the FDLP & the GPO

the gist of that article i posted the other day is this:

"The [GPO's] plan's 'new model' for the FDLP includes providing FDLP libraries "access" to documents, but says nothing about depositing digital publications in depository libraries. It speaks of providing search tools and "training to depository librarians to enable them to better serve their clients in locating and using Federal information" but nothing about managing digital collections. It says that FDLP libraries will be able to "substitute available electronic documents for printed documents" but again avoids saying that it will distribute or deposit such documents.24 In the GPO plan, digital materials will be in a "Digital Publication Content system" which it describes as "a complete FDLP digital information collection."25 ...These omissions are either severe oversights or intentional changes in policy. If they are changes in policy, then this, coupled with the drastic reductions in printed publications,26 means that GPO will no longer be depositing documents in depository libraries."

the GPO wants to develop one big centralized database to house government publications (which will all be published in electronic formats), which will be controlled by the government and offered to "customers" on a subscription basis, and STOP DEPOSITING DOCUMENTS IN FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARIES. this means that the only access to information that has been freely and publically available since the 1800s will now (if the GPO takes this route) no longer be free, and locally-focused goverment documents collections will no longer exist.

plus, as the authors of this document point out, it is "much easier to quietly remove a single digital copy from a government controlled web server" than it is to recall it from a federal depository library.

this is a truly appalling development.