Pt. 3: Non-Lawyer’s Journey through Title 44: Distribution, Costs of Printing and Binding
As I proceed through selected parts of Title 44, I want to keep reminding our audience that I am not a lawyer and that I welcome comments from all, especially those with more experience in interpreting Title 44 than I do. Before I start today's entry, I'd like to thank Duane for his comment. I'm still thinking about your e-government question, but I'm glad this series is helping at least some depository librarians become better acquainted with our foundational law. Today we explore 44 USC 1903, a part of the depository program law that explains where the printed publications for the program come from:
TITLE 44--PUBLIC PRINTING AND DOCUMENTS CHAPTER 19--DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Sec. 1903. Distribution of publications to depositories; notice to Government components; cost of printing and binding Upon request of the Superintendent of Documents, components of the Government ordering the printing of publications shall either increase or decrease the number of copies of publications furnished for distribution to designated depository libraries and State libraries so that the number of copies delivered to the Superintendent of Documents is equal to the number of libraries on the list. The number thus delivered may not be restricted by any statutory limitation in force on August 9, 1962. Copies of publications furnished the Superintendent of Documents for distribution to designated depository libraries shall include-- the journals of the Senate and House of Representatives; all publications, not confidential in character, printed upon the requisition of a congressional committee; Senate and House public bills and resolutions; and reports on private bills, concurrent or simple resolutions; but not so-called cooperative publications which must necessarily be sold in order to be self-sustaining. The Superintendent of Documents shall currently inform the components of the Government ordering printing of publications as to the number of copies of their publications required for distribution to depository libraries. The cost of printing and binding those publications distributed to depository libraries obtained elsewhere than from the Government Printing Office, shall be borne by components of the Government responsible for their issuance; those requisitioned from the Government Printing Office shall be charged to appropriations provided the Superintendent of Documents for that purpose. (Pub. L. 90-620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1283.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964 ed., Sec. 85 (part) (Mar. 1, 1907, ch. 2284, Sec. 4, 34 Stat. 1014; June 25, 1938, ch. 708, 52 Stat. 1206; Aug. 9, 1962, Pub. L. 87-579, Sec. 5, 76 Stat. 354). The last paragraph of former section 85 will be found in section 1906 of the revision. Section Referred to in Other Sections This section is referred to in title 28 section 594. [Daniel's note - requires Independent Counsels to put reports into Federal Depository Library Program.]Since this section refers explicitly to tangible publications, our friends who believe in the all-electronic present can be forgiven for thinking that this section of the depository law is on the ash heap of history. NOT! According to the GPO Update given at the Spring 2006 Meeting of the Depository Library Council, "During the first five months of FY 2006 (October 2005-February 2006) GPO distributed a total of 2,779,778 tangible copies of 4,340 titles (this includes print, microfiche, CD’s, DVD’s and maps)." Projecting for a full year, this suggests at least five million tangible copies will be distributed to the nation's Federal Depository Libraries. There are three main points I'd like to emphasize about this portion of the law. First, this represents one of few tools that helps GPO get the cooperation of federal agencies. You'll notice that if agencies put their requests through GPO, they do not have to pay the cost of printing the depository copies. If production is procured outside GPO, then the agency pays. So, if they do make tangible copies, it is in their financial interest to work with GPO. I think this was a wise move on the part of Congress. The easier it is for agencies to comply, the more likely it is they will. Second, until such time that Title 44 is amended, GPO has no choice about printing or otherwise producing tangible copies of Congressional publications like the Congressional Record and committee reports. Third, this is the portion of the law that lets the government get away with NOT depositing certain publications that are produced in part by government agencies. This is the set of publications known as "cooperative publications" and includes titles like World Trade Atlas U.S. State Export Edition and Commercial News USA. Legislation has been proposed in the past to eliminate this exemption, but to no effect thus far. To my mind, this exemption is a carrot for privatization. That's all I can think of on this portion of the law. As always comments from lawyers, true Title 44 experts, or anyone else are welcome. Next time we will focus on Sec. 1904. Classified list of Government publications for selection by depositories. Thanks for reading. Continue reading
FYI: Problem posting comments
WARNING: May 12, 2006: A couple of users have emailed to say that they're having problems posting comments. I'm looking into it. Apparently, the spam module thinks that anonymous users are automatically spam. If you experience a problem posting a comment, please email us at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info and I'll post the comment for you. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll have things running smoothly ASAP. Added note May 14, 2006: Even though anonymous users are getting an error when they post a comment, the post is still going through to the administrators. So post away! Your friendly FGI Web admin ;-) Continue reading
FDLP in the past tense
An article by Mike Wash, chief technical officer for the Government Printing Office, has two interesting implications for the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP).
- ANOTHER VIEW: Government IT is becoming content-centric, by Mike Wash, Government Computer News, May 1, 2006
Pt. 2: Non-Lawyer’s Journey through Title 44: Availability of Government publications
As I proceed through selected parts of Title 44, I want to keep reminding our audience that I am not a lawyer and that I welcome comments from all, especially those with more experience in interpreting Title 44 than I do. Last time I covered the part of Title 44 that defined a government publication. This time we continue our examination of the law behind the Federal Library Depository Program by examining the Availability of Government publications through Superintendent of Documents contained in 44 USC 1902:
TITLE 44--PUBLIC PRINTING AND DOCUMENTS CHAPTER 19--DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Sec. 1902. Availability of Government publications through Superintendent of Documents; lists of publications not ordered from Government Printing Office Government publications, except those determined by their issuing components to be required for official use only or for strictly administrative or operational purposes which have no public interest or educational value and publications classified for reasons of national security, shall be made available to depository libraries through the facilities of the Superintendent of Documents for public information. Each component of the Government shall furnish the Superintendent of Documents a list of such publications it issued during the previous month, that were obtained from sources other than the Government Printing Office. (Pub. L. 90-620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1283.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964 ed., Sec. 81b (Pub. L. 87-579, Sec. 1, Aug. 9, 1962, 76 Stat. 352).This part of the law shows the ideal for government information as designed by Congress - that everything except classified or purely internal documents would be available to the nation's federal depository libraries. And even internal documents should be provided to the public via depository libraries if they had some interest or educational value. The default position of the law as written is that all documents should be released to the public in findable places. According to the law, these places are depository libraries. In recognition that even in a perfect world, not all publications are sourced through the Government Printing Office (GPO), agencies have a statutory requirement to provide GPO with a monthly list of publications. Based on my personal observations, nearly all states with a state depository program have a similar requirement for state agencies. In practice, that requirement is routinely ignored on both the state and federal levels. It's done partly out of ignorance, partly because of workload and perhaps a small fraction because agencies don't want their documents known to the general public. One benefit of living in a web-based world is that agencies can be "helped" in complying with the "listing of publications" portion of the law through web crawling. That's what we do in Alaska. Every month we check all publicly accessible agency servers known to us. We download all new files and in the process generate a list of newly added materials. I believe that GPO is already experimenting with this technology for a few agencies. The downside of doing it this way is that not every file is a document, and some documents consist of multiple files. Perhaps what we need is an enforcement mechanism for those monthly lists. Or smarter software. The next stop on our journey, which may take me a few days, will be to examine section 1903 - Distribution of publications to depositories; notice to Government components; cost of printing and binding. As I said at the top of this entry, I hope that some readers of this site with longer experiences of Title 44 will chime in with their thoughts and analysis. Or that people who are meeting Title 44 for the first time will have some questions. In either case, please either use the comments below, or e-mail me at dnlcornwal AT alaska.net with your comment and permission to post to the FGI site. Continue reading
More legislation that would restrict online access in libraries
Congress targets social network sites, By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, May 10, 2006. A proposed federal law ("Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA") would effectively require most schools and libraries to limit access to Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service. The measure would affect Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features. According to an email sent by McCullagh, the legislation would also affect Slashdot.org and blog sites that permit comments. Continue reading