IS 534: The Government Printing Office (GPO)


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Quotes

"GPO, under the direction of Public Printer Bruce James, has undertaken an ongoing strategic planning initiative to move the agency from primarily a printing operation to an information access and delivery operation." ~ Depository Library Council

"The current technology at GPO has proven to be unreliable (the PURL server and GPO Access come to mind here), and the current system appears to be increasingly unsupported while the future digital system has not been fully funded, tested, or implemented." ~ Valerie Glenn

A Few Websites

The GPO web site contains much useful information.

A Training Manual is available for GPO Access. Well worth a visit. This is a PDF file.

The GPO Multi-database Search allows simultaneous searching through several different sources. Read the instructions first.

GPO has a help desk database that can be very helpful in finding government information. You need to be familiar with it. A RSS feed for FDLP Desktop News and Updates is now available and makes access much easier.

GPO's Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Project "serves as a locater tool for publicly accessible collections of digitized U.S. government content.

The American Association of Law Libraries has a good introductory tutorial on Sudocs classification.

Mission

The mission is "keeping American informed by distributing the official information products of the Government, thereby sustaining one of the keystones of our 200-year experiment in freedom: an enlightened public." The new vision for the GPO is to be "an agency whose primary mission will be to capture digitally, organize, maintain, authenticate, distribute, and provide permanent public access to, the information products and services of the Federal Government."

GPO is part of the legislative branch

The Public Printer [currently Bruce R. James] is the CEO of the GPO and is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

This is a major problem since most government printing is done by the executive branch. Thus, the executive branch argues that the GPO is a violation of the separation of powers since the legislative branch is responsible for what is clearly an executive responsibility.

The Republican Congress and President have attempted [stopped at the moment] to eliminate the GPO to eliminate "bureaucracy" and the union members part of the GPO. The alternative would be to decentralize government printing to the various executive agencies. This would be more costly than having printing go through the GPO. A recent agreement between the GPO and the OMB allows GPO to continue with its monopoly and reduce some in-house agency printing. GPO will let agencies deal directly with private printers via a GPO-based web ordering system. Printers will negotiate with the GPO on price. As James said, "the GPO will become much more focused on packaging services and selling those services to agencies as opposed to sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring and taking orders." The larger problem is that digital publishing in-house eliminates the need for a large government print shop.

Some History

Rationale for GPO [1861-]

The U.S. Code Title 44, section 501 states:

"All printing, binding, and blank book work for Congress, the Executive Office, the Judiciary, other than the Supreme Court of the United States, and every executive department, independent office, and establishment of Government, shall be done at the Government Printing Office."

Rationale For GPO [2003-]

As the Public Printer said, "The time has come for the GPO to fully assume its responsibilities as the Government's leading resource for gathering, cataloging, producing, providing, and preserving its published information in all forms."

What does it do?

Printing

The major responsibility was to print [now arrange for printing] government publications and documents for about 130 federal agencies. Needless to say, virtually all government agencies have the ability to print relatively items in house. Inexpensive photo duplication equipment has had a major impact as has desktop publishing. Using WWW distribution instead of printing has also made a dramatic difference. Agencies have less need for high quality printing today than before.

Printing had been largely centralized near Washington, D.C. until recently and was done in government printing shops with union labor. These unions were reluctant to use newer technologies that might reduce employment and be more efficient. Traditionally, the federal government tried to do all printing in-house. This failed during WW II when there was too much printing and some had to be outsourced. The GPO then discovered that outsourced printing cost about half of its own costs and service was better. Today, about 80 percent of government printing is purchased in the private sector from about 2500 printing firms. The number of GPO employees has declined notably in recent years, especially with more outsourcing. There were about 2,000 employees, but there have been substantial reductions since 2003 and more are expected.

Value-added Services

As the number of tangible items issued decreases rapidly, and as nearly all government printing is done by private firms [through GPO], a variety of  services become more important:

Funding

GPO receives Congressional appropriations for Congressional printing and to distribute government documents and publications. However, as there is less and less printing, the revenue stream is rapidly declining. Agencies are not really interested in funding the GPO. The Congressional mandate that the GPO operate on a "cost recovery basis" is not sustainable. GPO hopes to charge for some digital information, but that will limit "free and ready" public access. GPO is searching for a sustainable funding model. 2004 was the first year that GPO had net income since 1999.

In the most recent FY, Congress reduced the GPO budget substantially. The House is particularly negative on GPO funding, perhaps because some believe that government information is propaganda or public relations or would rather keep the public ignorant. The Senate has not been supportive and recent bare-bones budgets have not been approved. The GPO appears to have few advocates in Congress. Without adequate funding, the GPO will be unable to modernize and meet the needs of the future. Both the printing and sales programs have lost money in the last five years. Clearly, a new "business" model is needed.

Traditionally, most funding came from agencies who paid GPO for printing and distributing publications. With a substantial decline in agency printing, this source of funding has notably decreased. Recently, Congress directed that the House portion of Congressional printing and binding funding, starting with FY 2003, be appropriated directly to the Clerk of the House rather than the GPO. The Clerk will then decide who will do the printing. This is certainly a return to the past.

The GPO has begun to consider charging for some information access to compensate for inadequate funding. A subscription model with premium service might be an option. This is controversial and librarians are opposed.

Distribution

After printing, the GPO distributes the items to appropriate agencies and sells some items. The 21 GPO book stores, including one in Atlanta, designed to sell GPO publications to individuals and businesses, have been closed because they lost money. The GPO is also responsible for staffing the Consumer Information Center, Pueblo, Colorado for the General Services Administration.

In cooperation with the Library of Congress, GPO exchanges U.S. government publications with nearly 70 countries.

Bibliographic Control

The Monthly Catalog [MOCAT] was the best known example of high quality bibliographic control. The Publications Reference File and the subject bibliographies were also important. Today, a new bibliographic database is being developed, Franklin.  Franklin will replace the Catalog for U.S. Government Publications and New Electronic Titles. This national bibliography will be a comprehensive index of public documents from all three branches of the federal government. Coverage will begin with July 1976. It will provide direct links to online content and to related items, including holdings. It is unclear when Franklin will be available for public use.

While the importance of bibliographic control is understand by information professionals, that has not been the case for those in government who often believe that moral suasion and some sort of voluntary system would work well. The GPO has had a continuing problem with agencies failing to provide it with copies of their publications and those documents suitable for an external audience. In fact, the number of fleeting [items with small print runs so only a few are available for distribution] and  fugitive [GPO never sees these items] items has increased over the past few years. About half of U.S. government publications are fugitives. Today, a large number of documents and publications appear only the web. Some agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, have received waivers and do not share their items with the GPO.

Not A Publisher

Publishers are responsible for:

Printers are responsible for:

Joint Committee on Printing [JCP]

The the JCP has been responsible for oversight of the GPO and developing the legislation, including appropriations, necessary for its operation.

In order to move forward in their desire to eliminate the GPO, the Republican Congress attempted to abolish the JCP and let the staff members go. They also desire to abolish the Joint Committee on the Library [LC} and create a new Joint Committee on Information Management. It seems likely that some changes will be implemented. Without strong advocates in this Committee [not an important one in Congress], the GPO is in trouble.

The Public Printer = CEO of GPO

The Public Printer is the chief executive officer of the GPO and is its most visible executive. Much of his work is designed to make the agency more visible and convince those in government that it has an essential role to play in contemporary government. The library community is certainly convinced, but there are many doubters.

Major Products

The GPO has five business areas:

  1. In-house printing, primarily for Congress
  2. Printing purchased from private sector printers on behalf of Federal agencies
  3. Consulting services to assist agencies to design publications and write specifications needed to produce them
  4. The Federal Depository Library Program
  5. The GPO Sales Program.

Congressional printing remains important and the principal product remains the Congressional Record which is printed overnight and delivered the next morning. The GPO also prints bills, resolutions, amendments, hearings calendars, reports, prints, documents and job printing for Congress.

Besides printing for others, the GPO does in-house work such as the Federal Register, and the Code of Federal Regulations. It also prints postal cards for the Post Office, and passports.

Sales Program

The GPO attempted to make its more popular products more visible and easier to purchase via dedicated bookstores and the web. Sales have been low and declining. Typically, there are about 9,000 titles for sale. These may be ordered by mail, or from a WWW site.  Given the substantial losses during the past few years, the GPO is moving quickly to a print-on-demand model.

However, in April 2005, GPO sought to investigate the possibility of a new public -- private model for the sales and distribution operations of the GPO. In 2004, the sales program revenue was about $25 million. The hope is to "move the brand name into the commercial mainstream" using "the latest technology" while achieving substantial "cost reductions."

Problems

Executive Branch

The executive branch has consistently favored decentralization of publishing/printing using state of the art information technology which may reduce government costs. It has recently agreed to allow GPO to continue as the executive branch printer.  GPO has not always been quick and efficient. Agencies assume that they could do better. There is also the notion that a digital society really does not need a centralized printing facility.

As mentioned above, the Justice Department argues that legislative control over Executive branch printing is illegal. About 90% of all GPO printing has been for the executive branch. However, most executive branch agencies already have extensive printing ability and have been printing a substantial portion of their documents and publications for years.

Although infrequent, a few depository items have been removed from depositories upon the request of the issuing agency. Librarians are uncomfortable with this, but little can be done since all depository items remain U.S. government property. The Superintendent of Documents has no authority to deny such requests.

Information distribution and preservation remains a low priority in federal agencies. This means that popular publications are allowed to die. Two examples are Business Statistics of the United States and the Handbook of U.S. Labor Statistics. Both are now published by Bernan Press at a reasonable price, but they were formerly free to depository libraries.

Printing Industry

The printing industry has long opposed the GPO. It regards the agency as unfair competition and has long argued that commercial firms could do it better and cheaper. The commercial sector tried to prevent GPO from using micro formats and getting into digital publishing. As the GPO becomes less and less of a print shop and more and more a place to procure printing from private firms, the traditional tension should subside.

Congress

Many in Congress have long wished to eliminate the GPO for the reasons mentioned above. Different reasons appeal to different members. There is some feeling that government information is really propaganda or PR. There is some distrust of media and others who wish to make government more transparent. There is enthusiasm for privatization and support for the information industry. Some note that the HMSO has been successfully privatized and note that this would substantially reduce printing costs.

The frequently voiced alternative would be to move the Superintendent of Documents functions to the Library of Congress which remains well regarded by Congress. Printing would be moved to the General Services Administration. The House would be responsible for its printing as would the Senate. Each executive branch agency would be responsible for its own printing. A CIO in each agency would be responsible for insuring that appropriate material is available to the public and libraries. This carries us back to the pre-GPO days. At that time, there was some corruption and bad printing as well as time delays. Some hope that the WWW will simply eliminate the need for printing (the paperless government).

Digital Information

Only recently has public law and regulation required agencies to provide GPO with digital documents/publications. A change in title 44, U.S. Code is still needed. Many of the hundreds of thousands of digital documents/publications on the web will simply vanish without a more active preservation program. The need to authenticate [the last true copy] federal government information is also a pressing problem.

Both Congress and the executive branch have strongly encouraged agencies to use digital technology to make government information available more quickly and cheaply. The GPO hopes to achieve some control over web-based publications and documents through government information locater services [GILS]. There has been some success, but much remains to be done. Control of WWW publications is an extraordinarily difficult task.

The GPO, after a suitable name change, would like to become the one gateway or portal to federal government digital information. It would also like to provide depository libraries with free access to fee based services.

Preservation remains a substantial problem. GPO is committed to migrating older publications to new formats, but only when that format is becoming unusable.However, it did not do that for microprint. GPO is working with NARA on a dark archive and with libraries on both light and dim archives.  Eventually, GPO would like to digitize all depository library content, but that would require substantial effort and shared funding from the depository library community.There is considerable concern about the probability of successful implementation of these preservation plans in a climate of reduced funding. Note that most of the print depository items were not printed on archival media. The GPO is working with the Library of Congress and NARA to outline preservation roles and responsibilities in providing public access to digitized federal government content. GPO will initially focus on digitizing legislative and regulatory items. Another cooperative initiative involves 19 academic libraries who are collecting, storing, and preserving access to local copies of e-journal content via LOCKSS [lots of copies keep stuff safe]. GPO harvests the e-journals from federal websites and makes them available to the library.

Access can also be troubling. For example, librarians have complained about the lack of a mirror site for GPO Access for some time. Large PDF files for reports can be almost unusable unless broken down into  parts. Many PDF files are not searchable.

GPO Moves Forward

More than 75% of its printing is now contracted out. Regional printing plants are being closed. Publication on demand for legislative documents is now available. While it has operated at a loss during the last few years, it hopes to do better with fewer print and more digital items. But there is little need for a print agency when there is little of the right kind of printing.

The GPO is working with libraries to create a national digitization plan for hard copy documents and publications. It is working with ARL to digitize a complete "legacy" collection of notable government documents and publications. The National Agricultural Library may work with the GPO and land grant universities to digitize the legacy collection of USDA publications. The "Collection of Last Resort"will allow depository libraries to reduce tangible FDLP collections since copies will be perpetually available from the GPO. The collection will likely include about 2.2 million items. With print on demand, none of these items will ever be out of print. The CLR will include a dark archive as well as an active one housed in GPO Access. GPO will become a NARA affiliate. A few wonder if such archival work might be better situated in NARA.

The GPO is also in the process of changing depository library rules so that libraries can eliminate unwarranted duplication between collections via a shared repository or shared housing. GPO is also considering change in its selection requirements which forces libraries to acquire unwanted items to get wanted ones [batch selection is required now].

GPO Access

GPO access was established by law and began operation in 1994. It is intended to provide easy, one-stop access from all three branches of government. Access provides links to more than 200,000 titles on GPO and agency servers. Access is provided to more than 17,000 data bases. Typically, about one million items are retrieved each day. Free access to titles such as the Federal Register has dramatically reduced subscriptions and revenue.

There is a RSS feed for the GPO Access publication What's New.

Alternative Futures

For several years, both Congress and the executive branch have suggested dramatic changes. One of the most popular would be to move the depository library program (FDLP) to the Library of Congress. This has been "studied" four times.

Another alternative would be to create a "Clearinghouse for Government Information" to help the public locate and retrieve federal government information. This initiative would duplicate what is already being done by GPO Access. The major difference is that the Clearinghouse would be an executive branch agency. The lead agency would be the General Services Administration. Others involved would be:

Another new agency approach was advocated by the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. The Commission advocates creation of a new agency responsible for timely dissemination and permanent public availability of federal public information resources. The Public Information Resources Administration would be in the executive branch and would include the GPO and NTIS. The Superintendent of Documents would become the Superintendent of Public Information Resources and the FDLP would become the Public Information Resources Program with depository libraries now Public Information Resources Access Libraries. The definition of government publication would be broadened to include "regardless of form, format or medium." The new agency (PIRA) would be given strong enforcement authority to insure that public information resources were made available to it. Such an alternative seems unlikely to be well received in Congress.

Last major revision: January 2006

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