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The Federal Government on the Internet: Navigating the Maze |
Government Documents: Authenticity and Preservation in the Digital Age |
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Over 60% of all recently published Federal Documents are now only available on the web. In its haste to cut costs, the Federal Government is trying to replace printed documents by posting them on the Internet instead. At first glance this system would seem ideal. The Internet is available all day, every day while libraries are open only part of the day and not all days of the year. Not all libraries are Federal Depositories and the ones that are often are only partial depositories. This would seem to make Federal Documents on the Internet available to a wider audience. Unfortunately not everyone has access to the web and sites are not available all the time. Hackers, technical problems, even too many users accessing at the same time can shut down a web site, making its information inaccessible. An excellent example of this is the tax forms on the IRS web site. Near tax time, just when the need for tax forms is the greatest, the access to the IRS site slows down and occasionally stops. During this time libraries continue to provide copies of unusual tax forms because libraries keep copies of the forms in paper and CD-ROM format.
However, documents available on the Internet can also be a boon to librarians. Instead of digging through dusty shelves for a document that may have been lost or misplaced, the librarian can access the needed information at the service desk. Also new information is usually available sooner on the net than in printed format.
Government Documents, like the Federal Government, can be a confusing labyrinth. Our government has provided us with some ways of searching for the information we need. GPO Access (http://www.access.gpo.gov/) is the best of the government search tools currently available. GPO Access provides links to other "finding aids" as well as searching tools of its own. If you are looking for a well known, basic government document such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Congressional Directory, links are provided on the Core Documents for U.S. Democracy page. If the patron wishes to buy a copy of an available document there is a link to the U.S. Government Online Bookstore. There are also direct links to Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Congressional Register, U.S. Code, and other commonly requested documents. The difference between the web format and in-library paper format of any of these documents and periodicals is that the web may only have the most recent versions available.
Another service provided by GPO Access is the online version of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/cgp/). Most online documents can be found searching "publications" on the web page of the agency that created them. If the originating agency is unknown, this catalog is a good place to search. A search will find not only the agency but also a list of depository libraries that contain the print versions of this document.
If the originating agency for a document is known, all that is needed is that agency's web address. Some seasoned librarians can guess federal web addresses. For the rest of us, there is The Federal Web Locator (http://www.infoctr.edu/fwl/). Using the "find" function of your web browser (Control + f) on this page, a searcher can quickly locate an agency's web address by either the agency's acronym or name.
Statistics are a very frequent request. The major sources of statistics in the US Government are the Censuses, both the Decennial and Economic. A good way to search for these statistics is by using American FactFinder (http://factfinder.census.gov/). FactFinder is a service provided by the Department of the Census to help the online searcher navigate the resources of the Census web page. There are several ways to search for anything in FactFinder but the searcher might want to first try the "search" oval in the upper left of the page. A search for Fresno (with "Geography" selected) will produce a list of links for limiting the search. Choose which Fresno (Fresno, California; Fresno, Texas, etc.) and which information source (Community Survey, Economic Census, etc) is wanted by highlighting the selection. Click on "ok" to receive a list of links with your information.
American FactFinder also provides access to maps that include information on census tracts, school districts, and other data. One way to access these maps is to click on the "Reference Maps" button on the entrance page of FactFinder. Fill in the address box under the map and click "go" to create a map for your area. Click on the word "Legend" to modify your map to fit your needs. The "Features" tab allows you to add landmarks such as schools, streets, or parks. The "Boundaries" tab allows you to limit the information sources used to create your map. The information sources currently available are the 2000 and 1990 censuses; 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 American Community Surveys; and the 1997 Economic Census. The boundaries of the map can be based on census tracts, legislative districts, zip codes and other criteria. These maps are much smaller than the normal census tracts maps but they are much easier to print.
Other sources of statistics are available through The Statistical Reference Shelf page on the FedStats web site (http://www.fedstats.gov/fast.html). Included are the full text version of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, and the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book, as well as selections from statistical reference books on labor, education, and health.
Legislative information is also a popular request. Thomas (http://thomas.loc.gov/) is a service from the Library of Congress that provides access to committee and bill information. Available are committee reports back to the 104th Congress (1995-1996), and the current directories and committee schedules for the House and Senate. The text of laws can be searched from the 101st congress (1989-1990) to the present, but only by searching each congress individually. The searcher can find the text of legislation passed as far back as the 93rd Congress (1973-74) by the number of the law, but browsing is possible.
This may seem like a lot of addresses to remember. Web addresses need to be entered exactly and it can be difficult to type without any errors while you are talking to a patron. As a service to other librarians and ourselves we have provided many useful links to Federal Government agencies on the Reference Department web pages. Links to all of these sites can be found under "Federal Government" on the Useful Links page (http://www.fresnolibrary.org/reference.html) or on the Federal Government page (http://www.fresnolibrary.org/fdoc.html) of the Fresno County Library web site. Instead of typing in these addresses, the searcher can click just on a link for these sites and many others.
"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum" Aldai Stevenson
I recently visited the Government Printing Office homepage and followed several links, one that led to information "About GPO Access," and another that described something called "Permanent Access." Through these links I finally arrived at a page containing more details about "permanent public access to government information." Ah, the benefits of technology, I thought to myself; even if it is confusing, all of this information is collected on computers, "permanently" available to the public, free from dust, mold, and the burden of bulky books. This, I thought, is better than acid-free paper. Happy to see a link to the "Federal Depository Library," I dragged my all-powerful arrow-icon over the words and gave a good left-click to my mouse. Momentarily, a bleak white page appeared along with the following information: "The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."
In and of itself, the absence of this "Federal Depository Library" page may be a trivial accident, but it points to some of the recent fears felt by librarians overseeing federal depositary collections. Government documents are being found more often in electronic format and not in printed form (not even in the more tangible format of CD-ROM). Like the absent depository page mentioned above, online electronic information can be unreliable in many ways. Recent government policies which have directed the Government Printing Office (GPO) to accelerate the transfer of all government documents to electronic format have added fuel to this general concern about electronic information. In fact, the decline of printed federal documents has been tremendous. In 1992 there were 29.6 million paper and microfiche copies sent to depository libraries. In the year 2000, this number had declined to 11.6 million. The decrease in hard copies of federal documents coincided with a growing reliance on electronic documents. In 1991 there were only 95,448 electronic copies sent to depository libraries. By the year 2000 this number had increased to well over 200,000 copies (GAO Report).
This move to electronic documents will dramatically change the role of depository libraries and raises concerns about the future reliability, authenticity, and ultimately the public’s access to a record of their government.
These various records of government should not be taken lightly. The GPO’s own description of their Core Documents expresses the value of all federal documents: "These titles contain information that is vital to the democratic process and critical to an informed electorate. They support the public’s right to know about the essential activities of their Government" (GPO Access "Core Documents"). It is paramount that this information be safeguarded and preserved considering the various agencies that these documents represent: the FDA which regulates and ensures the safety of our food, the FCC which monitors our airways, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Executive Office of the President to name a few. We should be concerned about how this information is handled and how this affects our rights to view an accurate record of this information.
Needless to say, in the last several years federal depository librarians, who have known the importance of federal documents all along, have been regarding the state of free information with watchful eyes. Karrie Peterson, Elizabeth Cowell, and Jim Jacobs, all who have worked closely with government documents in libraries, explain that "We must be vigilant if we are to ensure that new technology is used to expand rather than endanger citizen access. . . we must look beyond the technological fanfare and examine carefully the decisions being made for our nation by politicians" (Cowell).
In order to understand the dramatic changes that are taking place for federal documents and depository libraries, I had to first examine and come to some understanding of their traditional roles. In 1813 Congress enacted legislation that would create the Federal Depository Library Program (NCLIS xi). Since the establishment of depository libraries in 1861, the GPO has published the documents of all three branches of the federal government and a catalog of these printed materials. The catalog was then provided to librarians through the Superintendent of Documents. Managers of depository libraries could then select materials for their local collection from the catalog.
These local collections have been used widely. In the United States and its territories, an estimated 9.5 million people have used the 1,337 depository libraries. This 9.5 million does not include people who accessed documents on the Internet (Coggins).
This exchange is how the government has traditionally implemented the Freedom of Information Act. The law states that "each agency" shall make available for "public inspection and copying," final opinions, statements of policy, interpretations which have been adopted by the agency, administrative staff manuals, instructions to staff that affect a member of the public, and copies of all records which have been requested and "reasonably described" (FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552). This is an abbreviated list of the requirements found in the Freedom of Information Act, but it begins to suggest the massive amount of information that is published by the GPO, maintained by depository libraries, and required by law to be free for public inspection.
Prior to the 1990's and the ensuing years of change, all of this information could be found printed on paper or on microfilm and organized on physical shelves within the walls of local depository libraries.
Concerns have been growing ever since the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996. Because of these amendments and a new reliance upon digital technology, the Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Superintendent of Documents have been implementing changes in the way federal depository libraries serve the public. The GPO and individual agencies are beginning to provide documents only in electronic format and through government servers. The Superintendent of Documents has become responsible for maintaining an "electronic directory" of these digital documents (GAO; Appendix V, 48).
In the year 2000, the house appropriations committee tried to "cut the GPO’s congressional printing and binding budget by 11% and the GPO’s salaries and expenses budget by 61% . . . effectively [ending] the print publication and distribution of such key titles as the daily Congressional Record, the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations. . . the 2000 version of the official U.S. Code, and the U.S. Reports" (Coggins 54).
Since then, legislation, like the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act," and the proposed "Uniform Electronic Transactions Act" has been paving the way for the legality of electronic records and their authenticity. These laws are not only trying to promote the cost-effectiveness and speed of electronic transactions, but they are also responding to the powerful influence technology has had on all transactions and documents. Many documents such as electronic journals are now "born digital" (Langlois). In other words, computer technology has become so prevalent, these documents have never existed on paper.
With the rapid emergence of electronic communications, transactions, and other documents, perhaps the federal government has had no choice but to embrace this medium. However, this necessitates the implementation of new legislation. At the moment, there are few guidelines in law that enable reliable dissemination of electronic government documents.
There have been several reports and assessments made by various government agencies on how effective dissemination might be accomplished. Among these reports are the General Accounting Office’s report on "Electronic Dissemination of Government Publications," which recommends further change by moving the depository library program from the Government Printing Office to the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress has also been directed to develop "a National Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program" (GAO). Other reports include the "Assessment of Electronic Government Information Products," for the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) and the ongoing "Comprehensive Assessment of Public Information Dissemination," which does recommend new legislation that might tackle some of the emerging problems.
All of these reports recommend a need for standardization and infrastructure in order to properly maintain and provide access to electronic documents. All of them, including the rather optimistic endorsement provided by the General Accounting Office, recognize the "challenges" posed by the electronic format. More recent than any of these reports, however, is the "proposed 2001 presidential budget" which would abolish the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Without the NCLIS, it is difficult to understand what agency or group will be expected to address the challenges of electronic documents.
Among the concerns raised by this reliance on electronic documents is the issue of authentication. While paper documents are often signed or rubber-stamped by a publisher, digital documents have no physical form and they can be easily altered without leaving any physical evidence of the alterations. As Jim Minihan explains, we "rest assured that no one could ever possibly manipulate paper based information" but "in the digital world, the perception is that information can too easily be compromised." Indeed, the need for authentic PDF files and other formats present new legal issues. Traditional documents have physical properties that can be deduced by chemists and even those who have magnifying glasses. With electronic documents, however, the same kind of deduction is not possible.
This is not to say that programmers have not been developing an equally reliable or even superior method to authenticate electronic documents. In place of physical handwriting, a digital thumbprint, or electronic signature must determine the validity of digital documents. One of the recent methods of achieving this authentication is to use a process that "synthesizes content into a code uniquely representing that document, regardless of length or content" (Dziatkiewicz). This is also known as "hashing," where every digital property of a document, including a time stamp, is translated into a string of code consisting of hash marks. If the document is later altered, the alterations will effect this invisible signature, thereby invalidating the document.
While this system may prove very effective, there are still a number of issues associated with this new form of authentication that will prevent librarians and the public from embracing electronic documents too quickly. It may be obvious, but unlike traditional pen and ink signatures, digital signatures are much more difficult to comprehend. We can understand and therefore put a reasonable amount of trust in a signature signed with a hand and a pen. This is due in part to the familiarity of old practices. "The important act of signing a document is well established in English common law" (Minihan). On the other hand, understanding and trusting the process involved with digital signatures is more difficult.
There are often multiple software companies and agencies involved in the process of authenticating an electronic document. For instance, one of the methods of authentication would require "a public key infrastructure" (Minihan), which uses several elements to carry out this infrastructure, including a "certificate authority," a "registration authority," and a "certificate repository." What was once a scrawl of ink witnessed by a notary and later verified by a handwriting expert has turned into a technological conundrum. The "certificate authority" supplies passwords, or "key pairs," that verify the identity of the signer; the "Registration Authority" is responsible for providing the "key pairs" only to the right people; and the "Certificate Repository" is accountable for the public record of these identities (Minihan). By examining this process, it is apparent that the effectiveness of digital signatures can depend upon the reliability of several different pieces of software and possibly several different agencies. In other words, those who would trust digital signatures must place their trust in several different steps in the signature process.
Companies like Surety Technologies may have made this process more efficient. "‘What’s innovative is our use of hashing to create a trust free system for authentication,’ says [Steve] Mason [Surety’s Director of Sales]"(Dziatkiewicz). Surety’s system would not require a "public key infrastructure" or even the "key pairs" or "passwords" mentioned above. Instead, it relies on generating a master "hash code" or a "Universal Validation Record" for all documents that have been authenticated. This master code would represent the time that each document became authentic and the document itself. Therefore any alterations to the time or content of the message could be detected using the "Universal Validation Record." Unaltered, authentic documents would continue to reflect this larger digital thumbprint, while those that had been manipulated would not. Elaborating on his confidence in this system Steve Mason says, "There is no single entity that could doctor the system. There are no insiders in this system... there is nothing we could do to compromise the system without someone noticing it, even though we manage the system" (Dziatkiewicz).
Steve Mason’s claims might allay some of the fears felt by librarians, such as those expressed by Karrie Peterson, Elizabeth Cowell, and Jim Jacobs in their article, "Government Documents at the Crossroads": "When the Government controls the only authentic copy of a document, there is nothing to prevent the government from intentionally or unintentionally corrupting, modifying, or even deleting that document." However, in the case of a "Universal Validation Record" any changes or deletions would theoretically be accounted for and communicated to the public. Referring to the Surety system, Steve Mason asserts that "information is made widely and publicly available" (Dziatkiewicz).
However, it is wise to consider that Mason is essentially advertising his product and that the existence of good technology does not necessarily answer the problems faced by Depository Libraries. While the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act," signed into law June 30, 2000, makes digital signatures and authentic electronic documents equal to paper documents in the eyes of the legal system, it is more difficult to make digital documents equivalent to paper documents in the eyes of the public.
And even if the right technology exists for the authentication of electronic documents, it is hard to say whether the federal government will correctly implement this technology. According to the GPO, they are in the process of developing a "public key infrastructure" in order to authenticate their electronic documents. However, there is no mention on the GPO web site about the details of this PKI and whether a third party will be responsible. Without a third party or an oversight committee, there would be no checks and balances for this system. In other words, the authenticity of the documents could depend entirely upon the good will of respective federal agencies. There are still many good questions that have not been answered by legislation and infrastructure.
Who is responsible for updating official documents? The security and reliability of printed materials is the responsibility of the Government Printing Office, but at the time I am writing this, electronic federal documents are scattered among many different federal servers operated by a multitude of different agencies. While the GPO provides a directory for these documents, it does not assert control over their validity. If there were changes made to this electronic data, who would provide information about changes to the public? Either way, it will be difficult for the public or librarians to trust centralized control of authentic documents, especially when standards are not in place to ensure these documents remain authentic.
One solution might include the dissemination of authentic copies to local depository servers or on locally deposited CD-ROMs.
When I searched the Internet for a copy of the "National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Act of 1970," I found one link to the original act in the US Code collection at Cornell University. However, when I used this link I received the following response: "It appears that the public law you're trying to retrieve is too old to be in the Library of Congress Thomas system." (www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/20/1501.notes.html)
There are legitimate fears that a similar message may be found by future historians, scholars, or interested citizens when they try to access the online records of today. The question that is posed not only by critics, but also by federal agencies like the General Accounting Office, is how do we preserve all this digital data so that it is still available to the public 100 years in the future and 400 years in the future?
In answer to some of these worries, the government has hired Chief Information Officers (CIO’s) for each agency who are responsible for "permanent access" to government documents created by their respective agencies. One might think that these officers would give the public some measure of comfort. After all, it is their job to look after these records and ensure their future existence. However, the following complaint, uttered by a CIO, probably does more to unsettle rather than comfort. "We need to look at where we are and look at reality, since it simply is not feasible to save all electronic records" (Plocher). For a moment, perhaps we shouldn’t complain about preserving "all electronic records." After all, the federal government hasn’t taken the necessary steps to secure the preservation of "any" electronic records. "Although federal law is now interpreted to require the preservation of many electronic records along with paper documents, no federal standards exist to make this happen" (Langlois). The NCLIS report agrees with this assessment saying that "no policy is in place for long term or permanent public access to web-based public information."
The 100 million dollars appropriated by congress in December of 2000 may help. This money will fund efforts by the Library of Congress to develop a "National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program." According to Peniston and Langlois, "participants will begin to standardize policies and procedures for collecting, storing and indexing digital material."
Aside from administrative woes, there are technological hurdles. Despite the apparent durability of electronic files, serious problems must be considered when discussing their actual longevity. While electronic data, in theory, can be preserved indefinitely and conveniently, it can also become inaccessible because of changes in technology. In a matter of two or three years, the software that created a document may have been abandoned in favor of another program or replaced with newer versions of the same program. Older files can then be difficult or impossible to convert into newer formats, and even when conversion is possible, documents could then be corrupted and become inauthentic in the process. At "the present state of evolution, software used to manage archival collections changes every three to five years. . . ," says William Mathews in his article, "The Ultimate Archives," "The problem is how to make documents readable centuries from now, when computers beyond imagining today are likely to be in use."
The National Archives and Records Administration will most likely be a key player in future efforts to accomplish this daunting task. The plan of these federal archivists is to rid all documents of their various formats and render them in one standard language. These steps constitute what is called "persistent object preservation" which "appears capable of stripping the display characteristics of any electronic document- whether text, spreadsheet, photo or map- and storing it in a format that will allow it to be called up by whatever software is being used in the future" (Mathews). The consensus is to use XML tags to replace "proprietary or non standard" software formats, and thus preserve "information about the document’s appearance" (Mathews). All of these standardized documents would then be stored in a
robotic storage warehouse or multiple warehouses scattered nationwide and linked electronically. . . Presiding over the repository is a computerized ‘storage resource broker,’ which functions as middle-ware between the repository and applications used to store and retrieve records (Mathews).
This appears to be a solution to at least one of the problems. But how long do we have to wait before this technology becomes a reality? John Carlin, the archivist of the United States, and "other archives officials are confident they will have a pilot version of the electronic records archive in operation by 2004 or 2005, at an estimated cost of $130 million" (Mathews). What then happens to the electronic documents of today? It is difficult to say if the current documents are a part of this eventual plan.
Other steps being made by archivists are the implementation of Permanent Universal Resource Locators, or PURLS. These are links to information that remain constant in a digital environment that is constantly changing. PURLS will allow older documents to be found by future Internet searchers (Shuler 300). Also metadata will hopefully allow us to find electronic documents in the future. Metadata is defined as "‘structured information that describes and/or allows us to find, manage, control, understand or preserve . . . information over time’" (Robertson). Metadata is basically an electronic version of the cataloging information that librarians have always used.
While there is a push for new legislation and the use of better technology, there are still many obstacles to be overcome before electronic documents can be preserved in the same, secure manner that printed documents are preserved in depository libraries. Some practices, like those of the National Library of Medicine, might cause more concern. The National Library of Medicine has implemented a "permanency rating system" that allocates a more secure environment for certain documents and allows others to be changed or moved (Langlois). In this case, the priority assigned for certain documents is determined by a single agency. Decisions about the retention of these documents, if they ever were shared with other agencies or libraries, have vanished from local control. This is evidence of the basic problem that Peterson, Cowell, and Jacobs recognized: "When a single electronic collection replaces 1,350 depository collections, the wide variety of selection, collection, and retention policies that address the needs of different communities is replaced with a single policy."
Digital technology and electronic documents promise wonderful advantages for libraries and historians. An understanding of these future possibilities is expressed in a brief recently submitted by the Internet Archive to the Supreme Court. It says that,
Digital technology allows us the opportunity to build a "universal" library that dwarfs the collections of the Alexandria Library and even our modern Library of Congress. This library will expand our understanding of "public access." It will make information accessible in formats that uniquely support and promote creativity in the arts and sciences - allowing individuals to clip and sample millions of words, films, and music recordings with ease. At the same time digitization will greatly reduce the cost of preserving our cultural history and eliminate deterioration caused regularly through the physical handling of cultural artifacts. Through digitization, we can inexpensively open the full contents of this new library to the public, especially to those for whom access has been a half-kept promise-the distant, the deaf, and the blind. A universally accessible archive of print, audio, and visual materials is within our grasp. (http://www.archive.org).
However, these hopes for the future must be checked against the realities of the present. At this time, the federal government is scrambling to keep up with the age of information, and documents are being disseminated electronically before the proper technology or legislative standards are in place. It would be wise for those who value public access to government documents to pay attention to policies and technologies that are used to disseminate them. Hopefully, concerned citizens may find ways to contribute to a solution for this very complex set of challenges.
Senate:
House:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.htm
To view the Freedom of Information Act and the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996:
The technical page for the American Memory Collections produced by the National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress:
The Internet Archive:
The National Archives and Records Administration:
General Accounting Office’s report on Electronic Dissemination of Government Publications:
The ongoing report titled Comprehensive Assessment of Public Information Dissemination:
The Biennial Report to Congress on the Status of GPO Access:
Assessment of Electronic Government Information Products:
Coggins, Timothy, "Print No More: U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, and the Federal Register." Virginia Lawyer. Oct. 2000: Virginia State Bar. Jan. 2002:
http://www.vsb.org/publications/valawyer/oct00/legal_resource.pdf
Cowell, Elizabeth; Jacobs, Jim; Peterson, Karrie. "Government Documents at the Crossroads." American Libraries. Sep. 2001: p52-5. Infotrac. Gale Group. Jan. 2002.
Dziatkiewicz, Mark. "Surety safeguards digital files." America’s Network. Mar. 1995: p36(3). Infotrac. Gale Group. Jan. 2002.
Freedom of Information Act. http://www.epic.org/open_gov/foia/us_foia_act.html
GAO. Electronic Dissemination of Government Publications. Mar. 2001: www.gao.gov/new.items/d01428.pdf
GPO Access. "Core Documents of U.S. Democracy." http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/coredocs/about.html
Langlois, Greg; Peniston, Bradley. "Saving it for the future." Federal Computer Week. Ed. Allan Holmes. Apr. 2001. FCW Government Technology Group. Jan. 2002.
http://fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0409/pol-save-04-09-01.asp
Mathews, William. "The ultimate archives." Federal Computer Week. Ed. Allan Holmes.
Aug. 2000. FCW Government Technology Group. Jan. 2002.
http://fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0828/cov-archive-08-28-00.asp
Minihan, Jim. "Electronic signature technologies: a tutorial." Information Management Journal. Oct 2001. p4 (4). Infotrac. Gale Group. Jan. 2002.
NCLIS. A Comprehensive Assessment of Public Information Dissemination. Jan 2001.
http://www.nclis.gov/govt/assess/assess.html
Plocher, David. "The digital age: challenges for records management." Government Information Quarterly. 1999. p63-69. Wilson Select Plus. OCLC Firstsearch. Jan 2002.
Robertson, Anne. "Documenting the business of government: archival issues in the digital age." Australian Academic and Research Libraries. Dec. 2000. p 188-201
Shuler, John A. "Beyond the Depository Library Concept." The Journal of Academic Librarianship.
Jul 2001. p 299-301.
http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm
For further reading about the technology and legislation related to digitization and electronic preservation visit these web pages:
http://www.epic.org/open_gov/foia/us_foia_act.html
http:/memory.loc.gov/ammem/ftpfiles.html
http://www.archive.org
http://www.nara.gov/
For some important PDF documents related to this issue:
www.gao.gov/new.items/d01428.pdf
http://www.nclis.gov/govt/assess/assess.html
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/biennial/index.html
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/nclisassessment/report.html
WORKS CITED