[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSFORMING GPO FOR THE 21ST CENTURY AND BEYOND: PART 4
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 11, 2017
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on the Internet:
http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
29-544 WASHINGTON : 2018
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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
Committee on House Administration
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi, Chairman
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois, Vice ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania,
Chairman Ranking Member
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia ZOE LOFGREN, California
MARK WALKER, North Carolina JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland
ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
TRANSFORMING GPO FOR THE 21ST CENTURY AND BEYOND: PART 4
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2017
House of Representatives,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:31 a.m., in Room
1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Gregg Harper
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Harper, Comstock, Smith, and
Raskin.
Staff Present: Sean Moran, Staff Director; Kim Betz, Deputy
Staff Director/Policy and Oversight; Cole Felder, Deputy
General Counsel; Dan Jarrell, Legislative Clerk; Bob Tapella,
Professional Staff; Erin McCracken, Communications Director;
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director; Khalil Abboud, Minority
Deputy Staff Director; and Eddie Flaherty, Minority Chief
Clerk.
The Chairman. I now call to order the Committee on House
Administration for purposes of today's hearing, ``Transforming
the Government Publishing Office for the 21st Century and
Beyond,'' part 4 of our hearing series examining Title 44, the
U.S. Government Publishing Office, and the Federal Depository
Library Program. The hearing record will remain open for 5
legislative days so Members may submit any additional materials
they wish to include.
A quorum is present, so we may proceed.
Before I get into the substance of today's hearing, I would
like to begin by thanking all of the stakeholders of GPO and
the FDLP who have been engaged in this process over the past
several months. I know that this has been a long process as the
Committee, through regular order, has worked to review Title 44
as it relates to the U.S. Government Publishing Office and the
Federal Depository Library Program.
I would like to give special thanks to GPO Director Davita
Vance-Cooks, who has appeared twice before this Committee and
has answered nearly a hundred detailed questions for the
record, and I thank her for her cooperation and her openness in
this effort.
I also want to thank a number of the associations, such as
the American Library Association, the Association of Law
Libraries, the Medical Library Association, the Association of
Research Libraries, the Association of Southeastern Research
Libraries, and the Digital Library Federation, who have all
provided both formal and informal input into the Committee's
research.
To the countless individual librarians from all types of
libraries across the country, including public, law, and
academic, who have taken the time to share insights, provide
testimony, attend meetings, and open their doors for tours, I
would like to say thank you for your dedication and service to
our communities.
Today's hearing will cover a myriad of topics in which this
Committee would like further information or clarification. As
we have learned through this review process, much of Title 44
dates to the Printing Act of 1895. This act codified the public
printing laws of the Federal Government, specifying the details
of public documents, centralized all Federal printing at GPO,
and established the Superintendent of Documents.
Additionally, GPO and its stakeholders are asking for new
authorities. We will be looking at five unrelated areas of
Title 44 reform: first, the role GPO plays in the legislative
process; second, congressional oversight of GPO as an agency in
the legislative branch; third, constitutional principles of
separation of powers as it relates to Congress' control of
Federal printing and executive branch agencies; fourth,
allowing GPO grant-making authority; and, fifth, permanent
retention and preservation of both tangible and digital
materials in the FDLP.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here, and we
look forward to hearing from them.
I would like to now recognize my colleague, Democratic
member on the Committee, Jamie Raskin, for the purpose of
providing an opening statement. Before he proceeds, I would
also like to thank him for his joint efforts in this endeavor.
Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for calling
this hearing. And I want to thank the witnesses, also, for
appearing today to offer testimony. It is an honor, as the
newest member of the Committee, to get to make an opening
statement on this important occasion.
The input of the witnesses today is critical as we examine
best how to support GPO in the process of modernizing its
operations and adapting for the 21st century. Maintaining the
official records of a constitutional democracy like ours is a
sacred public duty. In authoritarian societies, it is essential
to extinguish public memory and alter public records. But in
democracy, it is essential to protect public memory and to
maintain our records.
The preservation of public records is a core service the
government provides and is providing today. Whether online
through the Federal Digital System or in person at one of the
1,200 Federal Depository Library locations across the country,
GPO keeps our citizens informed and actively engaged in
government.
Mr. Chairman, as a newly installed member of the Joint
Committee on Printing, I had the great pleasure yesterday of
touring GPO, where I saw firsthand how seriously the staff and
the employees are taking this responsibility. I met with staff
members at GPO who work late into the night every day waiting
for Congress to wrap up our daily sessions in order to receive
the Congressional Record for preparation for printing the next
morning. I met with copy editors in GPO's print shop who pore
through the Congressional Record looking for spelling and
grammatical errors. I think I offered a couple of them jobs in
my office.
I toured the ID card manufacturing area where GPO staff is
taking painstaking care to design and manufacture counterfeit-
proof ID cards for highly secure events, including the most
recent Presidential inauguration. I visited the printing floor,
where reams of paper, including congressional publications and
the Federal Register, are printed and sorted with amazing
speed.
And I got to see firsthand some of America's last few
remaining artisans schooled in the arts of bookbinding and
marbling, which is a dazzling process which only a handful of
people still know today. But marbling is the process that
allows for the pages to have these kinds of colorful designs on
them.
I learned during my tour that behind the creation of the
documents that record the story of American Government are
early rising and passionate public servants, many of them my
constituents in Maryland, Mr. Chairman. There are multiple
shifts who are working over there at GPO. But it is a 24-hour-
a-day operation, sometimes 7 days a week.
And the people there, most importantly, take extraordinary
pride and honor in their work. One of them is my constituent
John Crawford, a native Washingtonian and proud Marylander who
has been with GPO for 51 years and says he has no interest in
retiring because he loves the work that he is doing. He started
as a journeyman bookbinder on the night shift in 1966 and is
today the Managing Director of Plant Operations.
So public servants like John deserve, obviously, not just
good wages and job security, but our respect and admiration for
the job that they are doing for us. And I know that our efforts
to reform Title 44 will honor their service and commitment to
America.
I am eager to learn more about GPO's operations from this
panel's perspective today as customers and as participants in
the Federal Depository Library Program. In thinking about
changes, we must listen carefully to the libraries. Not all of
them have large endowments or active boards. Many of them rely
on shrinking local budgets. And we need to give real
consideration to a grant program that could empower them with
the tools that make these documents available.
So thanks, again, to the witnesses for their time and their
candor. And thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for convening us in
this hearing. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
I would now like to introduce our first panel's witness.
The Honorable Karen Haas serves as the Clerk of the U.S. House
of Representatives. Ms. Haas was sworn in as Clerk of the House
of Representatives for the 115th Congress on January 3, 2017.
She is the 34th individual to serve as Clerk and previously
served through the 109th, 110th, 112th, 113th, and 114th
Congresses.
As Clerk of the House, Ms. Haas plays a central role in the
daily operations and legislative activities of the House and is
the point of contact for many functions of the Government
Publishing Office.
Madam Clerk, the Committee has received your written
testimony. You will have 5 minutes to present a summary of this
submission. You know how the timing device works. So there will
be a green light for the first 4 minutes, and then a yellow
light for the last minute, and then red when the time has
expired.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Haas for purposes of an
opening statement.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KAREN L. HAAS, CLERK OF THE HOUSE,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Ms. Haas. Thank you.
Chairman Harper, Members of the Committee, thank you for
the opportunity to appear before the Committee today to discuss
our partnership with the Government Publishing Office and the
future legislative support needs of the House.
The responsibility of the Office of the Clerk is to support
the legislative requirements of the U.S. House of
Representatives. The professional men and women of our
organization accomplish this each day by working closely with
our business partners.
One of the most important partners is the Government
Publishing Office. On a daily basis, we work with GPO to
compile and print the complete record of the daily business of
the House, process bills and reports, and make legislative data
available electronically to Members, staff, and the public in a
timely and accurate manner.
In addition, GPO also supplies the House with letterhead
and envelopes, publishes congressionally mandated books, prints
special event programs and invitations, and binds official
publications.
However, GPO provides far more than print services. It
supplies and maintains the printers we use to enroll measures
and produce the Journal used at the start of each legislative
day, as well as the parchment paper and presentation cases for
presenting enrollments to the President. We also require GPO's
proofreading expertise for large enrollments and many official
documents.
GPO employees are often detailed to House committees and
other institutional offices to lend expert support for
processing legislative documents and compiling legislative
history. They also provide the databases to make our data
electronically available to Members, staff, and the public.
This list is not exhaustive, but as you can see, the
products and services GPO provides are extensive and critical
to our daily operations.
As the primary liaison to GPO for the House, my team
interacts with the organization daily, often beginning before
dawn to coordinate the arrival of the Congressional Record and
measures for floor consideration, continuing throughout the day
and into the night with the processing of the day's bills and
reports, and finalizing the Record for the day.
Today, GPO plays an important role in the efforts to make
the legislative process more transparent. In June of 2016, GPO
was tasked with managing the ``more documents in USLM'' project
to publish enrolled bills, Public Laws, and Statutes at Large
in a machine-readable format. When this project is complete in
late spring of 2018, it will represent a big step forward in
how we access and use legislative data while also opening the
door to convert additional documents.
As the Committee looks to modernize the legislative process
and GPO's work, we believe there are several key points to
consider.
One, previous mandates on the number of printed copies are
not necessary, but some number of copies is required for
legislative operations.
Flexibility is important. The round-the-clock services
provided by GPO are critical to the legislative process of the
House of Representatives and must remain.
GPO is an indispensable part of the evolving effort to
modernize how we prepare, distribute, authenticate, and archive
legislative data. The ongoing standardization efforts should
continue.
Support beyond print and technological expertise is needed.
The ability to enlist additional proofreaders or detailees to
help committees or offices with their documentation process is
essential.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to come before
the Committee today, and I am happy to answer any questions
that you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Haas follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Madam Clerk, for your testimony.
I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
And, without objection, all members will have 5 legislative
days to submit to the chair additional written questions for
the witness, which we will then forward and ask the witness to
respond as soon as possible so that your answers could be
included as a part of the record.
And I thank you for being here and for all of your hard
work. And I know in your testimony you state that although the
required quantity of printed copies of documents has decreased,
the Office of the Clerk must have the flexibility to coordinate
with those documents' customers to determine what is needed.
Would it be helpful if Title 44 gave you and the Secretary
of the Senate the ability to determine quantities of documents
produced by GPO rather than just making it a specification in
the law?
Ms. Haas. I do think it would be helpful to allow us to
manage our customers' needs. So providing that flexibility, I
think, would be important. But I would leave it up to the
Committee as to the best way to accomplish that.
The Chairman. Sure. But if you had the ability to determine
that on a case-by-case basis, you believe your office could
accommodate that and that would give you that flexibility?
Ms. Haas. I do.
The Chairman. Okay. And if we were coming in with a
specification as to a number, that sometimes could be rather
arbitrary.
Ms. Haas. Absolutely. And I think we need to, as you are
thinking about this going forward, think about the future and
the technology changes we have already seen.
The Chairman. Sure. And it is always a challenge to
anticipate that technology changing.
Ms. Haas. That is right.
The Chairman. Also, I know that you certainly strive to
provide the transparency and public access to the House's
activities. Are there any additional ways in which the House
and GPO could work together to increase access?
Ms. Haas. I would suggest that we continue the efforts with
the Bulk Data Task Force. I mentioned in the testimony that we
already have a project in the works that GPO is managing. There
are several other documents that need to also be translated and
moved into the USLM format, and I would suggest that we
continue to have GPO partner with us in that effort.
The Chairman. Great.
You know, the Committee has certainly heard from other
customers about GPO's billing practices. As the House's primary
point of contact, how would you describe GPO's billing? And is
it timely, accurate, understandable? Help us clarify that.
Ms. Haas. Sure. Several years ago we identified that as an
issue, quite honestly, for us in managing the items that were
going down to GPO, and we worked closely with GPO to refine the
billing practices at the time. We regularly receive the source
documents from them so we can compare what is produced through
the Clerk's Office and with GPO.
We have also taken it upon ourselves to work on our
requisition system, and we have updated and modernized that
requisition system from the House. What I would suggest is that
we would work with GPO going forward on their side of that
practice to continue to modernize that practice. But over the
last several years we have seen an improvement in how GPO has
provided us the data on a regular basis.
The Chairman. Okay. Thank you.
The House makes audio-visual recordings of Committee
meetings and floor proceedings. Are there ways that the House
could improve long-term access to these recordings?
Ms. Haas. I think that is an excellent question. Currently,
I am aware of a couple of ways that the videos are made
available. They are made available on Congress.Gov through the
Library, and I believe that is a system that the Committee put
in place. We also have the archived copies of the committee
video that is part of their committee archive for the future,
and those are placed at the National Archives. And then, in
addition, I know Members make their videos available on their
YouTube channels.
So, as far as I know at this point, the Library of Congress
is working well. But I would really defer to the Committee on
how they would like to see that going forward.
The Chairman. Well, thank you for your input and the great
work that your team does.
And the chair will now recognize Mr. Raskin for 5 minutes
for any questions he may have.
Mr. Raskin. Chairman Harper, thank you very much.
I want to follow up on the chairman's first question about
the Congressional Record and how many copies need to be made
for that and should there be more flexibility to meet what the
actual needs are.
Can you give us a sense of where the printed copies go now?
You know, I understand that there were Members of Congress and
Presidents, I think Lyndon Johnson, maybe Senator Byrd, used to
read the Congressional Record every day. I don't know if there
are that many people who do that now since we do have our TVs
on and we are able to kind of keep track of what people are
saying. But are most of them used here on Capitol Hill or are
they sent out across the country? Are they in libraries? I
mean, where are the actual hard copies going?
Ms. Haas. Well, I can speak only to the ones that come to
Capitol Hill. And so, as you mentioned, the Members' offices
are not getting the copies as they used to. A large quantity
comes to the Legislative Resource Center to make them available
to Members and the public if they are interested in getting a
copy. It is available online, as you know.
But they are also very important to our day-to-day
operations. We use them on the House floor. We use them in our
Legislative Operations team, our Official Reporters,
Legislative Counsel. So there are entities within the House
that need the Congressional Record to operate each day. We also
have copies available on the floor as it is part of our regular
proceedings each day to see that that information is out there
and available to Members when they are on the floor.
Mr. Raskin. Gotcha.
Do you think there is a role for the private sector to play
in the work of preserving the Congressional Record?
Ms. Haas. I think that would be open to discussion. I think
one of the keys right now is how the information is available
currently on FDsys, the authentication process that takes place
through GPO, and the key is to continue to archive it. One of
the responsibilities of the Clerk is to keep copies of any
publication, two copies in our archives, for history purposes
and forever. And so we also keep paper copies, as well as
electronic, of the Congressional Record.
Mr. Raskin. Are you working actively with the GPO to figure
out ways to improve public access to information about what
goes on in the House?
Ms. Haas. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Raskin. Tell me how that process works.
Ms. Haas. Sure. So, as I mentioned in my testimony, GPO has
been a partner for many years with us, most recently with the
Bulk Data Task Force that was established. And what was behind
that effort was a real desire by our customers, both internal
and external, to get legislative data.
So GPO has been able to provide the expertise. They have
the databases available where they display our information. And
they have taken the lead on different documents that the House
produces and putting them in a standardized form, but then
outside groups can take that information and use it to their
benefit.
Mr. Raskin. Gotcha.
All right. Well, that is all I have now, Mr. Chairman. I
will yield back to you.
The Chairman. I want to thank you for your appearance
today. And I know you would love to answer a lot more
questions, but before we close with you on the first panel, is
there anything that you would care to add in light of the
questions that have been asked?
Ms. Haas. No, I just appreciate the opportunity.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for being here. Thank
you.
Ms. Haas. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
That will conclude our first panel, and we will take just a
moment to set the second panel of witnesses on the table.
The Chairman. I want to thank each of you for being here
today to assist us on what has become a very important mission
for us this year as we review title 44, talk to the various
stakeholders. And I am going to take a moment now to introduce
each of you.
Eric Petersen is a specialist in American National
Government with the Congressional Research Service, who will
discuss the role of the Joint Committee on Printing and the
constitutional principles of separation of powers as it relates
to Congress' control of Federal printing and executive branch
agencies.
Robin Dale is the Deputy Director of Library Services at
the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent
agency in the executive branch, who will discuss Federal grant-
making to libraries.
Roger Schonfeld is the Director of Libraries and Scholarly
Communications Program at Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit service
that helps academic and cultural communities effectively use
digital technologies, who will discuss preservation of tangible
and digital materials.
The Committee has received each of your written
testimonies. Each witness will be given 5 minutes to present a
summary of that submission. You have seen how it works with the
Clerk who just testified. You have a button, obviously, to turn
on your microphone, and then the timer clock will work there.
And so the Chair would now recognize our witnesses for the
purposes of their opening statements.
And I will begin with you, Dr. Petersen, and you are
allowed 5 minutes. Thank you.
STATEMENTS OF DR. ERIC PETERSEN, SPECIALIST IN AMERICAN
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, LIBRARY OF
CONGRESS; MS. ROBIN L. DALE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR LIBRARY
SERVICES, INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES; AND MR.
ROGER C. SCHONFELD, DIRECTOR OF LIBRARY AND SCHOLARLY
COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM, ITHAKA S+R
STATEMENT OF ERIC PETERSEN
Mr. Petersen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today.
The Joint Committee on Printing, established in 1846, and
GPO, established in 1861, have played central roles in ensuring
public access to government information. At the same time,
changes in governance and information technology have raised
questions about the roles and activities of the Joint Committee
and in some cases the capacity of GPO to carry out its
missions.
With regard to governance, JCP's authority to oversee and
enforce statutory authorities that mandate government printing
through GPO have been widely questioned by the executive branch
since the 1983 Supreme Court decision in Immigration and
Naturalization Service v. Chadha.
The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel has
twice concluded that many of JCP's authorities, particularly
provisions mandating JCP's prior approval before an executive
agency can have materials printed outside of GPO, have been
invalidated by Chadha. And I would hasten to mention that I am
not an attorney. In this case I am speaking more to the policy
consequences.
From OLC's perspective, executive agencies are able to
procure printing services from providers other than GPO. And
since then, for the governance reasons, GPO workloads and
revenues have declined and agency-controlled printing and
publishing efforts have resulted in an unknown number of
fugitive documents being created and not getting into GPO's
Federal Digital System or into the collections of the Federal
Depository Library participants. And what this does is
potentially makes them unavailable to policymakers or the
general public.
Another concern raised by congressional and other observers
arises with regard to the Joint Committee and includes
questions as to whether or not its responsibilities might
formally be performed by other entities.
With regard to technology, government information and
publishing authorities, as the chairman noted in his opening
statement, have remained in substantially the same state as
they were when they were first enacted in the 19th and 20th
centuries, before digital creation and distribution became the
norm. The online version of the U.S. Code mentions current JCP
authorities in about 60 sections. Thirty-seven of those
sections were originally enacted a century or more ago, chiefly
in the Printing Act of 1895.
Similarly, GPO is subject to 129 Code sections in Title 44,
of which 105 were first enacted during or prior to 1917. Some
of these authorities over the past quarter century have been
called into question by the Government Accountability Office,
the National Academy of Public Administration, and in an
earlier session of this hearing, the Director of GPO.
And while there does appear to be broad recognition of the
shortcomings of some current authorities in Title 44, the way
ahead is complicated by the lack of a stable, robust set of
technology and information management practices similar to
those that were in place when Congress enacted the bulk of
government information policies. By 1895, the written word on a
tangible object was a technology that had a 4,000-year track
record.
In the fourth or fifth decade of transition from the
tangible written word to ubiquitous digital creation and
distribution, permanent retention or preservation of those
formats is still challenging. And instead of a fixed standard,
as is available for tangible printing products, digital
preservation and retention efforts have not yet produced a
digital equivalent with the preservation capacity of tangible
items. And until and unless we get to a point where we have
that, any effort to establish standards for the production and
retention of digital materials runs the risk of potentially
privileging a current standard or denying Congress, the
American people, and GPO the opportunity to take advantage of
some as-yet-undiscovered sets of technologies.
I think that is a good place to leave it for the moment.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify. And I will be happy
to address any questions you may have.
[The statement of Mr. Petersen follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, very much, Dr. Petersen.
The Chair will now recognize Ms. Dale for 5 minutes for her
testimony.
Thank you, and welcome.
STATEMENT OF ROBIN L. DALE
Ms. Dale. Good morning, Chairman Harper, Congressman
Raskin, and of course the other Members of the Committee.
On behalf of the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Director, Dr. Kathryn K. Matthew, I want to thank you for this
invitation to submit testimony before the House Committee on
Administration as you examine the modernization of the
Government Publishing Office.
I first would like to take a moment and give you a brief
overview of IMLS, where I serve as the Deputy Director for
Library Services.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the Federal
agency with the primary responsibility for ensuring the
availability of museum, library, and information services to
meet the essential needs of the people of the United States.
IMLS is an independent grant-making agency and the primary
source of Federal support for the Nation's approximately
120,000 libraries and 35,000 museums and related organizations.
IMLS was created with the passage of the Museum and Library
Services Act of 1996, which, as amended, authorizes the agency
to award financial assistance, collect data, form strategic
partnerships, and advise the President, Congress, and other
Federal agencies on museum, library, and information services.
The agency consolidates Federal library and information
services programs dating back to 1956 and Federal museum
programs dating back to 1976.
IMLS ensures critical access to the development of library
services throughout the United States, its territories, and
Native American tribes pursuant to the Library Services and
Technology Act. IMLS supports library initiatives that
facilitate innovation and workforce development through
competitive grant programs.
Our Grants to States Program is the largest Federal funding
support for library services in the United States. It is
designed to stimulate the use of State and local funds for
library improvement throughout the Nation. It encourages States
to implement comprehensive programs to meet library services
needs of their residents by establishing State Library
Administrative Agencies, or SLAAs, as we call them, and they
are charged by laws with the extension and development of
library services. Fifty-nine State agencies now ensure that
library services reach individuals in every State and
territory.
To receive Federal support from IMLS, an SLAA must submit a
plan that details library service goals for a 5-year period and
describes activities that will be supported with the assistance
of Federal funds. Each State is then responsible for leveraging
non-Federal, State and local match funds it receives to
increase the impact of the investment. In addition, each State
must sustain a ``Maintenance of Effort'' level of State funding
on libraries and library programs to ensure that Federal funds
enhance and do not supplant State funds.
They may use the funds to support State initiatives and
services. They may also distribute the funds through
competitive sub-awards or also in cooperative agreements with
public, academic, research, school, tribal, and special
libraries or consortia, and every year over 1,500 Grants to
States projects carry out these statutory purposes, ensuring
the availability of library services by providing access to
electronic databases, computer instruction, homework centers,
digitization of special collections, access to e-books and
adaptive technology, and tools supporting workforce
development.
A priority of the program is to address the needs of
underserved communities and persons having difficulty using
libraries. More than 10 percent of our grant funds over the
last several years have been used to support library services
for individuals who are blind or visually handicapped or have
other disabilities.
IMLS funds also support libraries' provision of science,
technology, engineering and math, or STEM programs, designed to
meet the needs of their communities. Library users receive
hands-on instruction in science and technology to which they
would normally not have access. This program supports career
development as well as robust inquiry and skills essential for
all citizens to lead productive and informed lives.
At the end of each 5-year period, SLAAs evaluate their
library programs based upon their original 5-year plan. These
plans and evaluations are the foundation for improving practice
and delivering services, and they must file annual financial
and programmatic reports.
Our statutory responsibilities for grant-making also
include a range of competitive grant programs, including grants
to Native American Tribes, including federally recognized
Tribes, as well as Alaska Native villages, regional
corporations, village corporations, and organizations that
primarily represent and serve Native Hawaiians, to enable
access to library services; National Leadership Grants to
support innovation, and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian
Program to help build a diverse and qualified librarian
workforce.
We handle all aspects of grant administration, applying
proper controls to ensure equity, fairness, and fiscal
management and oversight. For example, our peer review process
is central to its grant-making function and professionals with
experience and expertise in a vast array of library disciplines
and practices review all proposals from eligible institutions.
Peer reviewers help ensure that financial assistance provided
for projects that are appropriate to the applicant's capability
and the scale of the overall programs, as well as the defined
project goals, and we conduct cost analyses of these projects.
We monitor and oversee grantees, requiring that they
maintain fiscal control and employ accounting procedures that
ensure the proper disbursement for and accounting of Federal
funds, and our agency has been recognized as a model for
transparency, results-based goals, and priority setting, as
well as for responsiveness and spending discipline.
And we are going up.
So, in conclusion, I would like to thank Chairman Harper
and the Committee Members for this opportunity to provide
testimony on behalf of IMLS, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The statement of Ms. Dale follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Dale. And it is good to know
no trapdoor opens up if you go a few minutes or a little bit
over.
Ms. Dale. That is correct. Well, you know, I watched it go
down. And then I missed that the numbers would then go up once
you were speaking over. So----
The Chairman. We are good. We are good.
Ms. Dale. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony.
The Chair will now recognize Mr. Schonfeld for 5 minutes.
Thank you. Or 5\1/2\ minutes, whichever you prefer.
STATEMENT OF ROGER C. SCHONFELD
Mr. Schonfeld. Chairman Harper, Mr. Raskin, Members of the
Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify here today.
I am a librarian who has led a number of projects examining
preservation issues in the transition from print to digital.
Nearly a decade ago, I led two projects focused on structural
challenges facing the Federal Depository Library Program and
how the vital work of that program can be sustained. Today I
will focus my remarks on factors I hope you will consider
related to the long-term preservation of government
publications.
Preservation is an imperative for ensuring permanent public
access, and it has several components beyond simply storing and
retaining publications. First, there are technical issues, such
as physical security, disaster planning, file preservation, and
format changes. And second, there are governance issues,
including how preservation is organized and funded. I want to
focus on organizational issues today both for print and for
digital preservation.
At a time of transition from tangible to increasingly
digital access for many information resources, it remains
essential that at least some print copies be retained. Because
of research that I commissioned from a Berkeley operations
researcher, we have a framework for determining the number of
print copies of a given item that are needed for preservation
purposes. Depending on a number of factors, including the
condition of the collection and whether the materials are in
circulation, we may need fewer than 10 copies to ensure their
long-term preservation.
Federal government publications with widely available
trusted digital copies are well-suited to this type of
analysis. But the FDLP is not organized to optimize for the
preservation of print materials that are increasingly accessed
digitally.
Academic libraries today are banding together into what I
call trust networks to take collective responsibility for print
collections. Each library individually can thereby reduce space
and other resources devoted to print collections. Trust
networks typically involve a more explicit commitment to
retention, and in some cases preservation, than any single
library was ever able to make for similar materials on its own.
The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries is a
case in point. Participating libraries focus on a certain
agency or set of agencies committing to build and maintain a
collection more rigorously than the FDLP itself mandates. This
type of distributed but systematic approach is a fantastic
model for what the future of the program could look like. Trust
networks like this one frequently cross State boundaries, which
is a challenge for the FDLP's State-based model.
Looking ahead, the FDLP should evolve, along with library
preservation strategy, to allow a trust network of libraries to
serve in the role of the regional repository. GPO should
integrate the Preservation Stewards Program and its regional
discard policy along these lines and run them more proactively
to ensure preservation in modern, yet robust and systematic
ways.
As government publications are now typically issued in
digital format, it is essential that this format also be
preserved. But many Federal publications are not being gathered
up into the FDsys, GovInfo platform. It is therefore reasonable
to worry if their preservation as a coherent collection is
failing.
GPO needs a stronger focus or abilities to enable it to
build this coherent collection of Federal publications or an
alternative other than GPO must be found for doing so. This
issue must be addressed both prospectively and retrospectively
to ensure that gaps in the holdings of digital and digitized
publications are filled.
Additionally, I would question whether GPO should have sole
responsibility for digital preservation. Best practice is for
preservation responsibilities to be transferred from the
creator and publisher to one or more third parties representing
the users of publications. Consequently, there should be a
strong third-party role for preservation of Federal
publications. The government should have a formal agreement
with this third-party and provide stable financial support.
This third party would take custody of publications when
they are issued and maintain them in a diversity of political
jurisdictions, including, in this case, at least one
jurisdiction outside the United States. At any point the
publications become unavailable through normal channels, the
third party would ensure that public access is not interrupted.
The FDLP could be restructured to provide for such a model or
GPO could contract with a third party outside of the parameters
of the FDLP.
I thank this Committee for your work to ensure preservation
and access to government publications. By modernizing the FDLP
and aligning it with preservation best practices, you can help
to ensure that these vital government publications will remain
available for the American public for generations to come.
I look forward to your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Schonfeld follows:]
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The Chairman. I want to thank each of you for your
testimony. This is an issue that is very important, I believe,
to the future of how all of this is going to work.
The gentlelady from Virginia, Mrs. Comstock, is rotating
between three different hearings set all during the same time.
She will have to run. So I am going to take a liberty as Chair
and recognize Mrs. Comstock first for 5-minutes for questions.
Mrs. Comstock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Petersen, in your testimony you stated that Congress
could consider a process by which the potential adoption of
newer technologies and approaches reflective of emerging
information management practices might be specified in statute.
Could you explain how Congress could delegate that authority to
GPO? Would it be through some rulemaking process or how that
might be done?
Mr. Petersen. Thank you for the question.
I guess the first step is to identify a technology adoption
process, and this is one option for considering how to
implement the flexibility to bring in emerging technologies
over time.
One option is an expert panel, folks who look at this
stuff, folks like Mr. Schonfeld, who study it deeply and can
see what is coming and how the extent to what existing
technologies are, you know, expiring or being overtaken by
newer things.
What then could happen is that the process of technology
determination could be enacted as the method of implementing
it. And this could be overseen by GPO. This could be overseen
by another entity.
And it would potentially be a regulatory option. GPO could
implement these things by regulation. Perhaps the statute could
mandate that the technology development process be carried out
at a regular interval, and then, in the absence of some manner
of objection, be implemented that way.
There are a number of options as to how that could move
forward.
Mrs. Comstock. Okay. Thank you.
And, Mr. Schonfeld, in your testimony you talked about a
third-party role for preservation. Could you expand upon that?
And, as you mentioned, the Federal Information Preservation
Network, would that effort by GPO be enough to preserve the
Federal collection?
Mr. Schonfeld. Thank you for the question.
In terms of third-party preservation, we have developed a
system--Ms. Dale was actually one of the originators of it--of
certifying trusted digital repositories. It is a process that
makes it possible for us to have assurance that these
repositories are audited and certified.
Even if FDsys or GovInfo, the GPO's repositories, were to
be certified as trustworthy, governance principles would still
argue for a strong third-party that itself would be certified
as trustworthy. But as you may know, GPO attempted to have its
own digital repository certified, and the certification has not
yet been received. This should, perhaps, cause some special
concerns for us about whether GPO is in the right position
here.
I would answer about the Federal Information Preservation
Network by-saying that what GPO really needs to establish here
is a risk-informed set of preservation goals. And I think that
that is really what we are talking about, how do you understand
what the risks are, what the risk factors are relative to the
resources that are available for addressing those risks. That
would yield a set of technical objectives, like how many copies
do you need, under what environmental conditions, and so forth,
for the digital side.
But the answer is not just to get as much as possible.
Preservation isn't about as much as possible. That can yield
far too much preservation, and therefore inefficiency, or it
can yield far too little preservation, putting items, materials
that we care about, at risk.
So I would say that thinking about how GPO could get to a
more risk-informed way of thinking about preservation against
the tradeoffs and resources that are required would be an
important step forward.
Mrs. Comstock. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Maryland,
Mr. Raskin, for 5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you, very much.
Let's see. Mr. Petersen, let me start with you. You piqued
my interest with your invocation of the Chadha decision, which,
of course, found that Congress, when it acts in its legislative
capacity, must act bicameral, with presentment to the
President. Are you suggesting that that creates a problem for
each house essentially controlling its own printing and
publishing operations? Was that the relevance of it?
Mr. Petersen. No, sir. It had to do with the capacity to
implement 44 U.S.C. 501, which states that all government
printing goes through the Government Publishing Office at the
direction of the Joint Committee on Printing. And following the
decision in 1983, a number of executive branch agencies spent
the next decade asking why GPO and JCP were in this position in
light of Chadha.
So it was a consequence where, with the Department of
Justice's Office of Legal Counsel's opinions, that JCP had no
constitutional role in light of Chadha. Many executive agencies
chose to take their printing business elsewhere, either doing
it within the agency or contracting out on their own
authorities.
A consequence of this is, because of the funding model of
GPO, that GPO had less revenue to support the various
nonprinting activities that it has been assigned to over the
past 25 years.
Mr. Raskin. I see. And that is an historical process that
has continued, the executive agencies?
Mr. Petersen. I would say it is reasonably set at this
point. But it is the turning point at which Congress began to
question what JCP might do in the future. And it changed a
little bit the model of how GPO went out and found work from
the executive branch.
Mr. Raskin. Gotcha. Thank you.
Ms. Dale, a lot of libraries don't have big endowments and
are facing shrinking local budgets today, and as the Committee
considers providing grant-making authority to the GPO, what can
we learn from your grant-making program about how to make this
an effective operation if it is to happen?
Ms. Dale. Thank you for the question.
I would say in terms of the IMLS grant-making and drawing
parallels, it is about the ability to understand the scope and
the scale of what grant-making would be within there and ensure
that there are proper controls in place as we do have at IMLS.
As I mentioned earlier, we have anything from fiscal controls.
We have appropriate peer review in grant-making and grant
selection. We have grants that run from the tens of thousands
up into the millions of dollars. So we have appropriate
processes and procedures in place that allow us to scale and
address those needs as they come in.
I would say that those principles are things that would
need to be in place for this program should the grant-making
authority be something you decide upon. Of course, IMLS doesn't
have a position at this time in terms of the question and
within the legislative and administrative purview of the
Committee to address the grant-making authority.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
And, Mr. Schonfeld, finally, you say that preservation of
government information may require, or ideally requires, the
involvement of a third party, and I think you suggested in your
testimony possibly outside of the country. Who becomes
responsible for maintaining the security of that information,
both in its digital and tangible forms, if we are to delegate
it to a third party?
Mr. Schonfeld. Thank you for the question.
Just to make sure that it is clear, I don't mean to suggest
that the third party itself has to be administratively located
outside of the country but that the preservation best practice
would call for at least one copy of the material to be held in
a jurisdiction outside of the country. So just to make sure
that I didn't leave any ambiguity there.
The question as to security of the information, in this
case I believe we are talking about publications of the
government, which is to say materials that are publicly
accessible. So I think that there are questions not so much
about security in terms of keeping them from being made
available, but certainly there are questions about
authentication and making sure that the materials themselves
are authenticated and authentic. And I think that there are
processes and procedures in place technically, through some of
the existing third-party preservation entities, that would
accommodate for that kind of question.
Mr. Raskin. Great.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions. And,
again, thanks to each of you for being here.
Dr. Petersen, as the Committee prepares to work on and
rewrite Title 44, what guidance would you give us to ensure
success?
Mr. Petersen. Well, Mr. Chairman, as you know, the
Congressional Research Service doesn't tell Congress what to
do. That is not just in statute, that is pursuant to fairly
regular reminders from this Committee among others.
The Chairman. But we are very open-minded and we are okay.
While you can't tell us, you can suggest heavily.
Mr. Petersen. Well, I think that there is a long two-and-a-
half-decade process of considering the position of the Joint
Committee on Printing. I think there are regular conversations
related--and you just had a piece of that with the Clerk a few
minutes ago--considering the specificity of the types and
amounts of printing that need to happen moving forward.
We know that most users, for example, rely on the digital
manifestations of most congressional documents. At the same
time, there are archival purposes for tangible processes,
because we don't have an enduring archival standard for digital
things. There are still people who like to look at it and mark
it up. So there is going to be something there.
I don't think, for example, on the Congressional Record--
you know, there are somewhere north of 29,000 copies of the
daily edition authorized. My understanding from GPO's budget
submission is that they print about 1,700 or so. And while that
authorization has been made, there isn't a public record of
where it has been made or under what authority. And surfacing
those sorts of bits of information about how the printing
process works, how the distribution process works, may be
helpful in elevating the transparency of the government
information process.
The Chairman. Thank you for those suggestions. Thank you.
Ms. Dale, if I may ask you, has IMLS ever been defined in
statute to handle grant-making for an agency or other entity in
government?
Ms. Dale. So we have a number. There is a bit in the
written testimony that was provided in terms of the interagency
agreements that we have done with our grant-making authority
that delves into that realm, including when establishing the
National Museum of African American History and Culture through
Public Law 108-104, Congress authorized IMLS to establish grant
programs to build the capacity of museums of African-American
History and Culture, in consultation with the Director of
Museums.
The Department of Interior leverages IMLS' peer-review and
grant-making expertise to award and manage library and museum-
related grants for collections care. So we do have partnerships
and advise other agencies on those matters.
The Chairman. So you have had that collaboration with other
Federal agencies?
Ms. Dale. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. What models for collaboration have worked
well in the past? And notwithstanding a possible inclusion in
statute, are there opportunities for IMLS to collaborate with
GPO?
Ms. Dale. Certainly there is precedent there for IMLS to be
able to collaborate with GPO on, I would imagine, any numbers.
As I mentioned, there were two different examples there. There
are others that we could provide where we have worked with
other agencies and assisted them with grant programs. Those
were the two that were easiest.
I would say that we are certainly flexible and willing to
hear more about the interest. Again, we don't have a particular
position on which way that the Committee would choose to go.
But we would certainly be willing to take in any questions you
might have and provide any further technical assistance or
advice on options.
The Chairman. And certainly you--as you stated earlier,
there are grants given in various amounts, from----
Ms. Dale. Yes, sir. From 10,000 to----
The Chairman [continuing]. From thousands to millions.
Ms. Dale. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. What level of funding would a grant-making
program need in order to be effective?
Ms. Dale. So I will take that back to my earlier comment
about scale and scope, and I think it really depends on the
goals of the program and whether it would be competitive or if
there is a sort of Grants to States-based model where a certain
amount of money is given to every State based upon some
formula.
And then I would just say that there is certainly a need to
provide the level of oversight and review and financial
accountability. And certainly we continue to work on all the
processes to make sure that they are in place, and we do
improvements all the time. But there is a great deal of work
assisting, both providing technical assistance to grantees, but
as well as the entire grant-making process.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin, do you have any followup questions in light of
my questioning?
Mr. Raskin. I do not, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Okay.
I want to thank each of you for being here. This is a very
important process. It may not appear to be the most glamorous
topic as we go through Title 44, but it is very important how
we are going to operate and how we are going to move forward.
And I know, Mr. Schonfeld, you mentioned that as well.
And before I close out the questioning, just one quick
question. Twenty years ago we could never have imagined the
digital transformation of storage of this. Do you have a
glimpse, as you study this, where we are going to be in 20
years?
Mr. Schonfeld. Well, I think that we are going to see the
transition from print to digital formats continue to
accelerate, the transition from tangible to digital formats
continue to accelerate, and I think that we are going to see
all sorts of ways that we will move from static publications to
more interactive kinds of information resources.
At the same time, I think we have seen that the transition
has not taken place as quickly for many formats as some people
would have expected. And we have to be cautious in how we make
that transition so that we respond to reading behaviors, as
libraries we support the needs of the public and the academics
who need the materials that we have.
So I think we are going to see an increasingly digital
future, but one where libraries have a very strong role, and a
stronger role even, in providing preservation and access and
other services.
The Chairman. Great.
Well, you look at how things have changed from 8-tracks to
iTunes. It has been remarkable. And I am sure we are going to
see that in the roles that we are all playing here.
Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
to submit to the Chair additional written witness questions
that could be forwarded to each witness to answer as promptly
as they can in order for those to be made a part of the record.
Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]