The Honorable Martha B. Gould, Chair
U.S. National Commission on Libraries
and Information Science
1110 Vermont Avenue, N.W., Suite 820
Washington, D.C. 20005-3552

Dear Ms. Gould:

I am writing in response to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science’s request for comments on draft legislation prepared by the NCLIS staff, “The Public Information Resources Reform Act of 2001.”

The primary goal of the legislation—to recognize public information resources as a “strategic national asset”—is certainly praiseworthy. Public access to Government information is critically important in our democracy, and as more of that information is made available electronically, there are many new challenges that need to be addressed: providing for permanent public access to web-based publications, ensuring the authenticity of Government cyber-documents, establishing effective search and locator systems so the public can find Government information easily, and bridging the digital divide so that the Government’s information resources are made available to all Americans on an equitable basis.

The question is whether the NCLIS draft bill is the best way to meet those challenges. I don’t think it is. There already exists a mechanism for ensuring effective public access in the Information Age: the Government Printing Office. In addition to providing traditional printing and information product activities, the GPO has built a singular record in the electronic arena through GPO Access, and is already taking the lead Government-wide in the areas of permanent access, authenticity, and locator systems. With its combined electronic/print capabilities, GPO has also demonstrated a sensitivity to the problems of the digital divide that is unmatched elsewhere in Government. The solution to the problems of the public access in the Information Age lies in seeking improved funding and staffing for the GPO’s public access initiatives, rather than creating a cumbersome new bureaucracy that presents a number of serious problems:

• By transferring the Government Printing Office’s Superintendent of Documents to the new agency, the legislation would remove the function most responsible for ensuring comprehensive, equitable public access from the legislative branch, the branch of Government most responsive to the people.
• The new agency would be subjected to the narrow control of the executive through the Office of Management and Budget, which has had a dismal record with regard to public access, and would unwisely extend the information policy provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act—with its restrictions on information dissemination—to the legislative branch.
• The draft bill legislation would remove the GPO’s enormously successful web site, GPO Access, from the source that actually constructs the system’s databases and makes them operable—GPO’s production area—critically impairing the system not only for those who use it to download more than 26 million documents each month, but for other heavily used Government information systems—such as the Library of Congress’s Thomas system—that utilize congressional databases prepared by GPO.
• The draft bill would establish separate mechanisms in the legislative and judicial branches for information dissemination and related responsibilities, including printing. This balkanized structure appears only to ensure inefficiency, confusion, and increased costs to the taxpayers. It will impede, not improve, effective public access to Government information.

More than a year ago, the Public Printer made a concrete suggestion that would provide equitable public access for the first time to the Government’s collection of more than three million scientific and technical titles as well as eliminate much of the public’s confusion over where to find Government information: combine the National Technical Information Service with the GPO’s Superintendent of Documents operation. This remains a common sense measure that will lead to a material improvement in public access to Government information. I strongly urge the Commission to revisit this idea rather than proceed with the draft bill that is currently being circulated.

Sincerely,

Morton Bahr
President