NTIS operates as 1 of 12 independent bureaus within the Commerce Department, with the mission of promoting the nation’s economic growth by providing access to information that stimulates information and discovery. It is led by a director, who is aided by two executives—a chief information officer and a chief financial officer. In addition, three operational offices are responsible for providing NTIS’s products (which include the reports it collects and disseminates) and services. NTIS receives oversight from the Deputy Secretary of Commerce, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and an advisory board made up of a chairperson and four members appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. by 181 staff, including 103 NTIS employees and 78 contractors. As of October 2012, NTIS was supported NTIS’s basic statutory function is to collect research reports, maintain a bibliographic record and permanent repository of these reports, and disseminate them to the public. Under statutory authority enacted in 1950, NTIS collects reports containing scientific, technical, and engineering information from both domestic and foreign sources in a repository and makes the information available to business and industry, state and local governments, other federal agencies, and the general public. While the statute does not define “scientific, technical, and engineering information,” the Secretary of Commerce has interpreted this to include “all types of information which have a more or less direct bearing on business and industry generally.” NTIS’s enabling legislation authorized it to charge fees for its reports and established a policy to recover all costs, as feasible, through the fees. The NTIS Advisory Board was established by law (15 U.S.C. § 3704b(c)) in 1988 to review the general policies and operations of NTIS, including policies related to fees and charges for its products and services. Board members can include individuals who are both internal and external to the Department of Commerce. joint ventures, and other transactions as necessary to conduct its business. Under this authority, the agency has also developed and provides a variety of information-related services. This act further declared NTIS’s repository to be a permanent federal function that could not be transferred to the private sector without congressional approval. The act was amended by the American Technology Preeminence Act of 1991, which required all costs associated with NTIS’s acquisition, processing, storage, bibliographic control, and archiving to be recovered primarily by fees; required agencies to transfer to NTIS unclassified scientific, technical, and engineering information resulting from federally funded research and development; and provided that NTIS should produce and disseminate information in electronic format. Audit work that we conducted in 2000 and 2001 identified concerns about NTIS’s financial sustainability. In this regard, we noted that, from fiscal year 1988 through fiscal year 1994, NTIS had shown excess revenue from the sale of its products and services in all years except one and generated cumulative net earned revenues of $5.8 million. However, over the next 5-year period (fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 1999), it had a cumulative net cost of about $4.2 million. Pub. L. No. 102-395 (Oct. 6, 1992). sufficient to recover all of the agency’s operating costs. The Secretary attributed the decline, in part, to other agencies making their research results freely and publicly available on the Web. He also proposed transferring NTIS’s research report archives to the Library of Congress and requiring federal agencies to give the public free online access to new research reports. In June 2000, we reported that although NTIS could remain solvent for a few years because Commerce and NTIS officials had acted to reduce costs, the agency’s solvency beyond fiscal year 2003 was in doubt, based Accordingly, we suggested that on our forecast of its revenue and costs.Congress consider whether NTIS (or another agency) was needed to serve as a permanent repository for and disseminator of research reports. We again reported on NTIS’s operations in May 2001, according to NTIS’s Deputy Director, the agency had significantly reduced its costs after our June 2000 report and had shown net revenues of $2.2 million for fiscal year 2000. Moreover, the Deputy Director had projected net earned revenue of $1.5 million for fiscal year 2001. We further reported that the agency was providing a variety of fee-based services to other agencies, and while demand for electronic products was on the rise, research reports and other scientific, technical, and engineering information maintained by NTIS were increasingly available through agency websites and other public sources—often at no cost. Thus, we suggested that Congress look at how this information was defined; whether there was a need for a central repository of this information; and, if a central repository was maintained, whether all information should be retained permanently and what business model should be used to manage it. The Secretary of Commerce agreed with our assessment and raised the question of whether there was a need for a central repository in view of the increasing availability of newer publications. However, NTIS continued to operate as this repository. GAO, Information Management: Dissemination of Technical Reports, GAO-01-490 (Washington, D.C.: May 18, 2001). Our most recent reporting on NTIS, in November 2012, continued to highlight the need for attention to NTIS’s basic statutory role of disseminating technical reports and the fee-based model upon which it In particular, while the agency was carrying out a variety of operates.mission-related functions, it was being financially sustained primarily by information-related services it offered to other federal agencies. Further, we noted that additions to NTIS’s repository since 1990 had mostly included older reports, but the demand was greater for more recent reports. More significantly, we found that most of the reports added to NTIS’s repository since 1990 were freely available from other websites. In our 2012 report, we identified the types of products offered by NTIS as part of its basic statutory function to collect and disseminate technical information: Technical reports: NTIS maintains a searchable repository containing bibliographic records on over 2.5 million scientific, technical, engineering, and business research reports. Of these, the agency noted that approximately 700,000 reports had been digitized, with the remainder in physical form, such as paper or microfilm. Access to the reports was provided both through the direct sale of individual reports and by subscription to NTIS’s National Technical Reports Library. Prices for individual reports and subscriptions varied. For example, an electronic copy of a report from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA Robotics for Space Exploration, could be purchased for $15, and a customized CD for this report could be purchased for $30. Clearinghouse: NTIS disseminates publications—either electronically or in print—on a variety of topics on behalf of other agencies. According to NTIS, these agencies request that NTIS distribute the publications in print or electronically. Examples include the Food and Drug Administration Code Manual and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification Manual. Publishing: NTIS also provides access to information collected from federal agencies under the terms of memoranda of understanding or interagency agreements. In some cases, NTIS repackages the information with additional features. According to NTIS, agencies initiate the request for these services. Examples include the Drug Enforcement Administration database and Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. We also discussed the variety of fee-based services offered by NTIS to other federal agencies, which were less directly related to its basic statutory function. These information-related services included the following: Distribution and order fulfillment services: Through memoranda of understanding or interagency agreements, NTIS distributes large quantities of informational materials for federal agencies. For example, it has distributed health and nutrition educational brochures, posters, and similar products on behalf of the Department of Agriculture. Web-based services and federal cloud computing: NTIS offers website hosting and cloud computing services, among other computer-based services, to federal agencies. Brokerage services: NTIS provided billing and collection services on a reimbursable basis to agencies that charge for products and services but lack the infrastructure to do their own billing and collecting. Customers have included the National Agricultural Library and the National Library of Medicine. E-training and knowledge management services: These services include software solutions and other tools, offered in conjunction with joint venture partners, to support online training and related functions. Customers have included the Departments of Justice, the Interior, and the Treasury, among others. Digitization and scanning services: NTIS digitizes various types of documents, such as microfilm or microfiche and paper forms, to assist agencies in complying with federal standards for ensuring access for people with disabilities. It also offers storage and distribution for documents it digitizes. As of May 2012, the agency said it had six primary clients for its digitization and scanning services, including the Social Security Administration and the Department of Justice. As we noted, NTIS’s revenues were generated exclusively from its products and services, and all its revenues, expenses, and capital expenditures were deposited into and paid out of its revolving fund. We found that for fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2011, NTIS had net earned revenues from all its functions (products and services) for 8 of these 11 years. However, for 10 of these years, NTIS’s expenditures for its product lines exceeded revenues. Consequently, the overall financial performance of the agency during this time had been supported by revenues from its service offerings, which increased, on average, $1.8 million during this period. Figure 1 shows the trends in reported net earned revenues (or net costs) for NTIS products and services from fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2011. The decline that we noted in revenue for its products called into question whether NTIS’s basic statutory function as a self-financing repository and disseminator of scientific and technical information was still viable.