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GPO Access - "Free at Last"
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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - GPO Access
October 5, 1994
GPO Access - "Free at Last"
james Love (202/387-8030; jamie@tap.org)
- Superintendent of Documents, Wayne Kelley, addresses
Telecommunications Policy Roundtable in Washington DC, says
that GPO will provide free 24 hour per day access to the
entire product line from GPO Access program, available to
anyone with access to the Internet or personal computer and
modem.
- The GPO program will be provided through a decentralized
system of depository libraries and community networks,
beginning with 12 demonstration projects, including
projects in Missouri, Seattle, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and
Washington, DC.
- The GPO Access product line includes the Congressional
Record, the Federal Register, all versions of all bills
introduced in the current congress, a locator service and
more than 6,000 files from 25 federal agencies.
- The program is a demonstration project, which will require
congressional appropriations in order to continue. The free
distribution program will need grass roots support to
survive.
- Kelley's announcement was a dramatic response to GPO Public
Printer Michael DiMario's earlier promise to consider "free
after six," and other ways of broadening public access to
the GPO Access program.
In a dramatic announcement before a packed gathering of the
Telecommunications Policy Roundtable, Wayne Kelley, the U.S.
Superintendent of Documents revealed a new project by GPO to open
free public access to the entire product line of the GPO Access
program. Earlier TAP, OMB Watch, People for the American Way,
the Congressional Accountability Project, and hundreds of citizen
groups, businesses and individuals wrote GPO and key members of
Congress to complain about the high cost of access to the
Congressional Record and the Federal Register ($375 for each
subscription) and other GPO Access services.
Kelley opened his talk with a discussion of the importance
of public access to public information, and a strong appeal for
public support for a direct government role in the dissemination
of government information, cautioning against various proposals
to further privatize the dissemination of public records.
Kelley, who is the former publisher of Congressional Quarterly
and a journalist with 30 years of newspaper and magazine
experience, discussed at some length Vice President Gore's
National Performance Review's (NPR) recommendations to strip GPO
of much of its current role in providing a centralized sales
program for information products, standardized bibliographic
control, and distribution of information products to the 1,400
member federal depository library program. Some of the
highlights from Mr. Kelley's talk:
...Universal Access to Federal information is a
Government responsibility that should not be abandoned
or privatized. In the process of reinventing
government, we must be careful not to undermine one of
democracy's main safeguards -- an informed electorate.
. . . This is not a partisan issue. Nor is it a budget
issue. It is not a competitiveness or business issue.
It is just as fundamental as the right to vote.
. . .Watch out for anyone who tells you the U.S.
Government Printing Office is a Monopoly. About 80
percent of all printing done through the GPO is
procured from competitive, low-cost bids submitted by a
list of some 10,000 private sector printers. . .
. . . In June, we began distributing information online
over the GPO Access System authorized by Public Law
103-40, passed in 1993. The online system began by
offering the official electronic versions of the
Federal Register and Congressional Record,
Congressional Record Index and Enrolled bills. Last
week we added a database that contains all published
versions of all bills introduced in the House and
Senate. The GPO Access system is available without
charge to depository libraries for free use by the
public and at low-cost to anyone who wants to
subscribe. . . Within a few days we will announce a
plan to extend free online access to remote users 24
hours a day, seven days a week. The plan permits
public access through participating depository
libraries or their partners in state or local computer
networks.
The libraries will offer gateways to our GPO Access
online system to off-site users. . . Anyone with a
personal computer, a phone modem and telecommunications
software will be able to connect to GPO through the
depository gateways. [TAP Note, Internet access will
be available] Local libraries will help promote public
awareness and provide some user assistance. Patrons
can search the GPO Access as frequently as they like,
without charge.
[The full text of Wayne Kelley's speech will be posted to
the roundtable list, and forwarded to tap-info later.]
The GPO announcement is of tremendous significance. GPO is
the largest publisher of federal government information, and the
agency is taking a step away from a user fee based approach for
access to its online services.
In July, GPO had been asked by TAP and several other groups
to consider a "free after six" proposal, that would have made the
GPO Access product line free after six pm and on weekends. GPO
is required to finance much of the GPO Access operating budget
from user fees, and currently charges $375 per year for
subscriptions to the Federal Register and the Congressional
Record, cheap by commercial standards, but far too high for many
individuals, small businesses, schools and public libraries. The
"free after six" proposal was an attempt to balance the agency's
needs to generate user fees from businesses with the public
interest in broader access to the documents.
The "free after six" proposal was opposed by some librarians
who perceived the program as a threat to the 1,400 member federal
depository library program, which already has 24 hour per day
free access to the GPO Access services. These concerns were
expressed in a series of messages posted to govdoc-l in July.
The GPO plan, as announced by Wayne Kelley, uses the
depository libraries as "partners" in the dissemination of the
information, and is likely to be better received by the library
community. At the Roundtable meeting, Prue Adler, from
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), said that the libraries
would be committing their own resources to finance the program.
Kelley indicated that the free access would not continue without
public funding for the GPO Access program. Clearly, by providing
24 hour free access, the GPO Access sales program will loss
revenue, unless it provides special benefits, such as quicker
response time, to paying customers.
GPO's action is a bold step, which may garner grass roots
support to overcome efforts by Vice-President Gore to dismantle
the agency. Gore has not placed much emphasis on the need to
develop government-wide rules on pricing of government
information or centralized bibliographic control of government
publications. Gore has also emphasized a much greater role for
the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information
Service (NTIS). While NTIS often provides free access to such
items as White House press releases and other favorite White
House publications, it is allowed to charge very high prices for
other items, and often uses the free products on its FEDWORLD as
a marketing vehicle for its more pricey offerings. For example,
the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccine Adverse Event
Reporting (VAERS) database is distributed on two floppy disks,
and costs $1,080.
In closing, it is important to emphasize that the GPO
announcement would not have occurred without the broad grass
roots support from persons who sent faxes, letters and electronic
mail to GPO and Congress urging support for broader access to the
GPO Access product line. This is one more indication of the
power of the Internet community in shaping the new information
age. Thank you everyone.
jamie
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