For 50 years there has been an evolution in the management of federal scientific and technical information (STI). During this period many interdependencies have evolved and devolved as mission and user requirements have changed. NTIS is an integral part of our Nation's STI infrastructure. As we rapidly approach the year 2000, everyone recognizes that this infrastructure is changing. The single most significant cause of change has been the evolution of information technologies. This evolution has been speeded up significantly with the increasingly powerful personal computers, internetworking and the ubiquity of the Internet and World Wide Web. However, as managers of STI, CENDI agencies believe that it is critical to remember that it is the content and not the technology that provides the ultimate payoff. It was the unanimous opinion of the CENDI agencies that we are today in a very mixed economy - in the infancy of the fully electronic world, but ever more rapidly moving away from the old world of original paper production of STI. It was also recognized that although the agencies' interrelationship with NTIS has been changing, NTIS has also been changing and there are still many interdependencies with first, second, and third order impacts. The bottom line is that NTIS today is still an integral part of the evolving STI information dissemination system for the general public. To suddenly remove a component of the system without reengineering it will have significant impacts, some known and described below, but others not fully understood.

This mixed economy, and the rate at which each agency is changing its own way of doing business, are reflected in the agency responses to the question of the impact of the closing of NTIS. This paper focuses on the negative impacts on the public and the agencies. There were certain crosscutting themes that emerged from this input which are summarized at the end. In this paper, a specific agency is highlighted only when it helps to clarify the point being made.

The following summarizes the input from the agencies and from CENDI studies and discussions on the future of STI infrastructures on the three areas of I)access, 2)information discovery and retrieval, and 3)archiving. It is followed by a short analysis of this input:

1) ACCESS

• Proactive Collection. Despite the existence of legislation requiring all agencies to submit STI products to NTIS (e.g. American Technology Preeminence Act) and/or GPO, there is and always has been a need to proactively solicit such material from agencies. This includes both reports as well as media products such as software. From studies done by the agencies as well as by GAO, agencies have themselves never been comprehensive in receiving all of the deliverables contracted for with federal funds. NTIS has established an extensive network to proactively solicit this material. It should be noted that NTIS collects information from over 6OO organizations.1 Although there is clearly a thrust for government to move to electronic information production, the ability of agencies to meet this goal varies dramatically. NTIS's proactive collection may represent as much as 25% of the 50,000 government items collected each year. It is unclear what the impact of new forms of electronic publishing will do to this balance. Without an NTIS, many of these products might not be captured for public access.
• Public Interface. For all agencies, even those with central STI management programs like DOE, NASA, or DOD, NTIS provides a primary and well integrated source of public access to the results of R&D through federally published STI products.
  • Defense Services. The Department of Defense relies on NTIS to provide DoD publicly available information to the general public via sales of documents and by providing copies of the reports to libraries under the Depository Library Program for those who do not wish to pay for copies.
  • Intelligence Products. NTIS is the Intelligence Community's outlet to the public for access to full text news sources in English translation previously not available. This included dealing with the issues of copyright from many sources in many countries. This is done at no cost to the government. In fact, the government also uses this access when use of classified systems is less efficient.
  • Energy Access. Although DOE has a variety of sources for access to its full text and bibliographic information, it believes the loss of NTIS will eliminate one popular public source for DOE information and will likely result in delayed delivery of historical data to requesting customers. (Most of the legacy collection is not available in electronic form).
  • Other Agencies. The USGS in the Department of Interior was especially concerned about this point. When its Biological Resources Division was first formed there were collections from many predecessor agencies which had no previous single outlet for the public. These were transferred en masse to NTIS for public access. It is unknown if and how these products would be made otherwise accessible. (See also impact on discovery and retrieval).

• Paper Legacy Material. Although increasingly more of the current federal STI is created and disseminated in electronic form, most technical reports are produced in paper and are only recently being transformed by organizations like DTIC, DoE, NASA, and NTIS into electronic files for effective dissemination. In addition, the historical collection remains almost entirely in paper or off line media products. Statistics show that about two-thirds of the titles NTIS sells in any year are more than 3 years old and over half are over 10 years old. There will have to be a continued mechanism to provide access to this material, either by a major investment to put it on the Web or to continue to handle on demand.

• User Demand. Experience has shown Federal agencies that there is still a high demand for documents in printed copies and other formats besides Internet on-line. In fact, statistics show that when long documents are put on the Net, this increases demand for purchases of bound paper copies. This is for 2 reasons: 1) Some users of federal STI still do not have access to the Web or have the capability of downloading and printing large or complex documents that come in a variety of formats, and 2) there is still significant personal preference and willingness to pay to get material in well published print form, especially since the average technical report is about 100 pages and difficult to read on a screen (one must assume consumers act rationally and there is a net positive cost/benefit to their willingness to pay). In addition, there are some documents that do not lend themselves to on-line publishing like some of the statistical compendiums distributed by NTIS. As agencies themselves move away from providing any other formats (print, microfiche, microfiche blowback, print-on-demand, audiovisual, CD-ROM, or diskette), NTIS will be the only source for formats other than Web-based electronic. Without NTIS as the single point of access for this material, the user will need to be provided alternative ways to obtain copies. A concern of many agencies is that users will increasingly come to them and they have not been given the resources to handle such requests. The alternative proposal to have the Library of Congress handle requests will require time, customer education, and an infusion of capital to set up systems to replace the NTIS capability.

• Business Infrastructure. NTIS services customers and agencies with its ability to advertise, take orders, bill, and collect money. In particular, NTIS provides billing services that allow agencies to provide the incremental costs of dissemination (under A-130), outside the agency's mission-based appropriations, to the public when capabilities are available and public demand is there. The NTIS deposit account system, its credit card procedures, and ability to collect revenues in whatever means are required greatly facilitate public access. This system would have to be replicated elsewhere if NTIS ceased to provide these services. If customers are no longer to be charged, then there would have to be a source of appropriations somewhere in the system to provide at least some of these value- added services. Some mission agencies are particularly concerned that they are not legally mandated or resourced to take up any slack from the closing of NTIS.

• Low Demand Products. NTIS is the only agency that collects and makes available all publicly available government STI products, regardless of their commercial viability or format. Unless another agency were resourced to do this, many of the low volume use materials would not be made available. NTIS is able to continue to provide such services because it can recover its costs across its entire product line. Accommodation would have to be made to replicate this service.

• Vendor Services. In addition to its own bibliographic database, NTIS distributes other agency databases (e.g. AGRICOLA and Energy) to vendors such as Dialog, STN, and SilverPlatter. This includes reproduction of monthly tapes and historical backfires; replication and dissemination of relevant documentation for the database; provision of a help desk for technical difficulties associated with the data; provision of legal and contractual talent to negotiate terms and conditions of lease, and servicing billing and accounting functions. If NTIS is closed, these agencies will have to deal directly with vendors or some alternative infrastructure would have to be established. In particular, N'TIS expertise in the legal and business aspects of negotiating these contracts might have to be reproduced at each individual agency.

• One Stop Referral. Agency help desk services and information offices can confidently tell all public requesters there is one place to go to get access to the agency's material as well as to the federal STI documents from other agencies. This saves the agencies resources in dealing with public requests that come directly to them. It also minimizes the "run around" factor for the requester.

• FOIA. NTIS provides a request fulfillment service for FOIA requests when that information is deposited at NTIS. The Depository Library System is the back-up for those who do not wish to pay for the information. Without these, each agency would expend resources in replicating these services.

Information Discovery and Retrieval

• Cross-discipline, Cross-Mission Searching. Although the hardware and communications technologies are there, the advance of software technology for cross-database searching in a heterogeneous environment have proven NOT to be available yet. The NTIS cross-discipline, cross- mission database for government published technical reports has not yet been replaced by a better solution. Search engine technology is not even close to being able to find the content of millions of reports that can be found using the NTIS database. Facilities such as GovBot or the Federal Information Center are services to which one cannot immediately turn at this stage of their development. It's not clear when needed search engines will be available, and when they do become available how corollary services such as help desks will be funded.

• Common Search Standard/ Primary Index. NTIS does intellectual value-added by abstracting and indexing (A&I) federal STI to a common standard that is valuable for retrieval. For agencies with central STI programs like DoD, DOE, and NASA, A&I work is already done, but NTIS combines these efforts across agencies under common search keys. For other agencies, NTIS does the original A&I work and allows the information from those agencies to be searched under this same common key structure. It is unknown if and how these products would be easily located or made otherwise accessible. All of this effort has costs and would have to be funded somewhere else in the STI system or information would be less retrievable.

• Foreign News Data. For the Intelligence Community, NTIS has been able to provide public access to previously restricted databases containing news sources in English translation from throughout the world.

• Search Productivity. As more people believe that all government STI is on the Web, more people will be futilely searching for more information that is not, in fact, accessible or available on the Web at a net reduction in worker productivity. Web search engines are good at finding proper nouns. They do not as effectively search for scientific subject content and do not effectively cover the Web, particularly as one goes to levels of URL's that might contain the full text of government reports. That's why professional searchers (in libraries or as independent brokers) who understand the value-added of the NTIS database products are vocal supporters of the need to continue the production of the NTIS database.

2) ARCHIVING

• Working Archive/Legacy Material. Although most agencies retain the formal archival and disposition responsibility for their STI products, the practical reality is that NTIS has provided the effective access to the entire publicly available collection of R&D reports of the Federal government. Unlike some archives, the NTIS Clearinghouse is a working archival collection. NTIS provides customers with delivery of any of the products found in the archives usually within 48 hours, supporting a variety of media formats, and delivery options. This covers over 3 million products. For older material, this is a low volume business (although some documents have an active half-life of over 10 years.)

• Official Repository. In some cases, agencies rely on NTIS as their official repository. For these agencies, NTIS takes the responsibility to deal with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at no cost to the agencies. If NTIS were not available, at least one CENDI agency indicated it would have to expend incremental financial and human resources to meet all federal mandates for archiving material and for dealing with NARA.

• Database Archive. For Agriculture, NTIS serves as the archival repository for the entire AGRICOLA database (1970-present). This function helps to ensure accessibility as noted above.

ANALYSIS

Integration Across Agencies (Consolidation)

• One of NTIS's key roles has been an integrator across many factors including scientific disciplines, agency missions, media, and commercial viability. Today NTIS provides public access to over 2,000,000 CENDI agency titles and annually distributes in paper or microfiche approximately one million copies of these information products. This allows a customer to go to a single place to find the results of federal R&D that are published by the federal government in the form of STI. It also provides agencies with the ability to refer users to a single place as questions come to them, many of which actually deal with other agency material. It allows people to search for information on subject matter without being familiar with the government's organization structure and functions. If a person is interested in aircraft safety, they should not be required to search FAA, DoD, NASA, etc. to find what they are looking for. Most citizens don't even know of the activities of some of the agencies that might offer input to the topic. The full ramifications of not having this integral integrating function both for access and retrievability are not known and the impacts of its loss will likely have negative impacts on the public's right to know and on research productivity.

Uncertainty

• The input from agencies varied from the statement of significant use of NTIS to reach the public to agencies that no longer have strong dependencies on NTIS. DTIC, for example, which has a primary mission to serve the R&D function of the DoD, uses NTIS as its principle interface with the public. NLM, on the other hand, has moved to an access system that is fully web-based without any user registration fees. However, no agency felt comfortable with the idea that the rapid dissolution of NTIS would have a net positive cost/benefit impact on the overall access to federal information infrastructure or to the public. The need for a more systematic fact finding and analysis was clearly evident.

• NTIS is also evolving it's services to respond to the changing environment. The key functions it plays of public access; cross-discipline, cross-agency access, dissemination, and archiving; as well as proactive identification and collection of agency results of R&D investments will continue to be necessary in whatever paradigm emerges for future STI system. NTIS future strategic plans should be factored into the impacts assessments that are being done.

Resources

• With the elimination of NTIS some agencies expect that there will be increased demand on them directly from the public. These agencies are not given resources within their mission appropriations to provide this additional service. Even if they have a new agency to refer these requests to, there will still be a resource impact for making referrals. This also makes a negative impression on the public since they will be referred from one place to another, particularly in the short term.

• It is a desire as noted in the Commerce announcement that electronic information should be free. Without question, this reduces a barrier to access. However, demand for electronic information can greatly increase the cost of the infrastructure to provide this information (telecommunications, hardware/software, help desks, etc). Agencies cannot afford to assume these costs out of current appropriations nor can they accommodate these changes immediately. The net result will be an impact somewhere else and this will include increased resource requirements.

• Without a central authority that gains economies of scale in its dissemination function, each agency will end up bearing a lot of additional costs or public access will be reduced. Many examples are provided that may be second and third order impacts, but are none the less real.

Timing

• It is clear that the system and infrastructure is changing and there is uncertainty. We are in a mixed economy today. But, the future paradigm is still evolving and the NTIS role has been evolving with it. A rapid dissolution might have unintended consequences. At best, there should be a transition period (3-5 years) during which uncertainties can be eliminated and a more optimal system for public access to both current and historical tax payer investment in federal R&D in the form of STI can be realized.

CONCLUSION

• NTIS is part of an information dissemination system for the general public that has evolved over 50 years. The key functions of public access which include cross-discipline, cross-agency access, dissemination and archiving, as well as the proactive identification and collection of agency R&D results, continue to be necessary in whatever paradigm emerges for the future Federal STI system. To suddenly remove a component of such a system without a full analysis of the impacts (including second and third order impacts) would now have many unknown consequences. At a minimum the burden of costs will be shifted to the general taxpayer from the user who directly benefits from the services in the current NTIS cost recovery operation. At worst, in the short term, access would simply be lost at whatever cost.

• It is clear that the nature of scientific and technical communication is changing and the future can be engineered to ensure optimization. However, it is likely that this will take analysis and time to accomplish if impacts are to be minimized and risks reduced.

1 Within CENDI, the agency STI programs vary in their agency-wide responsibilities and in the roles NTIS plays for these agencies. The impacts noted here represent those that were of significance to the STI programs. In some cases, these only represent a part of the services NTIS plays for the entire agency. To the extent that the STI program offices have less central authority, NTIS plays a more active role. For example EPA has not had a centralized program and NTIS has managed the Superfund document access for the public.