies is decentralized, diffuse and unclear." And not much has changed in the year or so since the report was released.

Technology has brought new, rich opportunities–use of online and CD-ROM or DVD, to complement hard copy publications or microfiche. We are now seeing more than half the publications we procure or identify for the FDLP in electronic format.

But what about the e-book? I see it as a fad right now with a lot of hype surrounding it. Currently, I don’t see it as a vehicle for extensive government information dissemination.

A roundtable discussion on the book business in this time of change, organized by Publisher’s Weekly, resulted in an interesting article titled, "To E or Not to E and Other Questions" in the January 1, 2001 issue. Richard Curtis was quoted as saying, "I think this printed book versus e-book argument is a non-issue. Whether or not one medium will dominate the other…is not relevant, because the content…is everything."

Beau Friedlander said, "When the hubbub has died down and the opportunists on the business side have milked it for all its worth, (e-books) will subside into about 5% of the book market, somewhat akin to audiobooks."

Despite how much we have heard for so many years about the "paperless society" we can all agree that we are not there yet. There are still many popular consumer and education oriented publications being produced in print by agencies as well as special studies and reports, many of which are also up on the Internet.

My vision is for mixed media in our future. The usual suspects, in a manner of speaking, drive format selection:

• Agency mission
• Goals
• Funding
• Public acceptance
• Usability

To continue the theme of change, for my whole tenure as Superintendent of Documents (all 3 years) GPO and the FDLP have been in a constant state of program evolution as well as the subject of legislative proposals for reorganization–whether from the library community, House appropriations, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), or the General Accounting Office (GAO). We have been deeply involved in the transition to a more electronic FDLP with all of the various issues that this major program shift entails from identification, authentication, bibliographic description, indexing, PURLS, bandwidth, accessibility and permanent public access.

Recently, the Public Printer has commented on the proposed reorganization plan for government information developed by NCLIS as an outgrowth of the proposal to close the National Technical Information Service, titled, "A Comprehensive Assessment of Public Information Dissemination Final Report." This report is accompanied by a legislative proposal, "Public Information Resources Reform Act of 2001." Both can be found on the NCLIS Web site at <www.nclis.gov>.

Currently, we are working with staff from GAO, who were directed in the FY 2001 funding bill to conduct a comprehensive study on the impact of providing documents to the public solely in electronic format. The study is supposed to include:

1. a current inventory of publications and documents which are provided to the public,
2. the frequency with which each type of publication or document is requested for deposit at non-regional depository libraries, and
3. an assessment of the feasibility of transfer of the depository library program to the Library of Congress that:

• Identifies how such a transfer might be accomplished;
• Identifies when such a transfer might optimally occur;
• Examines the functions, services, and programs of the Superintendent of Documents;
• Examines and identifies administrative and infrastructure support that is provided to the Superintendent by the Government Printing Office, with a view to the implications for such a transfer;
• Examines and identifies the costs, for both the Government Printing Office and the Library of Congress, of such a transfer, and
• Identifies measures that are necessary to ensure the success of such a transfer.

The study is to be submitted to the Committee on House Administration and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration by March 30, 2001. Over the past few months, we have been called upon to provide a lot of material and related statistics about the FDLP, GPO Access and the Sales Program to GAO. We anticipate they will continue to collect information this month and be preparing the report in February and March.

I would like to take this time to report on some recent FDLP operations.

As noted in the LPS FY 2000 annual report, the distribution of tangible products through the FDLP continues to decrease, with a particularly sharp decline, as I noted earlier, in the number of microfiche titles. The only category of FDLP titles that increased were those that GPO links to at other agency sites, which rose by over 45% compared to FY 1999.

Overall, 53% of the titles disseminated to depository libraries in FY 2000 were online. Paper distribution (12,442 up from 11,867) accounted for 22%, microfiche (14,493 down from 25,635) 23% (down from 35% in FY 1999) with CD-ROMs remaining at 1% (617, down from 682). Total tangible titles were down from 39,525 to 28,849. Total copies of 12,207,064 were down from 16 million.

After considerable debate this past fall regarding the implementation of the FY 2001 budget, a dissemination plan was drafted by LPS staff and reviewed by the Depository Library Council. The library community "nominated" titles to remain in paper. This effort culminated in the Superintendent of Documents’ "Dissemination/Distribution Policy for the FDLP" dated January 2, 2001, officially known as SOD 71. These "SODs," as we call them, are used within GPO to document policy and form the basis for detailed operating procedures. Some of you recall SOD 13, which contains the policies about distribution in microfiche. This is the modern-day equivalent to guide format selection for the FDLP. It is accompanied by a list of essential titles for public use in paper format. Both the SOD 71 and essential titles list can be found on the Web at <http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/sod71.html>.

Some issues that have been raised about this new policy:

• Sales: Changes in the depository library distribution format do not affect whether the product is for sale by GPO.

• Permanent access: We are archiving the products that are available only online, either here at GPO, or through a partnership.

• Cataloging: Cataloging electronic products in the FDLP is the highest priority of LPS.

It is important to note that what is key in the policy statement is that the primary dissemination medium for the FDLP is online electronic. Tangible products, meaning paper, microfiche, or CD-ROM, will generally be furnished only when certain criteria or circumstances exist. This direction has already been established by the Congress and put into practice by LPS. Our decisions have been made based on how we can best serve the information needs of the public.

Two new pages available on the FDLP Desktop have information about the Electronic Collection and the FDLP/EC Archive. This material can also be found on the FDLP desktop.

One page contains a statement on the FDLP’s archiving policy. And the LPS staff has just posted a newly developed set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the Electronic Collection that addresses collection development, archiving, PURLS, locators, and cataloging. These can be found on the FDLP desktop page under Electronic Collection.

To assist depository librarians with collection management and maintenance, LPS staff is developing a Collection Maintenance Manager. This forthcoming Web-based service is an extension and expansion of the Superseded List. The Collection Maintenance Manager provides in one location a searchable database with information to assist documents coordinators in making decisions about weeding, superseding and substituting materials in their depository collections. The database currently includes records from the revised Superseded List and the Substitution List: Official FDLP Permanent Full-Text Databases. In fact, the database is structured in such a way that would allow for future incorporation of other data sets and information about the online documents.

LPS staff is indebted to the members of the Superseded List Update Committee who examined their Federal documents collections for additions and updates to the entries in the 1996 edition of the Superseded List.

Two libraries have joined GPO in partnerships in the past few months. The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) has become the home of the Browse Topics Web site and The Library of Michigan has created a series of Web pages for Regional depository libraries.

Browse Topics was one of the original Pathway Services, created by the Electronic Transition Staff at GPO in the first days of the FDLP’s presence on the Web. It has been comprised of the contributions of volunteer bibliographers. LPS staff analyzed the locator tools last year and determined that Topics was a service that documents librarians and users value, and that by its nature the site lent itself to being managed by an FDLP volunteer. Adriana Edwards-Johnson, Documents Librarian at UCO, has been working with James Mauldin of the LPS Analysis Staff to move files to the UCO server. During the coming months, past contributors will be contacted and work started on updating and expanding the various topics.

The Regional Depository Libraries Web Pages were created by Ann Sanders, Regional Depository Librarian at The Library of Michigan, to provide a convenient site for information about regionals’ concerns and needs.

I want to take this opportunity to thank not only our two newest partners, but those individuals and institutions that have provided support for the FDLP during this time of transition.

I would also like to mention that following much negotiation, we are capturing information from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) Web site and will be keeping it available through one of our many partnerships with the University of North Texas. Through the diligent efforts of Cathy Hartman, the UNT libraries provide permanent online access to electronic publications of selected Federal Government agencies which have ceased operation, or as we call it, the "cybercemetery."

The LPS handout we have made available here this morning contains information about recent changes in work assignments among the managerial personnel. I would like to briefly discuss those and one other.

I have selected T.C. Evans to be the Director of the Electronic Information Dissemination Service, otherwise known as EIDS. T.C has been with GPO since 1981 and has held a number of positions; most recently he served as the Assistant Director of EIDS. He was the Product Services Manager in EIDS; Chief, Documents Planning and Development Branch and worked in the Documents Technical Support Group.

As many of you know, after 19 years, Sheila McGarr left LPS in December to assume the position of director of the National Library of Education. Robin Haun-Mohamed has been named the Chief of the Depository Services Staff (DSS). Tad Downing, Chief of the Cataloging Branch, is acting Chief of the Depository Administration Branch and he will also continue as Chief of the Cataloging Branch.

Vicki Barber, Chief of the Depository Distribution Division, will be working with other members of my staff to assist in implementing the Integrated Processing System (IPS) in the Documents Sales Service. During this time, Colleen Davis will assume the position of Chief of the Depository Distribution Division.

With the departures of Tom Oertel and Gail Snider and Cindy Etkin’s move to become a Program Analyst, our inspection team was down to one individual, Charles Bradsher. I am pleased to announce that on January 2, Walter Zoller from East Carolina University came on board as an inspector. There is still one inspector vacancy yet to be filled and that job has been posted.

And to conclude, I would like to quote one more time from Frommer’s Irreverent Guide to Washington, DC. Who could have guessed that GPO, through its bookstores, would be included–irreverently of course:

"Bureaucrats, scholars and people who really have trouble falling asleep at night will want to peruse the official tomes at the U.S. Government Printing Office Bookstore – an indispensable outlet for impact studies, workplace manuals, statistical compilations, task force findings, technical reports, plus general interest material on health and leisure activities."

Congressional and Public Affairs Update
Remarks by Andrew M. Sherman

Director, Congressional and Public Affairs

Before the Federal Documents Task Force
Government Documents Round Table
American Library Association
Washington, DC
January 13, 2001

The President signed the Legislative Branch Appropriations for FY 2001 into law on December 21. Part of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill, H.R. 4577, it passed on December 15.

The original Legislative Branch bill, H.R. 4516, was passed by the House on September 14. It was rejected by the Senate on September 20, then passed on October 12. It was vetoed by the President on October 30, for reasons having more to do with the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill to which it was linked.

After the fiscal year began on October 1, GPO was funded through a series of 21 continuing resolutions, all at the FY 2000 level. The Legislative Branch Appropriations bill was reintroduced on December 14 as H.R. 5657, then incorporated by reference into the Omnibus.

There was no change to the conference report, as agreed to last fall. However, H.R. 4577 included a .22 percent rescission to funding contained throughout the bill, including GPO’s. This meant an additional cut overall of about $218,000. $157,000 of this goes against Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation (CP&B), and $61,000 against the Salaries and Expenses (S&E) Appropriation of the Superintendent of Documents.

For FY 2001, GPO’s appropriations total $99,198,000 (after application of the rescission). This is a decrease of $3,971,000, or nearly 4%, from the level of $103,169,000 that was approved for fiscal year 2000—but more than the level of $77.1 million that was originally proposed by the House Appropriations Committee last spring.

A total of $71,305,000 was approved for CP&B (after the rescission). This is a reduction of $1,992,000, or nearly 3%, from the $73,297,000 that was approved for FY 2000.

A total of $27,893,000 was approved for the S&E Appropriation (after the rescission). This is a reduction of $1,979,000, or about 7%, from the $29,872,000 that was approved for 2000.

In cutting the S&E Appropriation, Congress directed that "emphasis should be on streamlining the distribution of traditional paper copies of publications which may include providing online access and less expensive electronic formats." Fran Buckley has already initiated actions to accelerate the ongoing transition of the Federal Depository Library Program to a more electronic basis.

In other areas, the new law authorizes the transfer of appropriations balances from preceding fiscal years to GPO’s revolving fund, which will help with GPO’s financial situation somewhat. It sets the ceiling on the number of full-time equivalents, or personnel, that GPO can employ at 3,285, the level GPO requested.

However, Congress directed other measures that may have a significant impact on GPO’s structure and operations. These include a transfer of the House portion of CP&B to the Clerk of the House in FY 2003, following the Clerk’s study of the House’s printing needs. The Public Printer registered concern with this to the conferees:

• transfer could greatly complicate production of joint items (as much as 40% of the appropriation is for such items, like the Record), and could impose administrative burdens on the House.

• Most importantly, the transfer law begins with the phrase "notwithstanding any other provision of law," apparently relieving the House of the requirement in section 501 of Title 44 to use GPO for printing. This could affect GPO’s ability to capture House information for incorporation into GPO Access databases, and the ability of libraries to access this data.

Congress also directed the GAO to conduct a study "on the impact of providing documents to the public solely in electronic format." The study is to include "an assessment of the feasibility of the transfer of the depository library program to the Library of Congress." The Public Printer also registered concern with this to the conferees:

• in light of three previous examinations of this issue in the mid-1990’s, all of which rejected the idea of transfer.

• Also, GPO Access is run by GPO’s Production area, so there is no operational way to remove it for transfer with the FDLP to the Library without profoundly disrupting its operation.

However, the study is currently underway, and is due to be submitted to the House Administration Committee and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee in March 2001.

We’ve prepared an appropriations request, but we haven’t submitted it to Congress yet (it goes up the 16^th). Because it becomes part of the President’s budget which is embargoed until release, we can’t discuss specific numbers.

However, we can say that we will be seeking an increase in funding over the FY 2001 level. GPO’s appropriations have declined 13% in the past 5 years in terms of current dollars and even more that than in terms of constant purchasing power, and the FY 2001 appropriation will probably fall short of our needs.

For the S&E Appropriation, we will be seeking increases to improve and expand GPO Access services. The system now has more than 200,000 titles available and is experiencing more than 26 million document downloads a month—the equivalent of about 1.3 terabytes of information. For the Supreme Court’s December decision in the Presidential election case, there were more than 1.1 million hits on the Court’s site, which we host on GPO Access servers. We have to have the capability to keep up with the continual expansion in use and product offerings. We also need to refresh aging file formats and make other improvements.

Associated with that is the need for additional personnel, especially in our cataloging and indexing area, to keep up with the growth particularly of electronic titles. We also need increased funding for more finding aids.

In compliance with Congress’s direction to convert the program to an increasingly electronic basis, we will see some savings from reduced printing and binding costs. But those savings won’t be enough to fund all the electronic improvements the program needs.

Moreover, we have cost increases for mandatory pay raises from the Government-wide 3.81% pay increase, the recent 1-cent increase in postage, and other cost increases resulting from normal inflation.

For the CP&B Appropriation, we will be seeking funding to cover Congress’s annual printing costs as well as reimbursement of congressional printing costs that were underfunded in previous years.

The study of converting the depository program to all electronic and moving it as well as GPO Access to the Library of Congress will be due the end of March, and there may be appropriations decisions that are contingent on its recommendations.

We’ve been told appropriations hearings will not start early this year, due to the transition, and that there may be a late start for the legislative branch. At this time no hearing dates have been set.

A few key changes in the 107^th Congress:

• GPO’s oversight committee, the JCP, draws its membership from the House Administration Committee and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and the chairmanship of the JCP rotates between those 2 committees every Congress.

• For the 107^th Congress, leadership of JCP will go to Senate side, chaired by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). We are still trying to clarify aspects of the transition of the JCP leadership from the House to the Senate side.

• Vice Chair of the JCP will be the new chair of House Administration, Representative Bob Ney (R-OH).

• Ranking Member of the JCP will be the senior minority member from the chamber that does not hold the chair—in this case, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). As of a couple of days ago, Web sites for House Administration and Senate Rules do not show any other changes in membership.

• Not clear yet about any other changes in House Administration and Senate Rules memberships.

On appropriations, Representative Charles Taylor (R-NC) continues as House Legislative Branch chair. To the best of our knowledge, other Members are as before: Reps. Wamp (R-TN), Lewis (R-CA), Granger (R-TX), and Peterson (R-PA), and Reps. Pastor (D-AZ), Murtha (D-PA), and Hoyer (D-MD).

The Appropriations subcommittee also appears the same on the Senate side: Chair will be Senator Bennett (R-UT), with Senators Stevens (R-AK), and Craig (R-ID), with Sen. Durbin (D-IL). We have heard that Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) may not be on the subcommittee, but have not confirmed that yet. Also not clear yet is who the staff will be for these subcommittees.

Under guidance of the White House personnel office, Mike DiMario stays in place as sole PAS (Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed) until a successor is appointed; other senior level officials do as well, except for our one Schedule C, who will end her time with GPO by January 20.

No contact yet from the incoming transition team; as of Friday, January 12, there was no transition liaison appointed for the GPO. With the inauguration, the transition effectively ends, and we will wait to hear from the new White House.

There have been some indications of interest in the Public Printer’s job from the printing industry and other areas, but nothing solid yet.

The Public Printer sent comments to Martha Gould, NLCIS chair, dated Jan. 4. They are posted on GOVDOC-L. Highlights:

• Commends them for taking on the ambitious and difficult task of assessing Federal information policy and recommending changes for the future and for characterizing public information resources as a strategic national asset, but is unable to support legislative proposal for new Federal agency.

• Said already exists in the Federal Depository Library Program (supplemented by the electronic authority provided by chapter 41 of Title 44, U.S.C.) an effective statutory mechanism for providing comprehensive, equitable public access to Government information, as long as there is sufficient funding and support from Congress.

• Also, we feel the report and legislative recommendations don’t pay enough attention to the accomplishments of the FDLP: 1996 Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program, 1998 report Managing the FDLP Electronic Collection: A Policy and Planning Document, more electronic titles, permanent public access working group, etc.

• Has strong reservations about the executive branch function proposed by NCLIS because it would remove information dissemination from the direct control of the people’s elected representatives, where we feel it most appropriately belongs (both for constitutional as well as political reasons).

• Is concerned by the Commission’s proposal to separate printing procurement authority from GPO. This was a central tenet of the "reinventing Government" proposals regarding GPO that were advanced in 1993-94, and it was not accepted by Congress.

• Hoped the NCLIS study would examine in depth the feasibility of combining the National Technical Information Service with GPO, as proposed before the 106^th Congress in 1999, and discuss the ramifications of combining the FDLP with the Library of Congress, as is being reviewed now by the GAO. These are specific issues that could impact public access to Government information significantly.

We have had no reaction to the Public Printer’s comments, but understand that they are generally in line with a number of other comments filed, including those from the printing industry, NARA, library organizations, employee organizations, etc.

EIDS Update
Remarks by T.C. Evans
Director, Office of Electronic Information Dissemination
Before the Federal Documents Task Force
Government Documents Round Table
American Library Association
Washington, DC
January 13, 2001

Introduction

As always, I appreciate the opportunity to update the library community on the current and future state of GPO Access. Since we last got together, many things have happened and many more are in the offing.

Of particular note is the death of Marty Mehlberg, who as the manager of the Text Processing Section worked tirelessly to ensure the availability and integrity of GPO Access data. He is sorely missed. I would also like to note the recent retirement of another key cog in the birth and development of GPO Access, Russ Duncan. Russ headed the Graphic Systems Development Division and personally programmed many of the applications on GPO Access and he will also be greatly missed.

GPO Access continues to grow, with over 1,700 official government databases offered through some 80 applications. At this time, over 200,000 electronic titles are available through the FDLP Electronic Collection, with more than 116,000 titles on GPO servers and almost 84,000 titles linked to from GPO Access.

GPO Access usage continues to amaze, with recent months bringing us to some significant milestones. The more than 26 million retrievals in October propelled total usage of GPO Access to over 1 billion documents retrieved since the service premiered in 1994. The average number of monthly retrievals is steady at just above 26 million and the average size of these documents is currently about 49Kb. According to the Center for Advanced Computing Research at CalTech, 2Kb equals one typewritten page. Therefore the average document retrieved from GPO Access equates to some 24.5 typewritten pages. This means that the average number of monthly retrievals from GPO Access measures almost 1.3 terabytes in size and is equivalent to 637 million typewritten pages.

As is usually the case, information on hot topics always brings on a burst of use. The Supreme Court decisions relating to the recent election certainly fit this profile. On the day after the Court released its final decision, the site recorded some 6.4 million page views, compared to 1.5 million page views during an average month. User Support contacts went through the roof at the same time, with the GPO Access User Support Team handling nearly 5,500 e-mails from the Supreme Court site in a single week. This represented almost three times the monthly average number of e-mails.

We have begun monitoring the number of referrals to GPO Access from other Web sites and which sites are most often referring users to us. This is accomplished through the use of referral logs that record the host domain from which a referred user was directed to one of the pages on GPO Access. It is important to note, however, that this does not measure the number of links established on other sites using the GETDOC feature that pull documents directly from our databases. It has been most gratifying to see just how many referrals occur in the short time we have been analyzing these logs, as well as the broad array of sites who direct users to us.

The numbers have remained remarkably consistent for the first two months we have analyzed. For October and November we averaged some 600,000 referrals, with about 58% of those coming from no specific referrer. This group includes referrals from favorite lists stored on Web browsers, search engines who do not forward referral information from their results lists, and others in which no information is provided from which the referrer can be identified. There is another three to four percent whose address cannot be resolved from the information provided.

The largest identifiable group of referrals come from other Government sites. Representing more than 17% of the total, this is clear evidence of how the information of GPO Access is used to facilitate the missions of agencies across Government. It is also evidence of the broad diversity of the constituencies who are served through use of the products and services we provide.

Next in the referral pecking order are the dot-coms at between 11 and 12%. Heading the list are a string of popular search engines, led in both months by Google. It will be important to remember this category when I discuss our search engine project in a few minutes.

No other category approaches 10%. This includes education (.edu) addresses at a little more than 5% and organizations (.org) at just under 2%. Based on a list of domain addresses for Federal depository libraries maintained by the Library Programs Service, depository sites account for approximately 3% of the total referrals to GPO Access pages. Top among the more than 500 depository addresses are sites at the University of Maryland, the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, the University of North Texas, and Vanderbilt University. There are about 400, however, which send more than five referrals per month, which is the number commonly suggested to be the best indicator of at least one prominent link at the site.

Part of the impetus for reviewing these referral logs came from a request to determine how many referrals we have been receiving from FirstGov. In the first two months, their totals have consistently represented about one half of one percent of the total referrals received. It is interesting that we see FirstGov referrals from 11 different addresses that are not redirects. This means that they are maintaining these as separate individual sites.

As more data is received and time permits, additional analysis will be performed. I will continue to report these results as they become available.

System performance has improved and efforts to enhance system response time continues. The increased bandwidth easily withstood the onslaughts during the election, although a severe strain was placed on our server farm. At one point during the process, the Supreme Court materials were being served from 19 servers through the server controller array. We are currently exploring a relationship with a prominent content delivery network that should produce dramatic additional improvement in service from GPO Access. This will allow for copies housed on some 8,500 servers located at Internet service providers around the world to quickly supply copies of large and popular files to nearby users, while greatly reducing the load on our server farm.

There are a number of recent changes to GPO Access that should be mentioned. The most notable are:

• The Economic Report of the President 2001 is now available.

• A new browse feature is available for the United States Code. The browse feature allows users to browse individual U.S. Code titles, down to the section level, for the latest available update.

• The United States Government Printing Office Style Manual, 2000 is available.

• The United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, 2000 (the Plum Book) is available.

• All volumes of The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States covering the period of 1994 through 1998 are now available.

• A new browseable table of contents feature is available on the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, beginning with the first issue of 2001.

As always, work is under way to add more content to GPO Access and to refine access to the materials already provided. Some key examples of current efforts are:

• An agreement with the Department of Labor to put the Davis-Bacon Wage Determination materials on GPO Access has been reached and a written memorandum of understanding has been delivered for signature. The application has been built and reviewed by Labor, and the release date is currently scheduled to coincide with the release of the new basic manual in early February.
• The FY 2002 Economic Outlook, Highlights from 1994 to 2001, FY 2002 Baseline Projections will tentatively be available on GPO Access and for sale through the Superintendent of Documents, January 16, 2001.

• EIDS staff is in the process of evaluating Helpdesk software for customer support that will further improve customer service available through the GPO Access User Support Team.

• An eCFR application, which will be updated daily as opposed to the current quarterly updated Code of Federal Regulations application, should be fully available by summer.

• As a result of the development of the free eCFR application, the Sales program is developing a new e-mail subscription service. Customers will be able to purchase subscriptions that will allow them to be notified via e-mail of any changes in one or more CFR titles and/or parts, as they are published in the Federal Register.

The fifth installment of our ongoing effort to improve the accessibility of GPO Access resources through popular search engines has been completed. Although the full report is available on the Federal Bulletin Board, the following stood out among the results of this effort:

• The numbers indicated that overall performance again declined, with test searches returning a top-30 hit only 25% of the time. Top-10 returns dropped to 21% for all searches.

• Of the seven GPO Access pages studied, four did improve in top-30 performance (U.S. Government Online Bookstore 67%, Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government 43%, The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications 32%, and the Federal Register 15%), but three did worse (CBDNet –3%, GPO Access Home Page –23%, and the Congressional Record –23%). Sadly, the decreases were in the pages that are most successful, bringing the overall average down.

• Of the 23 search engines studied, 12 increased in top-30 performance, 10 decreased, and two remained the same. GoogleUncleSam was far and away the best performer, as 46% of the searches yielded the appropriate GPO Access page in the search results. The next best was Excite at 37%, then Magellan at 34%, and Google, Lycos, and MSN Search rounded out the top five at 31% each. FirstGov finished in a tie for 10^th at 26%. Yahoo, the search engine/directory/portal discussed in an interesting article by Laura Cohen in the January issue of American Libraries, found the appropriate GPO Access page only 20% of the time.

• It was clear that what we have done to date is not working and that it is not easy for potential users to find the resources of GPO Access through these search engines.

• In addition to search engines, directories and other portals were examined as well. Based on our initial exploration, it is clear that we need to learn more about them and how they work before we can adequately measure their performance as relates to GPO Access. Reportable results should come out of the sixth installment of the project.

As a result of these findings, we have taken a number of steps to improve performance and the results of these actions will be measured as part of the sixth installment of the project. In doing so we reached the end of those things that could be done for free, so we have begun to test the use of methods which have a cost associated with them. The steps taken are:

• We revamped the meta tags imbedded in our study pages based on excellent feedback received in an open forum held at the Depository Library Conference in October.

• We have begun to insert Dublin Core metadata elements into major GPO Access pages to aid search engines index these resources.

• We have subscribed to a submission service that registers our pages with over 1,000 search engines and directories each month and provides us with reports on the success of their efforts.

• We have purchased and begun using software to continually provide fresh submissions of our own to more than 1,000 search engines and directories.

In addition to monitoring the effects of these efforts to improve our positioning, we are also continuing our research to find out as much as possible about how search engines and directories work. There are a number of challenges to this, including the fact these organizations are extremely reluctant to discuss their methods with us. Another disturbing challenge is the apparent commercialization of the process. There are increasing indications that the industry is moving more and more to allowing sites to purchase positioning through the use of techniques that afford them to achieve favored status in the indexing process as a result of buying keywords or advertising. We have begun exploring the process of keyword buying and plan to test the procedure, despite our philosophical disagreement with the practice, to see if it can improve performance.

The implications of this last trend are disturbing. We do not yet know how pervasive the practice is at this time, but we are compelled to learn about it and test it if we are to achieve the goal of improving the visibility of the products and services of GPO Access. The popularity of these imperfect tools demand it, since our most recent survey indicated that one third of the respondents stated that they had found GPO Access through a search engine.

Thank you for your attention and I urge you to stop by Booth Number 347 and see the additions and changes to GPO Access. As always, I want to thank you for your feedback and I look forward to discussing your ideas for a better GPO Access during the conference.

Passion in a Noble Cause: GPO Responds

Editor's Comment: Some of my more faithful readers may peruse the column I write for sister publication, Information Today, called - modestly - "Quint's Online.' In the October 2000 issue of that magazine (vol. 17, issue 9), I wrote a piece urging the Federal Government to make the Internet their primary publication medium ("Your Tax Dollars at Work"). [If you want to read a copy of that column, click on http://www.infotoday.comlit/oct00/quint.htm.] The column stemmed from musings generated by my participation in a report to Congress by the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS).

In one rather off-hand sentence in that column, I discussed the existing Federal agencies that might take a leadership role in advancing this policy. And in a very off-handed aside, I rejected the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) as a candidate. ("Perhaps this could become a new role for a Web-oriented NTIS or for the U.S. Government Printing Office (not), or even the -National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).")

Well, the GPO called me on that snide aside - as you can see by the letter below. And I'm overjoyed to see that this government agency seems prepared to defend its role in Federal Internet policy like a lioness guarding her cubs. The letter below contains some useful truths for searchers reaching for Federal data, but, personally, I love its passion in a noble cause--building sound archives and broadening public access by bringing the Feds to the Net.

Sorry for the delay in responding, but this concerns Barbara Quint’s article, "Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Internet Should Serve as the U.S. Government’s Primary Archive," in the October 2000 edition of Information Today. In that article, Ms. Quint calls for the Federal Government "to move to the Web, big time, to ensure the performance of its mission of service to the people of the U.S." But when she suggests a general oversight role for the Government Printing Office (GPO) in making government information available via the Web, Ms. Quint herself says "not!" Quite frankly, that rather casual remark puzzled us, in view of our extensive involvement in Web-based government information dissemination for much of the past decade.

GPO operates GPO Access [at www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs], one of the few government Web sites actually established by law, and one of the longest running, beginning operation in 1994. It is virtually the only government Web site that provides easy, one-stop, no-fee access to information from all three branches of the government, including the daily Congressional Record and Federal Register and Supreme Court reports, as well as a wide variety of other government information products (incidentally, we just put up the Plum Book, the listing of Federal jobs open for appointment under the incoming administration).

Today, GPO Access links the public to nearly 200,000 individual titles on GPO's servers and other Federal Web sites. The titles available from GPO's servers include those put up on agency Web sites hosted by GPO. Moreover, more than 40 percent of the titles available via GPO Access are linked from other Federal agency Web sites, the result of a lot of knocking on doors by GPO to grow a comprehensive collection of Federal information for public access. The public uses the system heavily. Monthly document retrievals today average more than 26 million. As for the information that isn't available on GPO Access yet--such as that detailed in a recent "filegate.gov" article [Wired magazine article]--much of that has more to do with congressional rules on access than with the Web sites on which it is placed--or not placed.

Ms. Quint's article rightly talks at length about the need for permanent public access to Web-based information. In an age when there are thousands of Federal Web sites, on which important public documents appear and disappear with alarming frequency--leading to growing speculation that the current era will one day be known as an enormous "black hole' in the non-availability of government information--GPO Access is one of the very few government Web sites to make a concerted public commitment to permanent public access. That means once a document goes on GPO Access, it stays there. Every issue of the Congressional Record, the Federal Register, congressional bills, and other documents since GPO Access went live in 1994 can still be found there. Every bit of the "Starr Report" and accompanying documents, if anyone is still interested, is still there, as well as the Cox Committee report on China, the Microsoft decisions, and other documents. Our commitment to permanent public access is spelled out on our Web site at <http://www.access.gpo.gov/ppa/>, and our position on archiving is stated in our Electronic Collection plan at <http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/ecplan.html>. These policies distinguish GPO Access from the vast number of other Federal Web sites in their commitment to permanent public access to online government information.

The fact that printing is still part of GPO's name has led some people to wonder whether we have been able to shake free of our paper-based past and participate fully in the Web-based information arena. They shouldn't wonder any longer. Today, all major documents processed through GPO have Web and print dissemination channels (and some have CD-ROM distribution as well), and GPO services other government Web sites as well as its own; the Library of Congress’s Thomas site, for example, uses congressional information databases built by GPO. Consider the record of GPO's activity in the Web information arena, and both government and public reactions to it:

• This year, GPO's experience in Web operations led us to assist the Supreme Court in the development and release of its widely heralded new Web site. Throughout the Microsoft case, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia utilized GPO Access for the public release of its decision documents online. Early in the year, GPO made Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government for Kids available on GPO Access, at <http://bensguide.gpo.gov>, which has since drawn rave reviews from the library, education, and even legal communities.

• In 1999, GPO Access was selected as one of the top 50 legal research Web sites for the year by Law Office Computing magazine, and was named best research site for laws and best government site overall by the newsletter legal.online. It was chosen as the first recipient of the American Association of Law Libraries Public Access to Government Information Award. The Energy Department's PubSCIENCE project, mentioned approvingly by Ms. Quint, is a joint project with GPO begun in 1999 and is available on GPO Access. Also in 1999, GPO and the Department of Energy jointly won a Hammer Award from Vice President Gore’s National Performance Review for the Information Bridge, a partnership that makes thousands of DOE scientific and technical reports available over GPO Access.

• In 1998, GPO Access was named one of the 15 "Best Feds on the Web" by Vice President Gore and Government Executive magazine. Federal Computer Week magazine said, "The GPO site stands out as an unassuming, information-rich offering." The internationally recognized management firm of Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc., called GPO Access "one of the Federal Government's largest and most active Web sites" and said that the site "has been highly successful in making government information easily available to the public."

• In 1997, GPO Access and the Commerce Department jointly earned a Hammer Award for creating the electronic Commerce Business Daily, known as CBDNet. Other awards have included a 1994 Technology Leadership Award and the prestigious 1995 James Madison Award from the Coalition on Government Information.

So extensive is this record, in fact, that when the Commerce Department announced the demise of the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) in August 1999, GPO used its experience in the Web-based dissemination of government information to offer to continue making the NTIS permanent collection of scientific and technical information available to the public. The only difference is that we would make it freely available to the public through our Federal Depository Library System and online--a project that we have in fact been working on with NTIS on a pilot basis--whereas in the past it has only been available through NTIS for a fee.

We at the GPO are justifiably proud of what we have accomplished in making government information available over the Web and of our commitment to ensure that it is available permanently. We invite Ms. Quint and all of Information Today's readers to visit GPO Access and see for themselves one of the Federal Government's premier Web sites.

Andrew M. Sherman
Director
Office of Congressional and Public Affairs
U.S. Government Printing Office