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TAP Crown Jewels/AGRICOLA
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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - AGRICOLA
January, 18, 1995
The following letter asks the Clinton Administration to
review the pricing of AGRICOLA, an important government database
created by the Department of Agriculture (using your tax
dollars), which contains 3.1 million abstracts about research on
agriculture, pesticides, forestry and related issues. Under an
OMB policy guideline (OMB Circular A-130), federal agencies are
not supposed to charge more for information products and services
than the "cost of dissemination". However, AGRICOLA is only
available from the government under very onerous lease terms,
which not only are expensive, but virtually preclude anyone from
mounting the database on the Internet for free access.
TAP is attempting to make AGRICOLA more accessible to the
public. TAP tried to obtain AGRICOLA under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), but the request was denied by the
National Agricultural Library (NAL), on the grounds that the
information is only available for lease from the National
Technical Information Service (NTIS), or from private vendors who
charge top dollar for access to this public database. In fact,
the NAL can only access AGRICOLA for a fee from private vendors.
The main reason for the barriers to access to AGRICOLA are
political. Commercial vendors have lobbied to prevent the
Department of Agriculture from making it available directly to
the public on low cost CD- ROMs or through the Internet.
James Love (jamie@tap.org)
Ned Daly (ned@tap.org)
The letter follows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 18, 1995
Sally Katzen
Administrator
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
Executive Office of the President
Washington, DC 20503
voice: 202/395-4852
fax: 202/395-3047
Internet: sally.katzen@eop.sprint.com
Dear Ms. Katzen:
This letter is a request for a review of the price charged
to the public for records of the AGRICOLA database. We are
asking for this review under the guidelines established through
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130,
Management of Federal Information Resources. We are interested
in obtaining the records to pursue our own research on forestry
policy and also to provide the database to the Internet community
to search for free from a WAIS type server.
AGRICOLA currently contains approximately 3.1 million
records or abstracts, and is growing at a rate of 7,000 - 10,000
new records per month. The total database, including back years,
contains about 3 to 4 gigabytes of information. At present the
government only leases the AGRICOLA database through the National
Technical Information Service (NTIS), a federal agency, in bulk
formats (nine-track computer tapes). Individuals, including
federal employees engaged in research (including those who work
for the Department of Agriculture), can only access the
information through private vendors, such as Dialog or Silver
Platter.
Dialog, a commercial data vendor which provides online
access to AGRICOLA, charges a $45 per hour connect fee plus $.55
per record display. Sliver Platter, the commercial data vendor
who offers AGRICOLA on CD-ROM, charges $1,675 to a single user
for a lease of the complete database, and more for multiuser
networks. These high prices create barriers to access which
prevent many researchers, including high school students, from
obtaining access to this very important scientific database which
was created with tax dollars. Moreover, it makes little sense
for federal government employees and researchers at tax supported
research and educational institutions to rely upon these high
priced commercial vendors to obtain access to a database that the
government creates and owns.
We are interested in buying a copy of the database directly
from the government, rather from a commercial vendor. The annual
lease fee for AGRICOLA from NTIS is $3,000 for the current year's
data, for 12 tapes of data delivered monthly. Back years are
also available. The 1990's back files (1990 to 1994) are $500
per year. The 1980's back files (1979 to 1989) are $300 per
year, and the 1970's data (1970 to 1978) are $200 per year. The
total price (before discounts) for the entire database, which is
delivered on 37 tapes (25 back years plus the 12 tapes for '95),
is $10,600. As noted, this is about 3 to 4 gigabytes of data.
NTIS offers a 35% discount if the entire backfile is ordered,
lowering the cost to $7,940. These fees, however, are only to
receive the data. NTIS charges more if you actually search the
database.
The NTIS pricing structures requires separate charges for
online use, including such items as a $6 per hour connect charge
(from your own server), fees for the display of data ($.20 per
record for a full display, $.10 for a partial display, and $.05
for a "minimal" record display), plus separate charges for
selected dissemination of information (SDI) profiles, and
off-line prints. There are even special fees to run searches on
back files. Indeed, the "search execution charges" for a
"retrospective data search" using an SDI profile costs $4.00 per
year for data from 1990 top 1994, $3.00 per year for data from
1980 to 1989, and $2.00 per year for data from 1970 to 1979.
There are also other fees attached to the SDI profile searches,
and an extensive set of other fees for the redissemination of the
database. The entire NTIS pricing structure for AGRICOLA is
described in a somewhat confusing 10 page document.
These fee schedules fly in the face of the directives of OMB
Circular A-130, which states that access to government
information should be priced at the cost of dissemination.
Moreover, the high transaction based fees virtually prohibit TAP
or anyone else from purchasing the database for free
dissemination on the Internet.
If OMB Circular A-130 is intended to set broad federal
policy, then it must be relevant for AGRICOLA and other crown
jewels of the federal government's vast array of databases.
The Taxpayer Assets Project is asking OMB to undertake an A-
130 price review for AGRICOLA, and to ask the National
Agricultural Library (NAL) to make the data available to the
public at the cost of dissemination.
In making this review, we ask OMB to answer the following
questions.
i) What does it cost the taxpayers to create the AGRICOLA
database?
ii) How much money does NAL and other government agencies pay to
Dialog, Silver Platter and other commercial vendors to buy
back access to the government's own database? How does this
compare to the government's income from database sales?
iii) What does it really cost to provide TAP or other parties
with a copy of the database?
iv) Does the current pricing regime, including the extensive
usage-based charges, preclude free access to the database
through the Internet?
We would appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. If
you have any questions regarding this request please contact me
at (202)387-8030 or through the Internet at ned@tap.org.
Sincerely,
Ned Daly
Project Manager/Forest Campaign
Taxpayer Assets Project
P.O. Box 19367
Washington, DC 20036
cc: Representative Newt Gingrich, georgia6@hr.house.gov
Senator Richard G. Lugar, Chairman Senate Agriculture
Committee
Representative Pat Roberts, Chairman House Agriculture
Committee, emailpat@hr.house.gov
Representative Vernon Ehlers, congehlr@hr.house.gov
tap-info@tap.org
tap-resources@tap.org
govdoc-l
roundtable@cni.org
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