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GPO Responds to Speculation of Fee-Based Future for Gov’t Docs

As I posted yesterday, Roll Call published an article that seemed to indicate the GPO was evaluating whether it would continue providing free public access to a range of government documents. The library community apparently reacted swiftly and strongly to this information, and late this afternoon, the Superintendent of Documents, Judith C. Russell, posted the text of a clarification letter to the article’s author on several library listservs. Excerpts from the letter are as follows:

  • “…we have no immediate plans for the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) to charge for our GPO Access databases. The GPO is merely exploring options for the sales program as the agency evaluates all of our current services and looks to the future…This discussion focused on the future of the GPO’s sales program, not its Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). GPO remains strongly committed to providing free public access to Federal government information through the FDLP.”
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