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AALL Washington Affairs: Letter to Mr. Michael F. DiMario, April 26, 1996
April 26, 1996
Michael F. DiMario
Public Printer
U. S. Government Printing Office
732 N. Capitol Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20401
Dear Mr. DiMario:
Thank you for this opportunity to respond to the recently released
Report to the Congress: Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a
Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library
Program. We are responding to your request to submit written comments
based on the oral remarks delivered at last week s joint meeting between
members of the Working Group and the Advisors. Our comments today reflect
the views of the members of the American Association of Law Libraries, the
American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and the
Special Libraries Association.
We are pleased that our associations, which represent more than 75,000
professionals in public, academic and special libraries throughout the
country, were included in an advisory capacity during the lengthy study
process. We commend the Government Printing Office for carrying out this
legislatively-mandated study in a manner that considered the views of all
three branches of the government, the library community and the private
sector. It is especially noteworthy that members of the Working Group
consisted of representatives from key agencies, including the National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA), as well as many Congressional
staff. It is hoped that one outcome of this collaborative approach will be
improved understanding by all stakeholders of the serious issues of concern
to libraries and other users of government information as the transition to
a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) proceeds.
The FDLP has existed for one hundred and thirty-nine years as a very
successful partnership program between the federal government, libraries
and the public. This partnership must become even stronger in the future
in order that the move to a more electronic program succeeds in reaching
its goal: that is, the use of new technologies to expand the public's
access to government information. We are pleased with the draft report's
principles for federal government information, including the public's right
to know and the government's responsibility to disseminate and provide
broad and permanent access to its information. The well-articulated goals
for an electronic FDLP, as noted in the draft report, must be realized to
ensure that these important principles are achieved.
It is especially gratifying that many of the comments and concerns
addressed in our previous joint letter to you regarding the Transition Plan
were incorporated into the draft report. We do wish to offer some
additional general comments on the draft study as there continue to be many
areas of serious concern and importance to our members.
TIME FRAME: We are pleased that the draft report offers a more
realistic and technologically feasible five to seven year time frame for
the transition. The Transition Chronology proposed in the strategic plan
better reflects the nation's technological infrastructure; the ability of
agencies to create and provide access to information electronically; and
the capabilities of libraries and users to effectively utilize such
information. We will urge members of the Congressional authorizing and
appropriating committees to support this more realistic time frame so that
no barriers develop during the transitional years that would reduce the
public's access to government information.
VIABILITY OF PRINT: We are pleased that the draft study recognizes
the continued viability of a variety of formats, including print, to meet
user needs. Format decisions should be based on usage, on the needs of the
user community, and also on an agency s own dissemination requirements.
While electronic information offers many advantages to paper, including
timeliness, the ability to perform full-text searches and to manipulate
data, certain types of materials will continue to be more efficiently
created, disseminated and used in paper format.
Another problematic area regarding format decisions concerns fee-based
products and services; namely, when an agency stops production of a title
in print and moves it into a fee-based online service. One example of this
is that depository libraries have in the past been able to select the FBIS
and JPRS reports in print formats but these are now available online
through paid subscriptions to the new World News Connection service of the
National Technical Information Service (NTIS). It is planned that by the
end of this year these important materials will be available only online
while the printed and microfiche reports will be phased out. Valuable
materials that have traditionally been available to depositories will no
longer be included in the program since NTIS does not offer no-fee access
to the World News Connection for depository libraries.
REDUNDANCY AND DIVERSITY: We are pleased that the draft study
recognizes the principles of redundancy and diversity as articulated in
NCLIS Principle #5: The Federal Government Should Ensure a Wide Diversity
of Sources of Access, Private as Well as Governmental, to Public
Information. Redundancy--in access, in formats, and in preservation--is
both a necessity and an advantage. It provides a safeguard in case of
overloaded systems, natural or man-made disasters, and even government
shutdowns.
It is the government's affirmative obligation to ensure permanent
access to the information that it produces. In the electronic environment,
diverse and multiple partners are needed to promote and ensure access and
preservation to government information long after its initial creation and
dissemination. At the same time, a diversity of other public, private and
not-for-profit sources is critical to ensuring that information remains
available in useful and convenient ways.
CENTRALIZATION: We are pleased that the draft study recognizes the
need for coordination and centralization to meet the goals of the FDLP.
The program in a distributed electronic environment requires coordination
to bring all participants together on issues of: 1) standardization and
guidelines to ensure ease of locating information and guarantees of
long-term access; 2) no-fee access to all government information, including
fee-based products and services; and 3) usability. The complexities of
these issues, particularly when many agencies are creating their own web
sites, seems to be underestimated in the draft report. We commend GPO
ACCESS as the legislatively-mandated centralized point of entry to
electronic government information and the GPO locator service that assists
the public in finding information across diverse government entities.
Users must have timely and comprehensive finding aids to the growing vast
universe of electronic government information, and centralized coordination
is the most efficient means.
In addition to the above general comments on the draft study, we
firmly believe that the study's goal of ensuring broader public access
through electronic means will not be achieved unless the following concerns
are addressed. While details of the draft study and the strategic plan
remain to be worked out, these issues are critical to the transition's
success. We hope also that the collaborative approach which GPO brought to
the study itself will be maintained so that all interested and involved
partners, including our associations, may continue to participate in the
process.
MORE DATA NEEDED: We remain very concerned that although some useful
information was gathered during the study process, neither the draft
report, the models developed as part of the task force reports, nor the
strategic plan are based on substantive data regarding costs to and
capabilities of the government, libraries or the public to produce, access
and use predominately electronic information. We believe that a technical
scan is necessary and we will urge Congress to approve funding for the
Technical Implementation Assistance which the report proposes.
NO-FEE ACCESS: We strongly support the study's first goal statement
which ensures that the public has equitable, no-fee local access to
government information through depository libraries. The draft study
addresses this issue by suggesting that reimbursement to agencies for
fee-based services could come from the Superintendent of Documents. There
are no assurances, however, that there will be continued adequate funding
to support the transition plan. Consequently, we are concerned that
government information for which agencies must recover costs, particularly
fee-based products and services, will become a new generation of fugitive
information.
LONG TERM PERMANENT ACCESS AND
PRESERVATION: The draft report
acknowledges that issues relating to long-term access and preservation of
electronic government information require new relationships, indeed new
strategies, between all stakeholders: GPO, agencies, NARA and participating
libraries. Yet the draft fails to identify what these strategies may
entail and the responsibilities for each partner. Long term preservation
and access issues are critical to the success of the FDLP; thus it is
crucial that additional information regarding these activities be provided.
In addition, the draft report includes the recommendation that GPO
will assume new responsibilities in the archival arena. Through many years
of maintaining preservation and archival programs and collections,
libraries have learned that these efforts require significant investments
in Technological solutions (e.g. deacidification and digitization pilots),
personnel, and facilities. To be successful in undertaking new
preservation and archiving responsibilities, GPO will need to provide
additional detail regarding how such tasks will be accomplished. We suggest
that a comprehensive study be undertaken among all partners to guarantee
permanent long term access and preservation. For example, it is not clear
how and when GPO would support the "periodic review and refreshing of data
to different mediums."
The issues of long term permanent access and preservation are central
to the transition to a more electronic program and thus we are especially
concerned that the draft study offers no specifics, no data, no costs and
no assurances. We reaffirm that these critical issues are the
responsibility of the government and that they must be comprehensively
addressed before the transition plan is implemented. The questions are
very basic ones: first, how do we assure that electronic information will
be available and usable next month, next year, or in twenty-five, fifty, or
even a hundred years from now; and second, who will be responsible for
ensuring long-term permanent access. In shifting long-term access from
depository libraries to the government, as the draft study suggests, we
must be assured that funding will remain adequate so that the government
can refresh and migrate information. Otherwise, our national historical
records will disappear into a black hole and the advantages of electronic
information will be nullified.
COPYRIGHT-LIKE RESTRICTIONS: Principle 5 states that Government
information created or compiled at Government expense or by Government
employees as part of their official duties, regardless of the format in
which it is published, is in the public domain. We strongly affirm this
principle and note that some agencies are imposing copyright-like
restrictions on electronic information. Worrisome patterns are already
being proposed; for example, in the case of an agency restricting the
downloading of information or its electronic re-transmission. This is an
egregious barrier not only to the public's current and long term access to
information but also to innovative and creative forces in the private
sector to develop enhanced products and services. Further, regarding the
proposal of the National Technical Information Service, libraries can
neither restrict nor control users from placing electronic information on
the Internet.
FEE-BASED PRODUCTS AND SERVICES: In
order to fulfill the goals of an
enhanced FDLP program, it is vital that materials not currently in the
program, such as those created by self-supporting agencies who are by law
required to recover their costs, be included. While the draft report
proposes models through which these materials would enter the program, the
key question is, of course, who is going to pay. GPO suggests that the
Superintendent of Documents would reimburse agencies for the cost of
including these products and services in the program. However, there are no
guarantees that Congress would assure the necessary funding.
This issue addresses the troubling question of cost recovery and
quasi-business corporations. Regarding the NTIS proposal for example, it
is very troubling that libraries would be asked to become watchdogs to
ensure that these electronic materials do not leak out into the public
domain. We are also concerned that these or similar restrictions could
potentially be used by agencies for access to services for which users have
paid subscriptions. A strong affirmation on redistribution without
copyright-like restrictions for agency cost-recovery programs is
imperative.
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF PROGRAM
LIBRARIES: We are concerned that
since all depository libraries will soon be required to have Internet
access and since, according to the plan, most government information will
be available in electronic format, even the smallest program library will
by default become a regional for electronic government information.
Requiring all libraries to fulfill the regional depository libraries
statutory responsibilities of access and service will place undue burdens
on selectives. In order to prevent this occurrence, more flexibility must
be built into the program that allows libraries to provide access to
electronic information in a manner they can accommodate. We must all
acknowledge the tremendous value of program libraries and it is important
to provide incentives for their continued participation in the program.
CONCLUSION:
These comments on the draft study and the strategic plan supplement
our oral comments delivered at last week's joint Working Group and Advisors
meeting. We will submit additional comments on the draft study and
particularly on some of the specific Task Force Reports within the next few
weeks. In particular, we are troubled that some proposed alternative
models in several of the Task Force Reports may not be wholly in accord
with the study's affirmed principles and goals and thus are very
problematic to our members.
We are especially pleased to see the new draft language of the
definitions in Chapter 19, Title 44 that acknowledge that electronic
information is explicitly defined in the law as being a key component of
the FDLP. It is crucial that Chapter 19 be amended to reflect these
changes in definitions and the broader scope of the FDLP to assure that the
goals for a more electronic program are achieved.
We believe that funding for the technology grants will provide seed
money for small selective libraries which otherwise would be unable to
provide access to electronic products and services to members of their
local communities. One-time technology grants are a step in the right
direction although they may not be sufficient since technology itself
changes so rapidly as do user needs. To strengthen the justification for
these
technology grants, we suggest that GPO determine the number of libraries
that would be unable to provide access to the expanding array of electronic
FDLP materials without these start-up grants.
We would like to make the following recommendations:
- that the substantial progress and inter-agency dialog achieved throughout the past
year continue;
- that GPO and agencies work together to determine
consistency regarding format and standards; and
- that the Working Group
model continue with Information Resource Management representatives from
GPO, the Library of Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and the
Administrative Office of the United States Courts, as well as the library
community and users.
We remain concerned that the draft study lacks clear incentives for
agencies to participate in the program, particularly when their budgets are
being cut. We also firmly believe that means of oversight and compliance
must be provided in a meaningful and effective way. Our associations,
representing the broader library community, are willing to work with you to
supplement and strengthen the study by offering additional information in
the following areas: the capabilities of and impact on libraries and users;
the role and responsibilities of regional and selective depository
libraries; and the troublesome questions of oversight and compliance.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to comment on the draft report.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Oakley
Washington Affairs Representative
American Association of Law Libraries
Carol C. Henderson
Executive Director - Washington Office
American Library Association
Prudence S. Adler
Assistant Executive Director
Association of Research Libraries
David R. Bender
Executive Director
Special Libraries Association
cc:
Members, House and Senate Legislative Appropriations Subcommittees
Chair and Ranking Minority Member, House and Senate Authorizing Committees
Ms. Linda Kemp, Staff Director, Joint Committee on Printing
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