Superintendent of Documents Judith C. Russell announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston that the GPO plans to request funding for the Federal Depository Library program in FY 2006 that would cover little more than the production and distribution of 50 essential titles. Effective October 1, all other documents would be disseminated digitally.
The proposed changes would also include a print-on-demand (POD) allowance in which selected depository libraries would receive $500 and 53 regional depository libraries would get $1,500 for materials not on the essential titles list. Costs for additional print titles as well as for administration of the POD program would have to come from depository libraries’ own budgets.
Such a plan “represents a major disruption to the FDLP’s role of ensuring no-fee, permanent access to government information for the American public,” AALL wrote in an action alert. “GPO has not yet established a reliable system ensuring delivery, version control, authenticity, permanent public access, and preservation of government information products they disseminate and make available online. . . . It is not enough to disseminate and preserve digital documents; users must be assured that the electronic government information that they locate and use is authentic.”
During ALA’s Midwinter Meeting, the Association’s governing Council passed a resolution proposed by the Government Documents Round Table opposing the changes and calling for congressional oversight hearings.
Posted February 2, 2005.