Government Information Locator Service

[James Love <love@tap.org>]

(Distributed to TAP-INFO, subscription requests -> listproc@tap.org)

TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - GILS


             The Government Information Locator System (GILS)
                        Ned Daly (ned@tap.org), TAP
                             December 13, 1994

On Wednesday, December 7th, officials from the Department of
Commerce, the Office of Management and Budget and the National
Institute for Standards and Technology unveiled the Government
Information Locator System (GILS).   The meeting was held at the
Department of the Interior, and was attended by about 150 to 200
persons.

In a report trmation Infrastructure Task Force on GILS,
the new locator system is described as a response to the need for
a general directory of government information.  "Although
individual federal agencies may recognize their responsibility to
maintain readily accessible inventories of their records and
other information resources, there needs to be a collective
vision across the Federal government for information
dissemination to the public" the report states.

The purpose of the new GILS is to enhance citizens' ability to
locate information resources throughout the federal government
and to help obtain the information once it has been located.
Citizens will be able to access GILS directly through the
Internet and via other methods, such as direct 800 number dial-up
access, faxes and CD-ROM technologies.  Private vendors, such as
Westlaw, are also planning on providing access to GILS from their
commercial services.

There is ambiguity over how GILS will work.  The system is
designed to point to public information resources, but it is
unclear how far the system will go in allowing citizens to obtain
the documents or data directly.  In some cases GILS will
apparently allow citizens to find and get information, while in
other cases users will be pointed to intermediary sources,
including private information providers, who will sell the data.

Eliot Christian is the person accredited with devising the GILS
specifications, but not the system,  since the system will be
created piecemeal as agencies come on line using common
specifications. During the presentation which took place at the
Department of Interior's main Auditorium, Mr. Christian described
GILS as similar, "to a directory in a shopping mall" which
brought up the subject of commercial dissemination of federal
information. For instance, much federal case law in citable form
is disseminated by vendors such as West publishing, and is not in
the public domain.  AGRICOLA, the Department of Agriculture's
database of agricultural research abstracts is created with
taxpayer funds, but is only available to end users from private
data vendors such as Dialog or Sliver Platter.  In a conversation
with Mr. Christian I asked how these types of information would
be handled. Mr. Eliot said agencies are expected to "give
information necessary to find the resource," and that would
likely include private vendors.

In a discussion of direct user searching, Mr. Christian said
those aspects of GILS will be evolving, and as of right now the
agencies will simply "expose their holdings on their terms". Many
in and outside the government see GILS as a partial substitute
for FOIA, but it seems obvious from Mr. Christian's comments that
is presently not the case, given the very limited number of
documents that will be available through GILS, as compared to the
data which is covered by FOIA.

None could agree more than Scott Armstrong of the Information
Trust and co-author of _The Brethren_ with Bob Woodward.
Armstrong is presently involved in a suit against the White House
to have White House electronic mail treated as if it were printed
material and hence subject to FOIA. Armstrong believes GILS
should be far more inclusive in what it prsently contains.  "E-
mail and word processing are excluded from this system illegally.
The present file system on the LAN is the same as the office file
cabinet of the past and should be treated that way," Armstrong
said.

The utility of GILS is focused at, as Christian described it, the
secondary user community, those who are not in a field directly
related to the information being distributed. For instance, the
U.S. Geological Survey is already pretty well set up to meet the
needs of the earth science community which would be one of USGS's
primary communities of interest. If someone were interested in
doing research on the relationship of metals concentration to
cancer rates GILS would increase the ease with which the cancer
researchers, a secondary community, could find information from
the USGS. 

The Office of Management and Budget specifications presently
require three things to be put into GILS by agencies (defined by
OMB as cabinet level): All privacy act records, all automated
Federal records under NARA (the National Archives and Records
Administration) and on the order of 1,000 records. Obviously that
last one is a little vague, and is supposed to serves as a very
modest starting point for agencies. Scott Armstrong believed that
the 1,000 records proposal, which has been harshly criticized by
the public interest community, has been withdrawn, but the status
of new language or possible re-inclusion of the language is
unclear.

There will undoubtedly be a number of benefits to citizens with
the implementation of GILS, how much is another question. Prue
Adler, Assistant Executive Director of the Association of
Research Libraries, a group effected and supportive of access to
government information, said at Wednesday's unveiling, "[GILS]
provides yet another forum for agencies to work with their user
communities in fashioning access and dissemination programs. And
this decentralized approach when coupled with the adoption of
common standards, will be of immediate benefit to agencies and
users alike."  Scott Armstrong's view is not as rosy.  "The
institution of Government is not better served. The facade is
revealed, but the bowels are still left unexplored."

     [Note:  On November 10, 1994 OMB Watch and 20 other non-
     profit organizations (including TAP) wrote to OMB asking for
     changes in the Bulletin which was issued to implement the
     GILS program.  These non-profit organizations were seeking a
     bolder vision of the GILS, which would provide greater
     assistance in accessing actual information, giving agencies
     mandates to establish their own GILS, greater public
     involvement in the development of the system, expansion of
     the coverage to all computer systems covered by the federal
     records act, and better compliance mechanisms.  For more
     information, contact Patrice McDermott at 202/234-8494. 
     There are also two other federal agencies with statutory
     responsibility for developing locator systems, including
     GPO, which has a locator system as part of the GPO Access
     program, and the National Technical Information Service
     (NTIS).]

For more information there is a gopher site GILS and a listserv
devoted to GILS, to subscribe send an e-mail to listproc@cni.org
with a message, "subscribe GILS your name".  

          Ned Daly, Taxpayer Assets Project (ned@tap.org,
202/387-8030).


The following is a press release from the Clinton
Administration.     

    EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
                 OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                  Contact:
Dec. 7, 1994                         Lawrence J. Haas, 395-7254

        ***Embargoed until 2:00 pm on December 7, 1994***
                    Administration Announces
             Government Information Locator Service

     The Clinton Administration took a major step today toward
creating a Government Information Locator Service (GILS) to help
the public locate and access information across the federal
government.

   The creation of GILS was an objective of the National
Information Infrastructure (NII) -- the Administration's vision
of an integrated, seamless national communications network -- and
was cited in the NII's vision document, National Information
Infrastructure: Agenda for Action.

     Today, Office of Management and Budget Director Alice M.
Rivlin signed an OMB Bulletin, setting forth implementation goals
and timetables for agencies.

     GILS will identify and describe public information
resources, and how to obtain the information.  It will include a
network of decentralized, agency-based information locators and
associated information resources.  The public will use GILS
directly or through intermediaries such as libraries, private
information providers, and academic institutions.

  GILS will help people find government information that's
available in electronic as well as paper formats.  It will be
accessible through Internet, by dial-up from the Commerce
Department's "FedWorld" system, from the Government Printing
Office's "GPO Access" system, and from the World Wide Web through
the "Welcome to the White House" server.  GILS may also serve as
a model for the development of a global information locator
resource.

     As a next step in developing a comprehensive strategy to
improve information dissemination by the government, the
Administration will issue a public notice to solicit views on
strategy and methods to enhance information dissemination and to
use information technology to improve service delivery to the
public.

     The events of Dec. 7 included the following:


     * Commerce Deputy Secretary David J. Barram announced the
     initiative;

     * Sally Katzen, Administrator of OMB's Office of Information
     and Regulatory Affairs, announced the OMB Bulletin that
     Rivlin signed, and announced plans for a public notice on
     the development of a long-term electronic government
     information strategy; and

     * Raymond G. Kammer, Deputy Director of the National
     Institute of Standards and Technology, announced the
     promulgation of a Federal Information Processing Standard
     for the GILS.

     Today's event also included a demonstration of the GILS and
statements by other Administration officials and private sector
representatives.


                             /  /  /

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