With paper in decline and the private sector and government alike moving toward digital publishing, you might think an agency called the Government Printing Office (GPO) would soon be obsolete. Not so fast; GPO is reinventing itself for the changing world.
Last month it launched the Federal Digital System (FDsys), an advanced digital system that will enable GPO to manage government information from all three branches in a digital form. The main functions of the system will include publishing, searching for information, preserving information, and version control.
FDsys is being implemented in a series of releases over the next two years. It is currently in public beta and provides enhanced searching and browsing capabilities over the earlier GPO Access system. At the moment it contains congressional bills, documents, hearings, and reports, the congressional record, the federal register, public and private laws, and a compilation of presidential documents. By mid-2009 all information currently available on GPO Access will be migrated to FDsys.
GPO will continue to add information to FDsys gathered in three ways: files submitted by congress and federal agencies, information gathered from federal agency websites, and digital files created by scanning previously printed publications.
Later releases of FDsys will enable navigation of relationships between publications, will automatically gather or “harvest” information, will output metadata in multiple formats, and much more. Congress and federal agencies will be able to order printing jobs electronically, saving time and money.
GPO says the public will benefit from FDsys because it will provide access to more documents through harvesting and document conversion. Users will also be assured that they are finding the most-up-to-date information and can even be automatically notified about specific publications based on user preferences.
Although the FDsys initiative started long before Barack Obama’s administration began, the objectives of it support the goal of great transparency and openness in government. Earlier this month, GPO Public Printer Robert Tapella sent a letter to President Obama pledging support and explaining ways the GPO can advance Obama’s goals.
“Providing transparency has been GPO’s goal since it was established in 1861,” wrote Tapella.
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