For additional information, contact:
Benjamin Y. Cooper
Printing Industries of America
703-519-8115

The Printing Industries of America welcomes this opportunity to provide comments on the report to Congress of the U. S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science regarding recommendations for dissemination of public information. My name is Benjamin Y. Cooper. I am senior vice president for PIA, which is the world’s largest printing and graphic communications association with 15,000 members.

First of all, the Commission should be proud of its work. Coming to some level of conclusion about the future of public information has proven to be a daunting task. I have participated in numerous similar activities including a major effort in the late 1970’s, which occupied sixteen months of meetings and public hearings resulting in proposed legislation. This legislation, like all other attempts to address the information needs of the federal government and the public, died prematurely.

There are many recommendations in the report, which we would enthusiastically endorse. While I will focus on the areas of concern, I want to reiterate our support of the effort to address government information policy.

Our interest in public information has been focused on the role of the private sector in meeting the needs of the federal government for developing and manufacturing information products. While our industry tends to favor printing, we find that companies in our industry have varied their services to include a wide range of information products. However, it is our view that the recommendations put forth in this proposal, with respect to printing and printing procurement, do not offer a viable road map for the future.

The proposal would take the current consolidated printing procurement program operated by the Government Printing Office and replace it with branch-by-branch procurement under JIRO, CIRO and PIRA. We see no gains in efficiency by creating three procurement agencies or even three information agencies. In fact, the relative cost of printing to the government as a whole would likely increase under such a scheme through increased overhead and purchasing inefficiency. Ironically, this step is being taken at a time when major corporations are taking steps in precisely the opposite direction. Large corporations are seeking ways to consolidate buying into centralized purchasing areas, similar to the GPO procurement system, to reduce the very types of costs this proposal would create. However, the type of proposal offered may benefit some private printing companies because costs would likely go up.

We believe there is an ongoing need for reform in the procurement program at GPO. Reform of the program must address the continual demand for improved customer service. Assuring that services are priced competitively and delivered in a timely manner would be essential to any comprehensive reform of the program. These types of improvements must exist in whatever procurement scheme might be created to replace the GPO. However, there is no guarantee that simply moving the function to another branch of government would necessarily improve the process.

Creating new agencies to meet the printing needs of each branch of government also complicates in-house production. While we feel such production is unnecessary given the large number of printers available to produce information products for the government, there has nevertheless been a bias toward some level of in-house production capacity. Therefore, we would question the wisdom of moving in a direction that might result in creating three agencies to do this.

Since it is virtually impossible to address federal printing and printing procurement without looking at overall information policy, we have a few comments to offer relative to information.

One way to look at government information is to view the activity from the customer standpoint. The customer in this case is the citizen of the country. While this citizen can take many forms, we know the challenge in public information dissemination is providing services to the citizen who might have the most difficulty obtaining the service. Many citizens of the country still do not have access to the Internet and many of those same people also do not live near a depository library. For these citizens, access to federal information still comes through the ability to call a designated location to obtain information from the government. If these citizens have a question about energy, that citizen should not have to speculate whether the question should be directed to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Commerce. Information can and should be readily obtainable from a central source such as the Superintendent of Documents.

More important than the form in which a citizen receives information from the government is the issue of which branch of government controls information. In this area we find ourselves solidly in support of the status quo. We are convinced that the only appropriate agency to handle public information is the branch of government closest to the citizen — the U. S. Congress.

Among the issues that cause us concern in the proposal is the assumption that creating a new string of agencies will resolve all the problems. While it is probably true that establishing a new name and adopting new policies will invigorate the process, it will not make the existing problems go away.

Let’s look at some of the problems.

• Public information has never occupied the attention of Congress to any great extent. In order to pass this or any other piece of legislation, it must have the agreement of virtually every party of interest.
• Despite the expectation that someday everyone will communicate digitally, we currently reside in a predominately paper-based society. For this reason alone, we cannot build an information system, which relegates printing and paper information systems as secondary.
• Printing is a manufacturing process that requires a commitment to relatively expensive equipment. Although equipment options are changing, the economies of printing indicate that authorizing printing activities in numerous agencies or branches of government would be a needless and expensive endeavor.
• Agencies that have not cooperated with federal information mandates in the past are unlikely to do so in the future unless there are significant penalties for failure to comply. There is currently an 0MB directive that requires executive agencies to comply with the provisions of Title 44 regarding agencies’ providing materials to the Superintendent of Documents. However, even with this directive in effect there are still an numbered amount of documents that are currently unattainable by the public. In the area of printing, we have suffered through decades of federal agencies ignoring the law requiring the use of GPO for printing and printing procurement needs, which is why this is an area we would like to see examined in any reform considerations.

In conclusion, we look forward to the opportunity to work with you in the development of strong legislation dealing with federal information policy, it is our hope that this Commission will seek the input of the broadest possible coalition of groups to achieve that purpose.