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Free Government Information (FGI) is a place for initiating dialogue and building consensus among the various players (libraries, government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, journalists, etc.) who have a stake in the preservation of and perpetual free access to government information. FGI promotes free government information through collaboration, education, advocacy and research.

FGI public testimony before Congress advocates for GPO gift authority

Here’s something fun I did this week. For their public witness day, I submitted testimony before the House appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch for their FY2026 budget. :slightly_smiling_face: Many thanks to Daniel Schuman of the American Governance Institute and founder and an editor of the First Branch Forecast (you’re all subscribed to FBF right?!). Daniel was so well organized, got a whole host of folks to submit testimony to the subcommittee, and helpfully walked me through the entire process! Let’s hope at least some of the recommendations make it through the appropriations process. I was a little surprised that I didn’t see any representatives from any of the major library associations there, especially given that this subcommittee deals with funding for the Government Publishing Office (GPO) and Library of Congress among other aspects of the legislative branch — though this is of course NOT a regular year (understatement of the decade!) in the normally regular appropriations process.

Testimony Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, FY 2026, Concerning Gift Authority for the Government Publishing Office, submitted by James R. Jacobs, US Government Information Librarian, Stanford University.

Testimony Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, FY 2026, Concerning Gift Authority for the Government Publishing Office, submitted by James R. Jacobs, US Government Information Librarian, Stanford University

Dear Chair Valadao, Ranking Member Espaillat, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee:

Thank you for the opportunity to address you and this committee today regarding a matter concerning the efficiency, modernization, and public service mission of the Government Publishing Office (GPO). My testimony advocates for a statutory change granting GPO the explicit authority to accept gifts, bequests, and devices of both monetary and nonmonetary property and distribute grants to libraries in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP).

I am the US government information librarian at Stanford University and my library’s Federal Depository Library Program coordinator. Stanford has been an FDLP member since 1895. As such, my everyday work is to build historic collections and offer research services to students, faculty, staff and the general public in Santa Clara County and increasingly across the country.

The authority of government agencies to accept gifts and distribute grants is generally restricted without specific statutory authorization. As the Government Accountability Office has noted, “without statutory authority, an individual government agency may not accept gifts of goods or services for its own use”. However, other legislative branch entities, such as the Library of Congress, and other federal entities with missions concerning access to information, like the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives and Records Administration, possess such authority. We recommend gift authority be extended to the GPO.

Providing gift authority to the GPO would yield several significant benefits:

1. Saving Taxpayer Money: Acceptance of gifts, bequests, and devises can provide GPO with resources beyond its appropriated budget. This could allow GPO to undertake valuable projects in collaboration with FDLP libraries and other organizations, invest in modernization efforts, and enhance its services without requiring additional taxpayer funds. For example, donations could support the digitization and description of historical documents in the “National Collection,” the development of new tools for public access, and the preservation of tangible collections.

2. Economy of Services: Nonmonetary gifts, such as in-kind services, equipment, or collections of historical materials, could significantly enhance GPO’s operational capacity and resources. Accepting voluntary and uncompensated personal services, for example, could allow for the accession of digitized documents from FDLP libraries or assistance with adding metadata. Granting authority would be a virtuous loop to help to fund preservation and digitization projects in FDLP libraries which would then feed back into GPO’s systems for the betterment of all American citizens. This could speed up the process by which materials are made publicly available and decrease the cost for doing so.

3. Improving Public Access to Information: Enhanced resources through gift acceptance can directly translate to improved public access to government information. Donations and grants could fund initiatives to improve the online repository govinfo.gov, enhance cataloging and indexing services, or support Federal Depository Libraries in their mission to provide no-fee access to government information.

This is an issue that has been previously contemplated by Congress. Draft legislation released by Congress for public comment contained a provision regarding gift authority in section 563. It stated clearly:

The Public Printer may accept and use gifts and bequests of property (both real and personal) and services in support of the Superintendent’s responsibilities under this chapter.

Section 109 of that bill provided for congressional oversight of the gifts and disclosure of gifts in semi-annual reports. This seems an appropriate framework.

There are few circumstances where Congress can have its cake and eat it too. Extending to GPO the authority to receive gifts and distribute grants could provide enormous benefits to the American people in terms of access to records and do so at no cost to taxpayers. We respectfully request that you provide to GPO the same gift authority that is already available to other agencies who provide the public with access to government records. My recommendation would positively impact the work of the GPO, the 1100+ FDLP libraries and every citizen in every Congressional district.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further.

Thank you for your interest and attention.

Vicky Reich and David Rosenthal receive CNI Paul Evans Peters Award for LOCKSS

Congratulations to Vicky and David, founders of LOCKSS for receiving the Paul Evans Peters Award! this is a HUGE and justified honor for their lifetimes’ impactful work in libraries and digital preservation. They join other luminaries who have received the Peters Award, among them Tim Berners Lee, Vint Serf, Brewster Kahle, Paul Ginsparg, Daniel Atkins, Christine Borgman, Donald Lindberg, Herbert Van de Sompel, Francine Berman, Paul Courant, and Tony Hey. A veritable who’s who of the internet and libraries!

The Paul Evans Peters Award is a lifetime achievement award that “recognizes the most notable and lasting international achievements related to information technology and the creation and use of information resources and services that advance scholarship and intellectual productivity.” It is jointly awarded by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE.

David and Vicky put up the lecture entitled “Lessons from LOCKSS” that they gave in receiving the Peters Award. It’s a fascinating look at their social AND technical work in developing LOCKSS and the history of digital preservation in libraries. I especially appreciate Vicky’s discussion about the importance of preservation of government information and the spectrum of efforts that have gone into their preservation — including LOCKSS USDOCS, End of Term Archive (EOT), and the Data Rescue Project — and how the concept of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and its tamper-resistant and long impact on preservation of the information of our democracy is actually embedded in LOCKSS.

NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

Things have gotten really weird when comic books are verboten in this Orwellian present. NASA has deleted two comic books about women astronauts from all its websites, according to NASA Watch, the latest victim of the Trump’s administration’s purge of “DEI” content from federal agencies. This is apparently due to a directive sent out just days after Trump’s inauguration, as NASA personnel were commanded to excise all mentions of anything “specifically targeting” women on the space agency’s public websites according to 404 Media.

NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts
Frank Landymore (Mar 25, 2025)

Additionally, NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions had been set to see the first female astronaut set foot on the lunar surface. Oh, except that promise has been dropped, too.

The two volumes have been featured on NASA’s website since being issued in 2021 and 2023, respectively. But as of March 2025, both have now been conspicuously wiped from the space agency’s online presence.

But luckily, they’ve been posted on wikipedia AND preserved in the Internet Archive!

First Woman: NASA’s promise for humanity

Pentagon Culls Social Science Research, deletes 91 funded projects

Today the Pentagon announced that “The Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) is scrapping its social science research portfolio as part of a broader effort to ensure fiscal responsibility and prioritize mission-critical activities.”

Pentagon Culls Social Science Research, Prioritizes Fiscal Responsibility and Technologies for Future Battlefield

Examples of cancelled research include:

Luckily the End of Term Archive and the Wayback Machine have snapshots of the “Minerva Research Initiative”. Maybe it’s just me, but I would think that funding social science research on global migration patterns, climate change impacts, and social trends is extremely important for long-term planning for the “future battlefield.”

PEGI Project Urges Preservation of Public Federal Data

[Editor’s note: This was originally posted on the PEGI Project blog, of which jrj is a member. In the interest of increasing the reach of PEGI’s important message, we re-post here w permission from PEGI.]

Rapid political events have led to an upheaval in access to data and other information resources produced by the U.S. government, particularly content associated with Executive Orders (EOs) seeking to upend prior federal government activity associated with diversity and inclusion, gender identity, immigration, the climate crisis, public health, consumer safety, and a host of related topics. Within just the past four weeks, federal agencies that are impacted by these EOs have removed access to content or substituted modified content.

While we at the PEGI Project have been aware of the potential for a crisis like this since the start of our project in 2017, both the pace and extent of the removals and changes have been astonishing to witness. What has also been astonishing (and heartening!) is the willingness of a broad community to join together in quick action to save content, particularly data that cannot be easily captured as part of the End of Term Archive. The Public Environmental Data Partners, a project launched by the Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI), has been working on collecting and preserving hard-to-crawl environmental data for the past couple of months. In the past two weeks, a coalition has formed to launch the Data Rescue Project, which then debuted its Data Rescue Tracker. They also have a helpful (and well-vetted!) list of Resources that can guide individuals and organizations wanting to contribute to this work.

There is still an urgent need to act right now, particularly as court challenges are being filed to the EOs, which have led to some pauses in content removal or modification. See the Data Rescue Project’s list of Current Efforts or connect with them directly if you are able to help. And keep an eye on updates from Free Government Information for more on how access to government information is changing and what you can do to help. Recent posts of particular interest include:

The government information crisis is bigger than you think it is

What government information librarians can do to help save critical federal information from being lost

Times of crisis and change bring many challenges, and each of us has an opportunity to decide how our priorities, skills, and bandwidth guide us in acting. There are many activities out there, and this Data Rescue Need to Know Bluesky starter pack can connect you with them. We are here to help you navigate what’s happening. Reach out to us at info AT pegiproject DOT org.

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