The study assumes that depositories will be able to access, download, and print documents for users who need them. Thus there will be, as a practical matter, large printing costs required to make much government information accessible to the public. Already financially strapped libraries cannot necessarily assume the costs of printing millions of pages of government information. For a Congress whose first major enactment was the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, this new approach to distributing government information will not pass the test of avoiding the imposition of financial burdens on local and state units of government to implement federal programs. The library profession has been thinking in new ways about the best possible practices for libraries to assure cost effective, equitable access to the tremendous information resources of the federal government.
Librarians understand that the information environment is wonderfully complex.
Working on the front lines, librarians know and appreciate that special moment when the rubber hits the information highway. When the individual seeks, finds and puts to use the information essential to solving a problem, averting a mistake, creating a new product, understanding a market or turning a profit. Because we see the information process from this end user perspective, librarians rejoice at the expanded options and efficient access that characterize today's federal information strategies. At the same time, we have up close understanding of the complexities and of the multiple uses to which federal information resources are put. We know that intelligent navigating happens at its own pace.