Administrative Notes 

Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program

Vol. 25, no. 03 GP 3.16/3-2:25/03 February 25, 2004 

HIGHLIGHTS

Summary, 

2003 Fall 

Council 

Meeting 1 

Register for 

Spring 2004 

Council 

Meeting 25 

Summary, 2003 Fall Meeting 

Depository Library Council 

October 19-22, 2004 

Washington, DC

Council Members present: 

Duncan M. Aldrich, University of Nevada, Reno 

Paul Arrigo, Pennsylvania State University, Shenango 

Daniel C. Barkley (Chair), University of New Mexico 

Charles D. Eckman, Stanford, CA 

Doris Small Helfer, California State University, Northridge 

Barbara J. Ford, C. Walter and Gerda B. Mortenson Center for 

International Library Programs, University of Illinois at Urbana 

– Champaign 

John W. Graham, Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County 

John C. Kavaliunas, U.S. Census Bureau 

Cheryl Knott Malone, University of Arizona 

Michele T. McKnelly, University of Wisconsin, River Falls 

John Phillips, Oklahoma State University 

Mary W. Prophet (Secretary), Denison University 

Laura Saurs, Newark Public Library 

Barbara S. Selby, University of Virginia School of Law 

Lynn Siemers, Washington Hospital Center 

Sunday Oct. 19 – Afternoon Council Working Session 

The Council session opened with a welcome from Public Printer Bruce 

James. He expressed pleasure with the pace of the reorganization at GPO, 

and the negotiations with OMB, and informed Council that the GPO 

appropriation had been passed by Congress and signed by the President 

with the full amount of the requested funding. 
AN-v25-#03-2/25/04

Judy Russell, Superintendent of 

Documents, briefed Council on meetings 

with ARL Library Directors; presentations to 

library groups including American 

Association of Law Libraries, July 15, 2003 -

- Seattle, Washington, Canadian Library 

Association AGIIG and American Library 

Association GODORT Joint Program, June

21, 2003 -- Toronto, Canada, and the 

Association for Research Libraries, May 15,

2003 -- Lexington, Kentucky; visits to 

depository libraries and other information 

gathering/public relations activities. She 

indicated plans to continue these efforts and 

encouraged Council to help her identify other 

opportunities. 

The progress of the GPO reorganization was 

reviewed. It was noted that historically GPO 

has been organized by funding source. The 

reorganization seeks to create a structure 

organized by function. Reorganization by 

function should create a more efficient GPO 

as operations that previously occurred in 

several different divisions of GPO are 

consolidated. The objective is to have the 

reorganization and physical rearrangement of 

offices finished by April. Interviews for 

some positions were scheduled for the week 

of Oct. 27. GPO has hired a Human Capital 

Officer. 

Copies of “Print on Demand” projects were 

available for examination by Council and the 

audience. Currently costs for single copies of 

documents produced using “print on demand” 

are approximately 20% higher than the cost 

for a copy of a document produced using the 

traditional methods. However, overall costs 

are likely to be less as only needed copies are 

printed and there are no warehousing costs. 

Print on demand currently requires 48 hours. 

GPO hopes to reduce turn-around time for 

these materials to one hour. Congressional 

Materials are moving rapidly to “print on 

demand.” Some GPO publications will 

continue to be produced in the traditional 

manner; for example, the Budget, the 

Government Manual, and the Statistical 

Abstract. This topic concluded with answers 

to questions concerning types of files 

required and mark-up procedures. A brief 

discussion of LOCKSS followed. 

The three most important issues for Council 

to cover are: 

1. Authentication 

2. Preservation – Including management

of the legacy collections in FDLP 

libraries, the creation of the GPO 

collection of last resort, and the number 

of tangible copies needed to ensure 

preservation. 

3. Version Control – We may need to 

redefine what is a document. When are 

changes significant enough to determine 

a new edition? How often in the change 

progress do we need to preserve?

Council received handouts from the ARL 

meeting and from the regional meeting. 

Handouts were accompanied by a brief 

discussion of the ARL Prospectus. 

For the remainder of the session, GPO asked 

Council to participate in an attribute analysis 

exercise conducted by Larry Jellen, a GPO 

Agency Expert. This was a closed exercise

because the facilitator would be holding the 

exercise with others later in the conference 

and didn’t want the response of others to be 

influenced by the responses of Council. 

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Sunday Oct. 19 – Evening Council 

Working Session 

John Phillips reported on the meeting of the 

Regional Depository Librarians held Oct. 16-

18. Committee Chairs gave brief reports of 

the work of each committee. 

Council briefly reviewed a summary of the 

“essential titles” survey result. 

Logistics, procedures, and issues for 

discussion in Monday morning breakout 

sessions by type of library were discussed at 

some length. Breakout session outlines 

included additional suggestions for the 

essential titles list, the tiered system concept, 

incentives and disincentives (also called 

carrots and barnacles). 

Council reviewed GPO’s responses to the 

spring recommendations. Considerable 

discussion followed on issues related to 

recommendation number two, on the United 

States Library of Public Information. These 

issues included the facility for print on 

demand, the relevance of the OMB contract 

with the concern over how many print copies 

is enough to ensure preservation, the 

importance of retrospective cataloging for 

materials included in the collection, the 

nature of such a collection (“light or dark”), 

and issues relating to regional libraries. 

Council reviewed the three issues identified 

for Council consideration during the morning 

session and discussed a number of additional 

issues. These include: continuing up-to-date 

communication with GPO, Council 

participation in the strategic/vision plan; 

collection development; policy 

recommendations; issues related to training; 

dissemination of electronic information, 

particularly content/management; the impact 

of the reorganization on GPO and the FDLP; 

and the role of Council. This review of issues 

was followed by a brief discussion of matters 

related to training for depository librarians, 

including Web based training, the possibility 

of partnering with library schools, and the 

possible use of graduate school students to 

assist in the development of Web based 

training resources. 

Council extracted a list of top priority issues 

for Bruce James these are 1. Authentication, 

2. Version Control , 3. Training/certification, 

and 4. Preservation. A brief discussion of 

preservation and digitization related issues 

ensued. 

The meeting concluded with a review of the 

procedures and issues for the Monday breakout sessions. 

Monday, Oct. 20, 2003, Plenary Session, 

8:30 a.m. 

Council Members present: 

Duncan M. Aldrich, Paul Arrigo, Dan 

Barkley, Charles D. Eckman, Doris Small 

Helfer, Barbara J. Ford, John C. Kavaliunas, 

Cheryl Knott Malone , Michele T. McKnelly, 

John Phillips, Mary W. Prophet, Laura Saurs, 

Barbara S. Selby, Lynn Siemers and John A. 

Stevenson. 

Opening Remarks 

Robin Haun-Mohamed, Chief, Depository 

Services, welcomed everyone and gave the 

usual logistics. 

Daniel C. Barkley (Chair) called the meeting 

to order. After the welcoming statement, 

introduction of Council and Council aerobics, 

Chairman Barkley stated the Council 

recognized the importance of the continuing 

discussions that will occur over the course of 

the meeting. This discussion continues the 

efforts begun in Reno and are focused on a 

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new vision of GPO and the FDLP for the 21st

century. Council’s role will be to continue 

that visioning process with GPO and, of 

course, with the community. 

Since we are quickly approaching Bruce 

James’s 1st anniversary as Public Printer on 

Dec. 1, “it is therefore critically important

that all of us here today begin to define and 

articulate what that vision will actually be. 

We have been in a fact-gathering mode. We

have had a lot of discussions in Reno. There 

have been a lot of discussions, I know, within 

the state library organizations, local library 

organizations, GOVDOC-L and other 

exchanges. There are of course a myriad of 

issues that we face today. While many may 

focus on the tasks that may be performed at 

our respective institutions, Council’s role is 

to provide focus and clarity to the major 

issues that have been defined at Reno.” 

Chair Barkley outlined the three major issues 

identified in Council’s Sunday working 

session as authentication, preservation, and 

version control. He noted that there are 

obviously a great many other major issues 

which will arise during the course of the 

Council sessions, mentioning briefly 

digitization and the possibility of tiered 

service levels. Chair Barkley urged attendees 

to participate as partners in the development 

of the new vision for GPO and the FDLP. He 

urged veterans to network with new 

attendees. 

Judy Russell, Superintendent of 

Documents 

See remarks, 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs

/adnotes/ad111503.html#5 

T.C. Evans:

See remarks, 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs

/adnotes/ad111503.html#6 

Information Exchange

Diane Eidelman, Suffolk Cooperative 

Library System: Mentioned that last spring 

Ric Davis had a handout that showed the 

number of times GPOAccess received 

referrals from individual libraries. She 

understood that this information would also 

be available for referrals from the OPACS 

and wanted to know when this would be 

available. T.C. Evans responded that this 

would be possible as soon as GPO could 

implement the new metric software for 

GPOAccess. This has been delayed by 

procurement setbacks. Diane suggested that 

GPO send out that information rather than 

wait for people to ask for information. 

Stressed that libraries need numbers to show 

that we are doing our jobs. 

Jill Vassilakos-Long, California State 

University – San Bernardino: Suggested 

that having to have an entire separate 

collection for government is a barnacle. 

Judy Russell responded that documents 

could be integrated with existing LC or 

Dewey classed collections. GPO is having 

conversations with the Library of Congress 

about what it would require to include Dewey 

and LC numbers on Government publications 

as they are cataloged. GPO’s retrospective 

cataloging could utilize work done by partner 

libraries in this area. 

Where are you in the inspection process? 

Judy Russell: At the current time, we are 

working on the idea of consultants. In the 

short term inspectors are working on clearing 

all libraries that are on probation. After that 

is completed we will examine how we work 

the balance between consultants and 

inspections.

Julie Wallace – University of Minnesota: 

You spoke of 95% of the materials 

distributed through the program being 

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5 

electronic. In the past GPO has spoken of the 

electronic collection, which includes GPO 

making certain that there are permanent 

copies of all those things. You indicated that 

things that GPO is linking to at other agencies 

are indicated as being part of that 95%. Can 

we still be confident that there is still in place 

either a program of official agreements with 

those other agencies or that GPO is in fact 

backing up all of those things onto GPO 

servers so that they will be permanently 

available? Judy Russell: It is my 

understanding that if we do not have an 

agreement with the agency we are taking 

things into the electronic archive. 

Julie Wallace: In relation to the new 

digitization of historic materials, I’m 

assuming that GPO is keeping in touch with 

the major players, for example LC and the 

Census Bureau, on what they are going to do 

to be sure we will not duplicate what they 

have done? Judy Russell: That is one reason 

of the clearinghouse. Part of GPO’s new way 

of doing business is to work very 

aggressively with agencies to show them the 

opportunities to work with us on the 

digitization of their materials. The Office of 

the Federal Register has shown a strong 

interest in working with GPO and with the 

community in getting the CFR and the 

Federal Register digitized, and they will 

certify it as a true copy so that it can be used 

legally and can be substituted. A number of 

library directors have offered to look at 

already digitized materials and identify 

already digitized government publications 

that can be brought forward and begin to 

form a random collection. 

Audience Member - Public Library: I have 

submitted a number of things to lost docs. 

I’ve never had any response. Is it a black 

hole? Judy Russell: We want people to be 

using lost docs. Betty Jones, GPO: The new 

e-service will alert you when your lost doc is 

received. At the current time there is a 

backlog of approximately 500 documents in 

lost docs. GPO hopes to have the backlog 

reduced by the beginning of the new calendar 

year. 

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski: Expressed 

concerned about agreements covering 

collections which are arrived at when 

libraries are leaving the program. She urged 

that there be some written agreements and 

that the agreements be kept. Judy Russell:

replied that in this new environment where 

GPO is looking at establishing a national 

library and consolidating collections, GPO is 

considering reclaiming these materials. 

Bernadine hoped collections would remain 

available within the state and stressed that it 

would be important that other libraries in the 

state have some way to know about 

depository materials still held in libraries 

which have left the program. 

Cathy Hartman, University of North 

Texas: Inquired about GPO’s efforts to 

include open source software in the GPO 

procurement process. Judy Russell: GPO is 

actively looking at open source software. 

They are increasingly working at identifying 

requirements and looking at the need to not 

lock up the publications with proprietary 

software. 

Sandra McAninch, University of Kentucky 

Libraries: As we talk about digitizing and 

creating back-ups, are you considering a 

microfilm copy for back-up? Judy Russell:

If it can be done at the same time as the 

digitization. 

Duncan Aldrich, University of NevadaReno: A follow-up on the Eidelman question: 

in libraries these days we are having 

difficulty counting services we provide 

because of the Web basis. Are you working 

with any library group on this issue? TC 
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Evans: GPO is working with the NISO on 

library metrics. Have set up a process by 

which you can register where your OPAC 

and your Web pages are, so GPO can collect 

data. 

Joe Milazzo, Southern Methodist 

University: Indicated that catalogers at his 

institution don’t like GPO cataloging. 

Noticed recently a proliferation of new 

electronic records. Judy Russell: Suggested 

that he take this issue to the cataloging 

committee that meets at lunch. Also,

suggested an effort be made to set up a 

meeting between ALA cataloging committee 

and Council’s cataloging committee. Joe 

Milazzo: On a related issue, the library 

community, as a whole, needs to look at more 

closely at MARC. Can we expect to see 

cataloging in some of the Metadata formats? 

Judy Russell: We are looking at Dublin Core 

metadata as well as MARC records. We have 

tried consistently to deal with whatever the 

standards are out there in the community and 

respond to them. We are also looking at one 

of the characteristics of the ILS as the ability 

to both import COSATI records and export to 

COSATI because many of our agency 

partners, the Department of Energy and other 

sci-tech agencies are using COSATI instead 

of MARC. 

Paul Arrigo, Pennsylvania State 

University, A number of libraries are 

classifying their documents in LC from day 

one. Judy Russell: We hope that once the 

ILS is up, we can collect records from library 

partners, add them to the collection and 

distribute them to our library partners. 

Barbie Selby, University of Virginia: 

Wondered how the legacy collection and 

National Archives collection fit together. 

Judy Russell: - GPO has talked to the 

National Archives about the set GPO sent to 

the Archives. At this point we have not 

discussed trying to take that set back to use as 

the collection of last resort or as a source for 

the digitization. With the Memorandum of 

Understanding between GPO and the 

National Archives, it is possible that GPO 

could look at that collection also as a part of 

the collection at GPO. Lynn Siemers reported on the Sunday 

Council session and John Phillips reported 

Charles Eckman, Stanford, CA: What on the Regional meeting. 

format will the digital preservation master be 

in? Will it be in a proprietary format or some

type of Open source file? Judy Russell: We

are not yet far enough along to answer this 

question. 

The remainder of the morning was composed 

of breakout sessions by type of library. 

Monday Oct. 20 2003, Afternoon Council 

Working Session. 

Dave Morrison, University of Utah: How 

will we know if the commercial products 

have met GPO’s criteria? Once they change 

data to fit use, the change destroys the digital 

signature. Judy Russell: Once they massage 

that data they will interrupt the digital 

signature. This issue hasn’t come up from

the private sector. GPO is willing to work 

with the commercial sector on this issue. 

The afternoon session began with reports on 

the Breakout sessions. 

Small and medium public libraries 

breakout session report - Cheryl Knott 

Malone 

Session resulted in ten carrots and a few 

barnacles. The barnacles included the level 

of detail required in collection development 

statements. There was concern about the 

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level of knowledge of users needed for the 

statement. Another barnacle concerned the 

cumbersome nature of the disposal process. 

Suggested carrots included: IP identification 

for databases (e.g., STAT-USA or PACER) 

for both the designated depository and its 

branch libraries; support source for small 

non-depository libraries; depository library 

quota for print on demand copies, more 

information in the list of classes; guides in 

handbook; a collection policy template; smart 

barcodes that would come on the documents 

which could be scanned to produce discard 

lists; the Sudoc number printed on each 

document; training programs opened to 

branch and non-depository libraries; guidance 

as an incentive for initializing cooperation 

between libraries; funds for travel to remote 

training opportunities. 

Large Academic Libraries breakout 

session report – Duncan Aldrich & Doris 

Helfer 

Harvard suggested that map libraries might 

be under-represented in the discussions. 

Major barnacles mentioned were item

selection system (people wanted to choose by 

title and/or have selection work more like an 

approval vendor), a pressing need for the item

list to be cleaned up and inactive items 

removed, and the problems with PURLs for 

serials. Suggested carrots include the 

creation of a non-essential titles list, a 

discount on the price of the Serial Set for 

depository libraries, more frequent and free 

cataloging data and print on demand was 

considered a major carrot. 

There was considerable discussion of 

digitization. It is important that depository 

libraries be included in the development of 

standards for digitization. Suggestions for 

materials to be digitized included the 

Monthly Catalog and documents included in 

an updated list of popular names of 

government reports. It was pointed out that 

3⁄4 of digitization projects are done by nondocs people in libraries. Reaction to the 

possibility of a tiered system was mixed. 

Law Library Break out Session report - 

Paul Arrigo and Barbie Selby 

The list of essential titles from the survey was 

handed to participants for comment and 

mark-up. The barnacle reported was the 

inability to discard ephemera. Carrots 

included print on demand, access to PACER, 

pushed MARC records, and a portal where 

law libraries would register their IP address 

and have access to a law page. Law libraries 

did not relate to the concept of levels. They 

prefer division by type of library. The law 

libraries provided an unranked list of 

priorities for titles/types of materials from the 

“legacy” collection to digitize. 

 

Small & Medium Academic Libraries –

Michele McKnelly and Mary Prophet 

Most of the time was taken up by discussion 

of essential titles. Suggested carrots 

included: the World News Service. There 

was concern over the ability of small and 

medium academic libraries to manage the 

bibliographic control of electronic resources. 

It was suggested that GPO purchase 

Marcive’s “Documents without Shelves” 

product for depository libraries. The 

discussions of tiered levels of service resulted 

in comments on the need for certified training 

and concern over how such a concept would 

fit with Title 44. 

Dan Barkley expressed concern that people 

still do not understand the visioning process. 

Doris Helfer expressed interest in the idea of 

providing a specialized portal as a model for 

small public, law, and medical libraries and 

thinks this would be a really attractive carrot 

and would make a big statement about 

government documents. This may be more 

important than the level of service approach. 

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Paul Arrigo asked if GPO is looking at 

content management software. TC Evans 

responded that yes, they were, specifically for 

use within GPO, but the investigation hasn’t 

gotten to the point where GPO is starting to 

dissect this. Paul suggested that content 

management software could be used to help 

people design such a Web site. This would 

be a great carrot for depositories and it would 

really help GPO create a strong identity with 

its customers. 

If we could get agencies to tell GPO in 

advance what they are going to publish we 

could try to do something like LC cataloging 

in publication. 

In the electronic environment you can get 

away from the item or category selection. 

You are not required to keep electronic for 5 

years. 

Tuesday Morning, Oct. 21, 2003 General 

Session 

Robin Haun-Mohamed welcomed attendees 

and made announcements. 

Bruce James: It is my distinct pleasure as 

my first job today to introduce Robert W.

Ney as Congressman from Ohio and Chair of 

the Joint Committee on Printing–also Chair 

of the House Administration Committee. 

Joint Committee on Printing is responsible 

for oversight of the FDLP. 

Congressman Robert W. Ney, Chairman 

Joint Committee on Printing: 

It’s a pleasure to be here. 

I’ve been in office 22 years, serving in 

different levels of the legislature, and Bruce 

James is probably the most unusual human 

being I’ve ever met. He has kept to his word. 

When we met with him he said he would take 

a certain direction and he did it. And that’s 

unusual sometimes in the U.S. Government. 

So I give him a lot of credit. Bruce James 

deserves a round of applause for the work 

that he does. The Superintendent of 

Documents, Judy Russell, also has risen to 

the occasion to provide service, and I think 

exemplifies how the government is here to 

help. Also Gloria Robinson, she’s from

Ohio, graduated of The Ohio State 

University, as I did. Obviously there are no 

Buckeye fans in here, probably a lot of 

Wisconsin fans. You are not real popular in 

Columbus this year but we’ll forgive you. 

Council Chair Dan Barkley, who technically 

is from the University of New Mexico, 

actually is from the state of Ohio. How many 

of you here are from Ohio? How many were 

born in Ohio or lived in Ohio? Usually there 

are a lot more. Also on the Council 

somewhere are Mary Prophet from the 

Library of Denison University and John 

Graham of the Public Library of Cincinnati. 

So I just want to give a general welcome on 

behalf of the United States Congress and also 

of the JCP. 

You know it’s been in operation since 1813 

and dates back to the age of James Madison 

and the founding fathers. The Federal 

Depository Library Program helps keep 

Americans informed on the actions of their 

public officials and is really a vital 

component of our system of government. It 

is something to be amazingly proud of. 

The Joint Committee on Printing and 

Congress fully support the FDLP. Just 

recently the Congress approved, and the 

President signed into law, the Government 

Printing Office’s full request for a 16.9% 

increase in funding for the Superintendent of 

Documents Salaries and Expenses 

appropriations, raising the budget to $34.5 

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You know, as you get older you appreciate 

things a lot more. I appreciate my librarian at 

St. John’s in Bellaire, Ohio; you always could 

get help and assistance and direction. I think 

people have good visions in their minds of 

the library system and how much it can help. 

The current use of electronic information 

technology raises several issues of interest in 

GPO and the library community. The issues 

include assuring permanent public access to 

electronic collections; providing adequate 

security to ensure the integrity and accuracy 

of government documents; making the 

necessary technology and skills available to 

everyone who wants access to the 

government information; ensuring that the 

costs of providing public access to electronic 

information are distributed equitably; 

defining the role of librarians in an 

increasingly Internet based information 

culture where nearly everyone has access to 

information all the time, and determining the 

best model for the FDLP in the 21st century. 

These are a few of the goals I think will be 

exciting and challenging. 

million. The increased funding will be used 

to upgrade and improve GPO Access and 

provide the FDLP with needed resources. 

JCP will continue to support efforts to 

modernize the FDLP to provide access to 

Government information. And I mention this 

because the increase was obviously needed. 

These are very difficult times budget wise in 

our country’s history after the last two years. 

Obviously we have obligations to 

intelligence, to the military after 9-11, and 

also to the two wars that we have been 

engaged in. So acquiring the funding right 

now, believe me, is a very difficult thing to 

do. But I think because of the way the 

system has been run, people have faith in it 

and that is why the funding has come

through. 

The FDLP is doing a very commendable job 

in transitioning to a predominately electronic 

information system as Congress has directed 

it to. The JCP is confident in the leadership 

of Bruce James and Judy Russell, in full 

consultation with the library community, 

which is very important. The depository 

library program is making the necessary 

transition to continue to provide innovative, 

effective public access in the 21st century. 

Depository librarians are critically important

partners with the GPO in the operation of this 

program and without them this program just 

simply could not function. The JCP and GPO 

regard librarians as essential in providing 

effective public access to government 

information to the entire world. In the 

Internet, the skills and abilities of librarians 

are needed more than ever to assist

Americans in locating and using 

informational resources, including those 

provided by the government. Depository 

librarians should be commended for the great 

job they do in providing access to 

government information through their 

libraries. 

The development of the Federal Depository 

Library of the Year Award, by the way, 

which will be awarded for the first time, as I 

understand it, at this conference, is an 

excellent idea. It will provide long deserved 

recognition to this important program and 

help inform the public about what a great 

public resource the program has become. I 

commend you for doing it. People need to be 

recognized. Of course you are all important. 

Everybody deserves an award. But the 

recognition with an award is a good thing to 

start. 

Let me close by saying you have done a 

wonderful job. When I first was elected to 

Congress, approximately 10 years ago, we 

did not have a way people could get to the 

U.S. House and the opening day of Congress. 

I think it was on January 5 that the switch 

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was flipped and Thomas came into being. 

And it brought the world to the U.S. House, 

and it also it brought us to the world, and we 

have been able to communicate with more 

people than ever before. But is has been a 

challenge for Congress. The Committee on 

House Administration overlooks the 

technology, and we continue constantly to 

question ourselves on what direction we 

should go. I think the great thing about all of 

you is you also provide your bailiwick with 

direction, you ask the questions and you bring 

everything into the 21st century. 

Let me just close by again commending 

everyone. Also I want to say this has been a 

very difficult two years for our county, after 

what happened to us on 9-11. We always 

think first and foremost of our American men 

and women who are in uniform, defending 

this great nation and providing the feeling of 

democracy and the seeds of the movement 

towards democracy for generations to come. 

But also during these difficult times, we 

continue to live and work, and our 

communities will continue despite attempts to 

stop us. Our way of life will be made better 

and more prosperous for future generations. 

That’s what you are about. You are about 

providing something–people many not know 

your names or may not know what you do, 

but surely the effects of what you are working 

on today are going to be there forever, for 

future generations and for our country. So 

thank you for coming to Washington and God 

bless you. 

Bruce James thanked the Chairman and then 

asked Ridley Kessler to step forward. Bruce 

James noted that in the 18 months since the 

president announced his intention to appoint 

him, he had met some truly outstanding 

people. He called Ridley Kessler the Dean of 

the Depository Library Community. Bruce 

James expressed the thanks of GPO for his 35 

years of service to the depository community. 

He then read a copy of a letter of 

commendation and presented Ridley with a 

certificate of appreciation. The Chair of 

Council Dan Barkley presented Ridley with a 

Book of Remembrance from members of the 

depository community. Ridley thanked the 

Public Printer and the depository community. 

Ridley finished his remarks with the warning 

“Just remember I’m retired but not dead!” 

Bruce James: After giving the Keynote 

address to GraphExpo, Bruce James was 

asked if he had renamed the Government 

Printing Office. GPO has not been renamed 

but a new GPO logo has been designed. A 

new logo that is more progressive, more in 

the 21st century, without ignoring the past. 

The head of the Congressional Printing 

Group, Charlie Cook, changed his group 

name to the Office of Congressional 

Publishing Services. This change was made 

without consultation with the Public Printer. 

The Public Printer feels that this is an

excellent example of the transformation of 

GPO from a “command and control structure 

where everything started with the Public 

Printer... to the point where we are forcing 

decisions making lower and lower. This 

should result in a much better level of 

response to GPO’s many customers. GPO is 

even beginning to look at the world in terms 

of customers.” 

GPO has made a lot of changes, and Bruce 

James appreciated Congressman Ney 

recognizing that. The President has signed 

appropriation bills for two of the many 

agencies requesting money from Congress. 

One of them was the GPO appropriation. 

GPO got every nickel asked for. Bruce 

James does not believe that many agencies 

will get every nickel asked for. Bruce James 

considers this support from Congress a tribute 

to the men and women of GPO and the faith 

Chairman Ney and the members of the 

committee have in what GPO is striving to 

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Before updating attendees on these mission 

critical areas, Bruce James reviewed the 

problems and negotiations with OMB. He 

expressed gratitude to Mitch Daniels for 

signing the compact with GPO before he left. 

The essence of this is OMB’s recognition of 

that the most important role that GPO has is 

to gather government documents from all 

sources, cataloging, organizing those 

documents and distributing them broadly 

throughout the United States and making 

certain that they are available to the public. 

do. Bruce James expressed special 

appreciation for the support shown by the 

members of the United States Congress and 

reminded the conference attendees to thank 

their Senators and Congressmen for that 

support. 

Bruce James came to GPO knowing a lot 

about the printing industry, but with little 

knowledge and appreciation of the FDLP. In 

a speech in Chicago, Bruce James talked 

mostly about his role as guardian of 

government information. “The future of the 

GPO lies not just in the preservation but in 

the recognition, extension and expansion of 

the FDLP into the 21st century in a rational 

way.” 

Regulations for public printing are outdated. 

Last year, 10,000 printers went out of 

business worldwide. Printers are looking in 

two directions to move their businesses. 

These are content management and 

distribution to finished product. The new 

plan will let printers talk directly to the 

agency, and will allow agencies to select 

vendors that will give the taxpayer the 

biggest “bang for the buck.” GPO maintains 

the list of suitable vendors, and registers and 

qualifies them. If the agency has someone 

they want to use that is not on the list, GPO 

will try to get them on the list as quickly as 

possible. 

Fact-finding has been done over past year 

about every aspect of GPO’s business, not 

just about the FDLP, but also the information 

industry and all the publics served by GPO. 

If this were the private sector, the job would 

have been done quickly, but the public sector 

requires more time. GPO is right on 

schedule. The GAO is GPO’s partner in this 

fact-finding process. GAO should complete 

its work at the end of February or the 

beginning of March. GPO will wait until all 

the facts are in before moving forward to 

develop a plan for the future. GPO expects to 

engage all of its publics (library community, 

printing community, information industry, 

GPO employees and Congress) in the 

development of a logical plan. Then it will 

move forward. 

In the past, GPO charged a 7% surcharge to 

the agency. Now the vendors must pay a 3% 

surcharge to GPO. In return, OMB will work 

with GPO to shut the agency shops so that 

they won’t waste taxpayers’ money, and to 

make sure an electronic manuscript comes to 

GPO. The Department of Labor was chosen 

as a test for this. Jim Bradley, in printing 

sales, has built a sales team to deal with the 

Department of Labor. This will help people 

directly interface with client and vendor. 

Bruce James updated some issues discussed 

at the DLC meeting in April and presented 

some ideas about where we need to go. 

Among the issues reviewed were the fugitive 

document problem, concern about 

authenticity and preservation of electronic 

information. These are mission critical areas. 

Judy Russell is looking at issue of fugitive 

documents in the Department of Labor. How 

are digital documents created? How can 

these documents be transferred into GPO? 

GPO’s Inspector General is also working on 

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using resources to move the agency forward. 

His job is to look at building an effective 

enforcement mechanism for enforcing the 

rules and laws concerning getting materials 

into the FDLP system. GPO hopes to have a 

report on that by this time next year. 

Permanent Public Access to Information 

GPO is working on a project with a long-time

partner, the Federal Register, on 

authenticating information. The National 

Archives has worked with GPO for 70 years 

to deliver the Federal Register and not one 

day have they failed to deliver. Together 

GPO and the National Archives have initiated 

a pilot program to watermark each document, 

at point of origin, and at each stage 

throughout, until it is on the GPO site. This 

is a learning process on how to authenticate a 

document so that it can be forwarded several 

times and its validity can be assured. 

Public access in perpetuity remains a tough 

challenge. GPO has had many meetings 

outside GPO to look at the development of 

technologies in the ability to maintain digital 

data. The Public Printer hopes to report on 

pilots in that area in the spring. 

What is coming? Bruce James wants GPO to 

be a leader in these areas, with people whose 

primary job is to do this. He wants people 

whose paycheck at GPO is due to leading in 

these areas. 

Challenges for Council 

1. What constitutes a version of 

information? What constitutes a 

Government document today? What 

happens when agencies can update 

daily? In the old days, it was a print 

edition, what is it now? This will affect 

a lot of planning. This definition will 

be a matter of public policy that will be 

determined by more than the depository 

community, but the depository 

community needs to begin action on 

this issue now. 

2. If from this moment on, the primary 

method of distribution is digital, then 

we will need to find a way to store this 

information in perpetuity. Also, what 

do we do with the legacy collections? 

Clearly we are going to need to digitize 

all of it – We can make it searchable or 

images. We will need to do both. We

need to prioritize this information and 

make decisions on what is worth 

making searchable. What can we use as 

just page images?

3. How is GPO going to make money at 

this? We are here now because the 

GPO and FDLP were established with a 

sustainable model that was made many 

years ago. GPO is charged by law with 

recovering the expenses for what it 

does. That broke down several years 

ago. All of the money that GPO had to 

move forward has disappeared. GPO 

has lost tens of millions of dollars. 

Bruce James seeks to make GPO work

like a business. He never worked in a 

union environment before. The unions 

have been some the best partners 

management has, giving the Pubic 

Printer unbelievable cooperation, and 

they are working with management to 

make needed changes. 

10 years ago, GPO tried to charge for 

information distributed on the Internet, 

but it cost GPO more to collect the 

money than was made. So GPO made it 

free to the general public. This cannot 

continue. GPO needs to create a 

business model and bring revenues in 

the door so it doesn’t have to go to 

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Congress all the time. Bruce James and 

Judy Russell have met with 

representatives of the information 

industry to discuss this issue. Bruce 

James suggested that GPO must find a 

way to partner with the information 

industry and that these partnerships 

have to protect the Federal Depository 

Libraries. “This means at the end of the 

day, whatever we do, they have to get 

for free.” Industry representatives 

recognized this as a fact of life if they 

wanted to partner with GPO. Bruce 

James would appreciate 

recommendations from Council on 

ways GPO can do this that will be 

acceptable to the FDLP librarians. 

Information Exchange: 

Chairman Barkley established ground rules 

for the session: 

• 

• 

• 

Every one needs to keep in mind the 

three main issues. 

Questions will be taken from Council 

first, then from the audience. 

Questions not on target will be moved 

to the question box. 

Michele McKnelly: Other people beyond 

libraries need to come to the table. Who are 

we talking to? Bruce James: At the end of 

the day Congress must act on it. When you 

go to Congress and you don’t have multiple 

groups to take up the issue nothing happens. 

We need support from many different groups 

to get things done. Bruce James needs 

Council to examine who should be brought to 

the table to discuss the National Information 

Policy. Michele McKnelly: Agencies, 

scholarly groups, etc. 

Barbie Selby: Money issue is very important. 

Doesn’t necessarily think going to Congress 

is a bad model. Adobe Acrobat to those who 

are not Web providers is essentially free. 

Suggest that there might be model there that 

GPO could look into. Is there some value 

added service that could be provided to 

agencies, sort of like the overhead for 

printing, being the service bureau for the 

printing by agencies? Bruce James: Good 

idea. 

Paul Arrigo: Has GPO considered providing 

competitive analysis, actually using the data 

for businesses? Bruce James: GPO does not 

create information. We process information 

in plain vanilla fashion. The recombining of 

information, annotation, etc., falls to the 

private sector and it should be left in the 

private sector. On the other hand, we do have 

some interesting things. One is the speed of 

GPO data acquisition. In addition, there are 2 

other areas: data tagging and metadata. One 

would think that the GPO would have the 

ability to create government-wide standards 

for this, otherwise our ability to migrate 

materials into the future is negatively

impacted. In GPO training we will focus on 

that. If GPO can provide that for private 

sector, very rapidly process information that

is properly coded and has metadata properly 

imbedded, it will reduce their costs for 

handling that data. GPO would help to be 

able to share its profits with the agencies. 

Other questions remain. How can we charge 

for what we deliver on the Internet? Can we 

build something where people have access to 

information on the Internet, but we could 

include certain things that they might be 

willing to pay for? What are those things, 

and how could GPO do that? Always 

understanding that there is a commitment to 

the free distribution of government 

information through what we call today the 

depository community. We must be careful 

as we define the depository community for 

the future and we must be looking at that too. 

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Dan Barkley: Question from a breakout 

session. When links come out to new agency 

report, PURL links are not necessarily linked 

to older reports. How can GPO provide links 

to back issues? Judy Russell: The issue 

there is largely through the partnerships such 

as we are establishing with the OMB compact 

as a model and through other outreach to 

agencies. We are going to have to provide 

tools for them that make it easier for them to 

publish. In essence giving them reasons to 

modifying agency behavior and letting 

agencies know how that affects the users. 

Must communicate with the agencies. Bruce 

James: GPO trains librarians but also trains 

people from agencies. GPO will need to 

modify this training to reflect new needs. 

Agencies do not yet know the job. 

Grace York, University of Michigan: 

Grace represented the GPO a few years ago 

in Russia at a State Department conference. 

One of the selling points was that basic 

government information should be free to 

everyone on the Internet. GPO set a model 

by providing this information free on the 

Internet. Now most countries and states 

release their legislative information to the 

Internet. What GPO will do affects the 

world. Will GPO consider what people need 

for democracy? Bruce James: For many 

years we had a product called The 

Congressional Record. People were 

interested in it because it affected a lot of 

actions. GPO sent the Congressional Record 

free to depositories but had several thousand 

people who paid $1,000 each to subscribe to 

it because they thought it was very important. 

In the case of the Federal Register, 35 

thousand people paid almost $1,000 per year 

for their own subscriptions. Today there are 

fewer than 2,000 people. What is going on 

here? Grace York: Now they get it free on 

the Internet? Bruce James: Why could GPO 

charge then and not now? Grace York: If

GPO charged, they will go to Thomas or 

down load and distribute it for free. Bruce 

James: We need a model that will let us 

continue doing what we are doing today and 

more. 

Doris Helfer: Clearly what people pay for or 

are willing to pay for in terms of government 

information is something that adds value to 

what they need. Interested in the most 

current information, last year’s statistics on 

trade don’t interest them. The ability to 

manipulate data, the advanced information, 

they will pay for that. These are not things 

we provide as government documents 

professionals. What business wants is how 

their area is doing economically. Something 

that is an investment on their part that will 

help make them a market. If we were the 

resource that would put them in touch with 

the expert in the government agency; if we 

could provide a way for them to manipulate 

the data and put it in their spreadsheets, then 

we might have something they would buy. 

Bruce James: Appreciates comments. 

Cheryl Knott Malone, Arizona: I appreciate 

the information about how the OMB compact 

was structured to shift from a 7% charge to 

agency to a 3% charge to vendor. Is there a 

sense of the market in the private sector for 

services from GPO to the vendors and how 

that might play out? Judy Russell: GPO has 

been having a series of meetings with a 

variety of private sector companies and is 

beginning to explore those issues to lay out 

the fact that GPO is seeking partnerships that 

would not violate Title 44 and the interests of 

the FDLP. These are in the beginning 

exploratory stage to discover where there 

might be a meeting of interests that might 

lead to product development that could 

produce revenue streams for both GPO and 

the private sector partners. 

John Kavaliunas, Census Bureau:

Agencies are going to want to be purveyors 

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of their own information. Where GPO does 

have a strategic advantage is that GPO is in 

the unique position to be able to pull together 

data from a variety of sources and to add 

value to them. Bruce James: Just by the 

aggregation itself is what you are saying. 

This is an interesting question: is it to the 

agencies’ advantage to purvey that data 

themselves, or is GPO in a position to 

provide enough value to the agencies that 

they would appreciate such services from

GPO? I suspect this is a case of “one size 

won’t fit all.” GPO needs to design services 

to fit the needs of the customer agencies. 

Michele McKnelly: I don’t understand why 

version control is a public policy issue and 

business model is not a public policy issue. 

This group has an interest in this and there 

are other groups out there in government and 

in corporate America who will want to have 

input on the business model and selling this 

material back. We need to have this 

discussion with everybody. Also very 

interested in what Congressman Ney said. 

They were interested in universal technology 

skills being delivered and the costs would be 

distributed equitably, because I’m not sure 

this would be part of distributing costs to 

users equitably. It would be distributed to 

those who could pay. 

Bruce James: GPO is not looking to take 

away from FDLP partners any advantages 

they have. GPO is looking at ways to 

increase that advantage. Congressman Ney 

did not say that it is the policy of the United 

States Government that its information is 

free. It is well established by custom, by rule 

and probably by law that we are going to 

distribute the vast majority of the 

government’s information to the American 

public through the FDLP. There are two 

reasons for doing that: one is to be sure that 

citizens have access to the work of their 

government, and the second is to protect the 

record of that work in perpetuity. We are not 

looking at changing that at all. 

What is being addressed is the change in 

shipping a publication by order to John Smith 

in Kansas and having John Smith 

downloading that same information for free. 

In the old days, we added up the costs of 

producing and shipping the material and that 

was the cost we charged. Those costs did not 

all go away when we stopped printing. They 

changed, but didn’t go away. Now we are 

not in a position to collect any money from

John Smith. 

This is not how Title 44 started out. This 

situation just happened. GPO was slow to the 

gate; when we got there, we didn’t have the 

business skills we needed. We abandoned the 

charges because of problems, but we need to 

address them. We have ways now to have 

different kinds of partnerships with the 

private sector. You need to give me some

direction. It will be a year or more before we 

are ready to try our first model on this. We

will solicit views from all sectors. Nothing 

we do today will last very long. It is the 

nature of the commercial world today. If 

GPO is in the commercial information 

business in some form or fashion, it must be 

prepared to change. 

GPO is prepared to stay the course and make 

certain it finds a way to build the next 

generation of partnerships with the depository 

libraries, based on the GPO bringing to the 

table something of equivalent value to the 

depository libraries as in the old days of 

printed publications. I’m not sure we have 

the equivalent value in the mix right now. I 

think allowing you the same access to 

government documents on the Internet that 

John Smith in Kansas has may not be that 

equivalent value. GPO is committed to 

figuring what that equivalent value would be. 

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Michele McKnelly: Are you looking at 

placing restrictions on the repackaging of the 

back files of materials that fall under your 

purview, like the Congressional Record and 

the Federal Register. You used this New 

York Times model to give an example. Are 

you looking at that, because there are people 

out here who repackage things for their 

constituents every day? That’s our job. We

are not interested in any kind of restrictions 

on the back-file of any of that material and 

we will place it up on freely accessible Web 

sites and would not be interested in restricting 

it. Bruce James: That will narrow what 

you'll be able to have, won’t it. We need a 

new way of looking at this. I don’t have a 

model in mind. All I know is that we need to 

find a new revenue model that will help fund 

in the future and one that doesn’t interfere 

with the mission that the depository library 

community has. 

Paul Arrigo: In the past, GPO sold books 

that were freely available in the library. Why 

cannot GPO sell the things on the Web, for 

the convenience of it, that people could still 

walk to the library and get free? This could 

apply for both tangible products and for PDFs 

on the Internet. Bruce James: That’s a very 

good point. The old way, of having books in 

the warehouse and fifty years later throwing 

them away, isn’t going to work any longer. 

So GPO is looking at print on demand 

publications. I would also like to be able to 

offer agencies the opportunity to put their 

publications into a print on demand system. 

A system that would allow us to print on a 

regional basis to order for those that might 

want to buy them and to have that 

opportunity to have it available for a long 

period of time, fifty or a hundred years or 

more. 

Barbie Selby: Hopes that Congress and 

Congressional appropriations are not out of 

this mix and also generating money. How 

much money are we talking about here, 10 

million, 30 million 60 million? One of the 

value added things discussed is the authentic 

version of material. FDLP is the carrot. We

get authentic versions available in libraries. 

If you want it in your law office you pay 

$9.95 by credit card for it. Judy Russell: 

Ten years ago the sales program had revenues 

of $84 million. This year revenue was $32 

million. This may not be a goal to get back 

to, but represents the scale of change caused 

by providing all of this information free on 

the Internet. Bruce James: Would not be 

worth the effort if it didn’t recover at least 

$50. Thinks the idea of selling authenticated 

versions very clever. 

Duncan Aldrich: Encouraged everyone in 

the audience to meet with Council, if they 

have any ideas on this or other topics. 

Reviewed some of the ideas expressed during 

the session and in conversations on break: 

1. Appropriated funds 

2. Essential titles for free but maybe pay 

for other titles 

3. Free at libraries but not free at other 

places 

4. How much revenue will the print on 

demand generate 

5. Where does the private sector come into 

this 

6. We need to be in touch with the SIIA 

7. Possible charging back to agencies 

8. Most recent for free pay for older, or 

older free, pay for recent 

9. Selling authenticated copies 

Objective is to try to keep information as 

widely available as possible. The technology 

screams to have open access to government 

and other information. 

Barbara Ford: We need a summit meeting 

where some of these various groups come

together. Different groups will have different 

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perspectives. We need a way for some of the 

key players to come together. Bruce James: 

Good idea. Include newspapers in that group 

too. 

Charles (Chuck) Eckman: Suggested an 

addition to Duncan’s list. Follow-up on the 

idea of selling authentic copies outside of the 

depository system as something that is a 

characteristic of enhanced or valued added 

services that might be sold, including things 

like data manipulation and data extraction. 

Things that would be for users who wanted 

advanced use of content. There would be a 

core that would be freely available for 

viewing and use at a basic level. There 

would not be any chronological distinctions 

or comprehensiveness distinctions, but a suite 

of services would be available in depositories 

and for a fee. 

Dan Barkley: Michele mentioned 

depositories mining things and putting them

up, implying that there would be a smaller set 

of things available for depositories. Did I 

miss understand you? Bruce James: Warned 

people to be careful, just because he used the 

Congressional Record and the Federal 

Register as an example, not to project his 

thoughts and ideas onto those two 

publications. Those may very well be 

publications we agree need to be freely 

accessible forever. If we are going to partner 

with the private sector, how are we going to 

persuade them to furnish a product jointly 

developed by GPO and the private sector to 

the depository libraries for free? Early 

indications are they would not find that 

objectionable. They would be interested in 

supporting that program. The difficulty 

would be if they gave it free to depository 

libraries and the libraries chose to compete 

with them for the sales of that material, which 

would be a problem. Judy Russell: We have 

one example in the program right now: 

StatUSA. They could claim an exemption 

under Title 44, as it must be supported by 

sales. They value having it in depositories 

but they would not want libraries to put it up, 

thereby destroying their ability to be selfsustaining. Dan Barkley: Another example 

is the World news service where we get one 

user. If we want to distribute to all our users 

we may have to pay for it. 

Bruce James: The government invested in 

the libraries, but the libraries put in an even 

bigger investment. If we decide that it is 

important to maintain this, we must decide 

what we can offer to make this attractive to 

you. Many of the folks I talk with are the 

people who hold the purse strings, mayors of 

communities or university presidents. It is a 

matter of not just convincing you but also the 

people who control the purse strings. We

will never be in the position where we do not 

need some funding from Congress. Congress 

has been unwilling to make up the 50 million 

dollar gap. We at the GPO have to be the 

masters of our own future. You have made 

such huge investments over the years, I want 

you to feel it is worth going in that direction. 

But you must understand that everything has 

changed, if we don’t do this we will be out of 

business. 

Doris Helfer: When we make it available to 

our community, it has a greater value and a 

greater good, because people go back and do 

research that helps drive innovations. 

Information drives future analysis and 

development that comes back to industry in 

lots of ways that helps drive future 

innovation. 

Ridley Kessler: Title 44 and the depository 

library program says no fee access to 

libraries. It doesn’t mention anybody else. 

There is hardly an Academic library and 

some publics that offer free printing for 

anything, including government information. 

When we do that with electronics and a lot of 

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distance even that is not available to people 

who don’t have a library card. A lot of 

libraries are starting to cut down on their 

access even to government information. In 

the ARL survey, the biggest problem besides 

staffing is space. We have begged, pleaded, 

been far seeing about getting electronics. We

cannot now start wailing and gnashing our 

teeth about how many print copies we can get 

of documents. If GPO can solve problems so 

that even fugitive documents are available on 

line and you can preserve it, then anyone who 

doesn’t want it that way should pay for it. 

The old system where we sometimes got 

things 4 ways--print, microfilm, CD, on-line--

won’t work any more. We are in the 

electronic age. We have to learn to live with 

that and anything else I think we have to pay 

for. 

Greta Marlatt, Naval Postgraduate School: 

Our role has always been to make the 

information available, but not to make it free 

to print. In this arena, the technology does 

allow you to post it without allowing people 

to download it or print it. Recommends a 

look at the National Academy press model, 

where you can look at a document page by 

page or down load it or print it page by page, 

but if you want the entire PDF you have to 

pay for it. If the public wants the 

convenience of having the whole thing they 

would have to pay for it. Bruce James: 

Interesting. 

Christopher Dixon, St Josephs University, 

Philadelphia: We actually pay for 

government information a number of ways 

through the aggregators. Libraries pay for 

this because the access mechanisms are much 

better than some government sites. Some of 

today’s proposals may be in competition with 

private industry as well. Bruce James: There 

may be real value in what the private sector is 

doing. Has asked Judy Russell to look at the 

development of two levels of searching. One 

would be a general public level of searching; 

the other would be the development of very 

special data mining tools that would go only 

to depository libraries. 

Steve Hayes: Mr. James, you have hit one of 

our core values: government information is 

free to all. Another is the life cycle

information goes through from collection 

thorough dissemination. The community is 

going to be unwilling to chop off the 

dissemination portion. It has been no fee to 

depositories. How do you define coming in 

to a depository in a virtual environment? It 

would be interesting to develop a model that 

would say for a fee you will have virtual 

access to the depository and a pass through. 

There would be X number of free ports which 

you could try to get into. We are limiting by 

number of ports. If you want to ensure the 

availability of a port you have to pay a fee. If 

selling it to the depositories is going to 

increase the income stream of the private 

sector, we are going to kick on that. It is like 

we are paying for the privilege of serving the 

American public. There are studies on the 

dollar value of depository materials vs. how 

much the libraries are paying to provide 

access. Making the depository and its ability 

to serve part of the revenue stream is going to 

be chancy and a barrier. Take a look at the 

Harvard business school model. You may 

buy a copy of a case and you may print it as 

often as you want, but you cannot download 

it and you cannot append it or anything else. 

It is a per use model. 

Judy Russell: The recent ARL survey had a 

mean and median figure 245,000 to 345,000 

dollars. 

Duncan Aldrich: With the idea of a bundled 

package, instead of buying piece by piece, 

you would go straight to GPO and buy the 

discounted bundled package for $500 to 

$1000 dollars per year. 

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Cass Hartnett, University of Washington: 

Industry partners you should talk to include 

Amazon .com, Adobe.com and Real 

networks. Both Adobe and Real networks 

offer one little thing for free and then offer 

enhanced and expanded services by fee. Also 

Microsoft, because of their office suites they 

would be the experts on the versioning. Ecommerce is risky and scary, and we don’t 

know how successful the commercial sector 

can be, so we certainly don’t know how 

successful the government can be entering ecommerce. 

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski: Joint 

Committee on Printing, retired. Applauded 

the pilot project with the Department of 

Labor and working with the actual authors. 

The Joint Committee and Printing and GPO 

are both awesome publishers. GPO has 

provided publishing services forever: editing, 

proofing, bringing information in, 

aggregating data. All those things have been 

done forever, since the birth of the 

Government Printing Office. The agencies 

have paid for those services, and in most 

cases, i.e., the Congressional Record and the 

Federal Register, they have gotten a return for 

every penny they paid you in spades. 

You have to have a revenue stream, and that 

stream should come from the agencies and 

the authors, not from the public. When the 

GPOAccess act was written and passed, the 

idea was free data for every citizen in the 

United States, because that is what the 

depository program is all about. The sales 

program was included because the Democrats 

had to bring the Republicans in and the 

Republicans wanted that. Now the 

Democrats and the Republicans alike think 

that it is great progress that a Republican 

Congress is just as supportive of the program

as a Democratic Congress was. There has 

been a revolution. The revolution has not 

been in the libraries, it has not been with the 

librarians, it has been with the users. They 

now expect to get government information 

free. That is where the revolution has 

happened. The users are now aware of the 

treasure they can get. We need to bring 

revenue in, but not at the expense of the 

users. LC used to sell catalog card. Such a 

good job was made of converting cataloging 

to electronic distribution that catalog cards 

are gone as a revenue stream for LC. It 

would not be the biggest tragedy in the world 

for the GPO sales program to go down the 

tubes. We have to totally rethink that. Title 

44 provided free public distribution of the 

Congressional record to all public libraries. 

The Geologic Survey also sent stuff out free. 

Title 44 is very broad, it covers not just the 

depository libraries, but all the free 

distribution programs that have existed since 

the beginning of our country. This is a more 

diverse and complicated issue than it appears 

on the surface. Applauds GPO for exploring 

the issues and bringing them to us as a 

community, not just to librarians but also to 

the private sector and the public, and 

recommends the conversation be broadened. 

Bruce James – We will try to get a broader 

conversation in St. Louis. I appreciate your 

comments very much. Liked the point of 

trying to get the agencies who create the 

information to put some money into this. 

Chris Brown, University of Denver: 

Building on what Bernadine was just asking, 

wondered what a cost recovery model, an 

agency charge back model would look like. 

If instead of charging 3%, the charge was 

3.5% or 4%, with the carrot to the agencies 

being expedited positing on the Internet, and 

secondly permanent public access 

guaranteed. My thought being, how do you 

bring in smaller government agencies that 

produce fugitive documents? Can we tweak 

the numbers a bit to bring in extra revenue. 

Bruce James: Maybe it is worth taking a 

look at. 

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Mark Anderson, University North 

Colorado: Wanted clarification on the GAO 

report mentioned this morning. Bruce 

James: Congress has asked GAO in

conjunction with GPO to look at some of the 

factors surrounding government printing and 

information dissemination. Some of those 

factors involve GPO, some involve the FDLP 

and some involve agencies. Attempting to 

see where government printing is actually 

taking place.

How much is coming through GPO? How 

much is going around GPO? Look at the 

changing requirements of agencies. What the 

printing requirements of agencies will be? 

GPO had a hand in planning and GPO is 

getting good support out of GAO. Thinks 

they really are trying to help us as best they 

can as they respond to the request of 

Congress. GPO will learn things about 

operations and about its customers. Mark 

Anderson: Is GAO looking at revenue 

enhancement? Bruce James: GAO is not 

looking at revenue enhancement – Mark 

Anderson: Would you expect the GAO 

representatives to share with us in St. Louis. 

Judy Russell: GAO representatives are here 

at this meeting. They have had a focus 

group. They are observing as well as 

interacting with the community. 

Rich Gause, University of Central Florida: 

What constitutes a version that might be 

retained, in terms of a monographic report? 

If it has been 3 months, a corrected document 

may not need to be retained. If it has been 10 

years, and there have been policy changes 

and/or changes due to research, then it may 

need to be retained: process documents like 

laws and regulations, where as it moves 

through the process each version of the bill 

becomes valuable in terms of looking back at 

it. The interim materials are things like daily 

and weekly reports that are cumulated at the 

end of the year, insuring that those daily or 

weekly figures are retained for continuing 

access to those smaller time periods. Data 

bases, data changing, where it is updated on a 

regular basis with the last 10 years’ worth of 

data with actual figures and estimates for the 

next 5 years. Researchers need access to 

these estimates because they need to see how 

accurate these estimates were. Need to 

ensure access to those estimates. Asks 

Council are there other items that need to be 

identified. Bruce James: You are going in 

exactly the right direction. This is exactly 

what we need to be doing. 

Tim Byrne, University of Colorado: In the 

hall we have two publishers trying to get us 

to pay for the Serial Set. Competition has 

good points and bad points. There is 

duplication. What troubles me is competition 

between two government agencies. What we 

are talking about here with GPO looking at 

creating revenues with the creation of 

electronic products is going to put 

competition with NTIS at a higher level. 

NTIS when they get in competition they are 

more desperate because they have to sell to 

continue to exist. In the past NTIS has 

undercut the prices at GPO. We need to 

include them in the discussion. Bruce 

James: Good point, I have been out to visit 

them. 

Jill Vassilakos-Long, California State 

University – San Bernardino: On version 

control, even if a document is only a few days 

old when it is changed or corrected, would 

like to see GPO bring back errata sheets. To 

do an electronic errata thing like “It used to 

say this; we corrected it.” Even if it has been 

up 10 minutes someone will quote it. After it 

is corrected, if someone goes back to check, it 

will look like as if it were misquoted. That is 

not right and it is not fair. The whole concept 

of errata sheets worked in paper and it is time 

to bring that into the electronic age.

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Deborah Mongeau, University of Rhode 

Island: Struck by how everyone is talking 

about government information as one size fits 

all. It is not that way, we have monographs, 

databases, serials, etc. All of this information 

is structured differently. It has different costs 

in producing it and it has different uses by the 

end user. We need different models for 

different types of materials and different 

users. Two tiers of information but terms of 

licensing structures that would be tailored to 

other users. We need to look for a model that 

will take us through the next 10, 20, 30 years. 

Bruce James: We are not talking about 

something will last us the next 5 minutes but 

something that will last. How do we organize 

this material so we can take it forward 

regardless of the technology for the next 100 

or 200 years. 

End of Information Exchange 

Judy Russell, Superintendent of 

Documents: It is my privilege to announce 

the Federal Depository of the Year Award. 

Last spring we announced that we were 

establishing a Federal Depository of the Year 

award because we recognize that Federal 

depository libraries invest significant time 

and resources in their public services. 

The award is intended to provide special 

recognition for a library that furthers the 

goals of the program by insuring that the 

American public has free access to its 

government information in the following 

ways: 

• 

• 

• 

outstanding service to meet Federal 

Government information needs in the 

library service area, 

creativity and innovation in developing 

specific community programs for the 

use of Federal Government information 

or a dramatic increase in their 

community use of Federal Government 

information, and 

leadership in creating public service

programs that can be emulated by other 

Federal depository libraries. 

This morning it gives me great pleasure to 

announce that the Tulsa City-County Library 

is the first library to be recognized as the 

Federal Depository Library of the Year. 

(Library Director Linda Saferite, and Suzanne 

Sears, depository librarian, were presented to 

the audience.) 

This library has been embracing new 

technology in its online efforts to make 

public access to government information 

more accessible. We are very impressed by 

the library’s commitment to using the Internet 

and outside the box techniques to better serve 

the needs of the public. Not only is your 

library moving forward, introducing 

information access options, but you have also 

substantially increased circulation at the same

time, and your staff has many effective 

programs for outreach to the public and you 

also serve as a liaison for local community 

officials. (Bruce James and Judy Russell 

presented a certificate to Linda Saferite and 

Suzanne Sears.) 

Linda Saferite, Director, Tulsa CityCounty Library: Thank you, we are so 

honored and to be the first library selected is 

so sweet. Our collection may be small but we 

maximize every bit of it. Suzanne Sears sees 

her work as a calling. It is easy for her to be 

one of the future-thinking librarians who 

pushes the envelope, adapts quickly and 

develops new ways to fulfill her mission, 

connecting people and public information. 

Thank you. 

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Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 21, 2003 – Council 

Working Session 

Council established four writing teams and 

established some initial parameters for the 

reports. 

Meeting began with a reminder concerning 

the Federal Depository Library of the Year 

Award ceremony to be held that evening 

from 7:30 to 9:00. Dan Barkley announced 

that the deadline for anyone wishing to get 

facts and recommendations to Bruce James 

would be December 1, 2003. 

1. Revenue – Barbie Selby /chair, John 

Graham, and John Kavaliunas, Michele 

McKnelly 

2. Version/authentication – Duncan 

Aldrich /chair, Barbara Ford, Chuck 

Eckman, Lynn Siemers 

Council committees reported on their 

afternoon meetings. The Operations 

committee suggested a possible resolution on 

the electronic substitutions list. The 

Education and Preservation committee wrote 

a draft resolution in support of the ARL 

prospectus. Barbie Selby noted that there 

were several burning issues, but that these 

could be addressed in a report rather than 

requiring a resolution. Council agreed that 

the issues before Council required a report 

rather than a recommendation, and Michele 

stressed that information on these reports 

should appear on the Council 

recommendations Web page. 

3. Legacy/digitization – Laura Saurs 

/chair, Mary Prophet, Cheryl Malone, 

Dan Barkley 

4. Carrots/Barnacles – Paul Arrigo /chair, 

John Phillips, Doris Helfer 

The meeting concluded with an extended 

discussion on the creation of a Web-based 

survey for input from the community on the 

four issues to be covered by the writing 

groups.

Tuesday evening, Oct. 21, 2003 – Council 

Working Session 

Council discussed Bruce James’ request for 

advice from the Depository Library 

Community on revenue generation for the 

GPO sales operation. Major points from the 

discussion include: Council must continue to 

stress the core values of the Federal 

Depository Community; Council needs 

additional feedback from the community to 

address the issues; the morning session was 

brain storming, and suggestions need to be 

carefully examined before any 

recommendations are made; some concern 

was expressed over any implication that 

libraries should assist GPO in the actual sale 

of information; the need for sustainability, 

and T.C. Evans provided a brief history of the 

sales program. T.C. also noted that the sales 

program has been losing ten million dollars 

per year for the last six years. 

Options for the Council Survey were 

investigated and plans for the survey were 

finalized. 

Wednesday morning, Oct. 22, 2003 – 

Council Working Session 

Council began with a review of work to be 

done by the writing groups and group chairs 

were asked to integrate their work with the 

documents to come out of the visioning 

process. 

There was a brief discussion of the essential 

titles list and titles suggested for digitization. 

The next step in this process is to compile, 

rank and submit both the essential titles list 

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and the suggestions for digitization to the 

committee for review. 

John Philips was elected Chair of Council for 

the 2004/2005 term. 

Judy Russell: Apologized to Council for the 

surprise topic on revenue enhancements in 

Bruce James’s address. This was a topic 

GPO has been talking about internally. Bruce 

James said, “I don’t want to bring other 

groups in until you all have set the 

boundaries.” He is looking for a healthy 

income stream because the sales program has 

in the past supported the revolving fund. He 

is concerned that GPO will always be behind 

on technology because they will have to go 

back to Congress for the funds. 

The question is how can GPO increase the 

income stream without endangering the 

FDLP. There is no point in developing a 

wonderful economic model if it doesn’t fly 

with the depository librarians--it will crash 

and burn. It was suggested that Council 

needs to understand Bruce James style. He 

likes to be provocative; he feels that he will 

get a more honest reaction. He has 

established very wide parameters for the 

development of a business model, and is 

hoping that the community will set the 

boundaries for the income stream a bit further 

out than the boundaries implied in 

conversations with GPO staff and others. If 

there is an economic value if you are not a 

depository, it is very easy to establish the 

value of being a depository library. 

Michele pointed out that Council had never 

before been asked for advice on the sales 

program. 

Judy Russell: The lines between sales and 

the FDLP have blurred. The revenue model 

has been changed because of the decisions 

that have been made on the depository model. 

GPO needs to redefine the lines. By the 

current pattern, public access has been 

dramatically improved, but the program has 

been damaged because we have lessened the 

visual value of the program. 

The remainder of the discussion focused on 

the changing nature of the program and the 

concern expressed by Chuck Eckman that 

technology changes so quickly that we could 

unnecessarily restrict either public access or 

the business model. 

Council broke into working groups. 

Wednesday morning, Oct. 22, Closing 

Session 

Chairman Dan Barkley thanked the 

attendees for remaining for the closing 

session. He noted that from 1988 to the 

present he could not recall a time when 

Council did not put forth some

recommendation. This Council meeting was 

spent working on the charge put forth by 

Bruce James. Chairman Barkley called the 

attention of the audience to the drafts 

produced by Council writing groups and 

outlined Council’s proposed work schedule 

for the next few weeks. The deadline for the 

final documents is December 1, 2003. 

Council should have rewritten versions of the 

Envisioning documents ready by ALA. 

Chairman Barkley informed the audience that 

an announcement for comments on the 

working documents from Council would be 

sent out in the next few days and requested 

their response. 

John Phillips announced that the report on 

the regional meeting should also be out by 

December 1, 2003. 

Chairman Barkley thanked Bruce James for 

his generation of some frank discussion over 

the past couple of days, Bruce James and 

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GPO for the Library of the Year Award and The meeting adjourned at 2:20 p.m. 

the reception & ceremony Tuesday night, 

Bruce James for bringing Council in on the 

planning process in a collaborative 

partnership. He asked GPO staff to stand and 

thanked them for all of their efforts to make 

the conference a success. GPO staff was 

warmly applauded. Thanked audience for its 

diligence and hard work.

Respectfully submitted: 

Mary Prophet 

Secretary 

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AN-v25-#03-2/25/04

SPRING 2004 

DEPOSITORY LIBRARY 

COUNCIL MEETING 

St. Louis, MO – April 18 – 21, 2004 

Register online at 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/tools/counreg.html 

Hotel Registration 

SHERATON WESTPORT HOTEL 

314-878-1500 

http://www.starwood.com/sheraton/index.html 

25 
AN-v25-#03-2/25/04

Table of Contents 

Summary, 2003 Fall Council Meeting.......................................................................................... 1 

Register for Spring 2004 Council Meeting................................................................................. 25 

Administrative Notes Cumulative Table of Contents 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/adnotes_toc.pdf 

Updated with each issue 

Searchable by keyword 

Administrative Notes is published in Washington, DC by the Superintendent of Documents, 

Library Programs Service, Government Printing Office, for the staffs of U.S. Federal 

Depository Libraries. 

It is published on the 15th day of each month; some months have additional issues. 

Postmaster send address changes to: The Editor, Administrative Notes 

U.S. Government Printing Office

Library Programs Service, SLLD 

Washington, DC 20401 

Internet access at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/adnotes/index.html 

Editor: Marian W. MacGilvray (202) 512-1119 mmacgilvray@gpo.gov

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