STATEMENT SUPPORTING FISCAL YEAR 1980 Estimates for Salaries and ExpENSES OF THE OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENdent of DocumENTS The four programs of the Office of the Superintendent of Documents are: (1) The sale of Government publications produced by or through the Government Printing Office; (2) The distribution of Government publications to designated depository libraries; (3) The compilation of catalogs and indexes of Government publications, and; (4) The mailing of certain Government publications for Members of Congress and other Government agencies in accordance with specific provisions of law or on a reimbursable basis. These four programs are related to the publication activity of other agencies and consequently, the Superintendent of Documents can exercise little control over the volume of work he may be called upon to handle. FUNDING FOR DOCUMENT'S PROGRAMS As a result of several changes in Documents' funding arrangements which Congress made for Fiscal Year 1978, our appropriation request is less than one-third of our total budget for Fiscal Year 1980. Reimbursements from other agencies for providing mailing services, and revenue from the sale of publications finance our remaining expenses. Since the funds we derive from these non-appropriated sources vary directly with workload, we have worked to improve our control of costs. We have defined our operations in terms of seven major programs to improve management visibility of our various efforts. SALES PROGRAMS The business of selling Government documents to the public takes the largest share of our resources. The only funds included in our appropriation request to support our sales activities, however, are the subsidies required for the few publications and subscriptions which the Public Printer cannot fully price in accordance with Section 1708 of Title 44. The sales of these items are managed under our Special Sales Program, while sales of the other 25,000 titles we offer are managed under the General Sales Program. In Fiscal Year 1978, we began paying all expenses of the General Sales Program from the revenue generated by that program, and we expect to continue operating this program on a self-sustaining basis. The purpose of the sales programs is to make the vast quantity of information published by the Federal Government more accessible to the general public. To achieve this, I believe the public should find it easy to do business with us. Buying a book from the Government should be no harder than dealing with a private concern. This is one reason I have concentrated on insuring that Documents is capable of providing good service to our sales customers. Of course providing good service can be expensive, and higher expense levels will drive up prices, limiting public access just as certainly as poor service. Documents handled this dilemma by acquiring modern and efficient materials handling facili ties and complementing them with several computerized data processing applications. We also examined the way work flows through the organization, and made adjustments to insure the flow is smooth. These efforts have produced a responsive order processing system which provides substantially better customer service. At the same time, productivity has improved and the number of employees needed to support the program has declined. CREDIT CARD SALES Another step we recently took to improve our responsiveness to the public was arranging to allow our customers to use either one of two major credit cards to pay for their purchases. The first phase of this effort involved our 26 Bookstores, where we began accepting credit card sales in January 1979. We are now setting up to take credit card charges on our mail orders. This should be particularly useful to our foreign customers, whose orders are often complicated by currency exchange requirements. Their use of credit cards will greatly ease the administrative burden and expense of processing foreign orders. The operations of the sales programs have improved substantially in recent years. I plan to continue this trend, and expect our better service to attract an increasing number of customers. This will spread our fixed costs over a larger volume, helping to hold down prices, while we better fulfill our sales mission. DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Providing the public with better access to the whole range of Government publications is the purpose of the Depository Library Program. This is the largest program funded by the Salaries and Expenses Appropriation. During Fiscal Year 1978, we distributed nearly 14.5 million publications to libraries which have been designated by Members of Congress or by Title 44 as Depositories for Government Documents. There were 1,231 such libraries by the end of the Fiscal Year. The program was expanded on October 1, 1978 by Public Law 95-261 which authorized the designation of accredited law school libraries as depositories. By February 14, 1979, 63 new libraries had been designated under the provisions of this Act, bringing the total to 1300. An additional 38 requests for designation have been received from law school libraries and are now processed by my office, and requests are still being sent to us. I feel the continuing growth of the Depository program cannot be efficiently accommodated by our current, labor intensive operation. This situation has led us to explore several possibilities for applying computerized data processing techniques and more mechanized material handling to the Depository Distribution function. I expect the experience we gained in modernizing our Sales operations will make this effort a little easier. Our Fiscal Year 1979 Budget included funds for the one-time expenses of this project. MICROPUBLISHING Our request for Fiscal Year 1980 also reflects the impact of our efforts in the field of micropublishing. In the past year 4,800 Government documents were converted to a microfiche format and more than 2.8 million microfiche were forwarded to depository libraries. Action has also been initiated to convert additional categories of documentation to a microfiche format for offering to the depositories. The micropublishing program is proving to have many benefits. The per copy production and distribution costs are lower for GPO and the storage costs are lower for the recipients, when compared to the costs of hard copy. In addition, micropublishing permits us to provide some documents when sufficient hard copy is not available, without incurring the substantial expense of going back to press. CATALOGING AND INDEXING PROGRAM Complimenting the Depository Library Program is our Cataloging and Indexing Program, through which we produce the "Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications". The Monthly Catalog provides researchers and librarians, students and all citizens with an organized guide to the voluminous output of the Federal Government's publishing efforts. Nearly 49,000 documents were cataloged in Fiscal Year 1978. One of our current efforts in this program is the development of an automated system to more efficiently gather information generated in the cataloging process which is needed by our Depository Distribution Program. This system will help us eliminate current manual files. Documents also provides mailing and distribution services to the Congress and other Federal Agencies. Specific provisions of law require us to distribute some publications, and this effort is financed by our Appropriation in the "By-Law" program. The remaining workload is handled on a reimbursable basis, with the publishing agency paying for distribution. INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE SERVICE During 1978 Documents assumed responsibility for the International Exchange Service distribution of publications to 250 foreign libraries. This work was formerly handled by the Smithsonian Institution, and they reimburse us for the expenses involved. Responsibility for distributing file copies of Government documents to the Congress, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Service and other official Depositories was also transferred to us from other organizations within GPO. These new duties increased the workload in this area by 5 percent. In total, Documents distributed nearly 76 million publications without charge to the recipient during Fiscal Year 1978. Much of this workload is associated with the distribution of free Consumer Information publications for the General Services Administration. Our Pueblo Distribution Center handled 3.2 million orders in this program last year, and all expenses associated with the effort were recovered from GSÅ. I am proud of the improvements we have made or plan to complete this year. I am also proud to be able to state that our request for Fiscal Year 1980 of $23,037,000 is $1,428,000 less than the total for Fiscal Year 1979. STATEMENT SUPPORTING FISCAL Year 1980 Estimates for Salaries and EXPENSES OF THE OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS The four programs of the Office of the Superintendent of Documents are: (1) The sale of Government publications produced by or through the Government Printing Office; (2) The distribution of Government publications to designated depository libraries; (3) The compilation of catalogs and indexes of Government publications, and; (4) The mailing of certain Government publications for Members of Congress and other Government agencies in accordance with specific provisions of law or on a reimbursable basis. These four programs are related to the publication activity of other agencies and consequently, the Superintendent of Documents can exercise little control over the volume of work he may be called upon to handle. FUNDING FOR DOCUMENT'S PROGRAMS As a result of several changes in Documents' funding arrangements which Congress made for Fiscal Year 1978, our appropriation request is less than one-third of our total budget for Fiscal Year 1980. Reimbursements from other agencies for providing mailing services, and revenue from the sale of publications finance our remaining expenses. Since the funds we derive from these non-appropriated sources vary directly with workload, we have worked to improve our control of costs. We have defined our operations in terms of seven major programs to improve management visibility of our various efforts. SALES PROGRAMS The business of selling Government documents to the public takes the largest share of our resources. The only funds included in our appropriation request to support our sales activities, however, are the subsidies required for the few publications and subscriptions which the Public Printer cannot fully price in accordance with Section 1708 of Title 44. The sales of these items are managed under our Special Sales Program, while sales of the other 25,000 titles we offer are managed under the General Sales Program. In Fiscal Year 1978, we began paying all expenses of the General Sales Program from the revenue generated by that program, and we expect to continue operating this program on a self-sustaining basis. The purpose of the sales programs is to make the vast quantity of information published by the Federal Government more accessible to the general public. To achieve this, I believe the public should find it easy to do business with us. Buying a book from the Government should be no harder than dealing with a private concern. This is one reason I have concentrated on insuring that Documents is capable of providing good service to our sales customers. Of course providing good service can be expensive, and higher expense levels will drive up prices, limiting public access just as certainly as poor service. Documents handled this dilemma by acquiring modern and efficient materials handling facilities and complementing them with several computerized data processing applications. We also examined the way work flows through the organization, and made adjustments to insure the flow is smooth. These efforts have produced a responsive order processing system which provides substantially better customer service. At the same time, productivity has improved and the number of employees needed to support the program has declined. CREDIT CARD SALES Another step we recently took to improve our responsiveness to the public was arranging to allow our customers to use either one of two major credit cards to pay for their purchases. The first phase of this effort involved our 26 Bookstores, where we began accepting credit card sales in January 1979. We are now setting up to take credit card charges on our mail orders. This should be particularly useful to our foreign customers, whose orders are often complicated by currency exchange requirements. Their use of credit cards will greatly ease the administrative burden and expense of processing foreign orders. The operations of the sales programs have improved substantially in recent years. I plan to continue this trend, and expect our better service to attract an increasing number of customers. This will spread our fixed costs over a larger volume, helping to hold down prices, while we better fulfill our sales mission. DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Providing the public with better access to the whole range of Government publications is the purpose of the Depository Library Program. This is the largest program funded by the Salaries and Expenses Appropriation. During Fiscal Year 1978, we distributed nearly 14.5 million publications to libraries which have been designated by Members of Congress or by Title 44 as Depositories for Government Documents. There were 1,231 such libraries by the end of the Fiscal Year. The program was expanded on October 1, 1978 by Public Law 95-261 which authorized the designation of accredited law school libraries as depositories. By February 14, 1979, 63 new libraries had been designated under the provisions of this Act, bringing the total to 1300. An additional 38 requests for designation have been received from law school libraries and are now processed by my office, and requests are still being sent to us. I feel the continuing growth of the Depository program cannot be efficiently accommodated by our current, labor intensive operation. This situation has led us to explore several possibilities for applying computerized data processing techniques and more mechanized material handling to the Depository Distribution function. I expect the experience we gained in modernizing our Sales operations will make this effort a little easier. Our Fiscal Year 1979 Budget included funds for the one-time expenses of this project. MICROPUBLISHING Our request for Fiscal Year 1980 also reflects the impact of our efforts in the field of micropublishing. In the past year 4,800 Government documents were converted to a microfiche format and more than 2.8 million microfiche were forwarded to depository libraries. Action has also been initiated to convert additional categories of documentation to a microfiche format for offering to the depositories. The micropublishing program is proving to have many benefits. The per copy production and distribution costs are lower for GPO and the storage costs are lower for the recipients, when compared to the costs of hard copy. In addition, micropublishing permits us to provide some documents when sufficient hard copy is not available, without incurring the substantial expense of going back to press. CATALOGING AND INDEXING PROGRAM Complimenting the Depository Library Program is our Cataloging and Indexing Program, through which we produce the "Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications". The Monthly Catalog provides researchers and librarians, students and all citizens with an organized guide to the voluminous output of the Federal Government's publishing efforts. Nearly 49,000 documents were cataloged in Fiscal Year 1978. One of our current efforts in this program is the development of an automated system to more efficiently gather information generated in the cataloging process which is needed by our Depository Distribution Program. This system will help us eliminate current manual files. Documents also provides mailing and distribution services to the Congress and other Federal Agencies. Specific provisions of law require us to distribute some publications, and this effort is financed by our Appropriation in the "By-Law" program. The remaining workload is handled on a reimbursable basis, with the publishing agency paying for distribution. INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE SERVICE During 1978 Documents assumed responsibility for the International Exchange Service distribution of publications to 250 foreign libraries. This work was formerly handled by the Smithsonian Institution, and they reimburse us for the expenses involved. Responsibility for distributing file copies of Government documents to the Congress, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Service and other official Depositories was also transferred to us from other organizations within GPO. These new duties increased the workload in this area by 5 percent. In total, Documents distributed nearly 76 million publications without charge to the recipient during Fiscal Year 1978. Much of this workload is associated with the distribution of free Consumer Information publications for the General Services Administration. Our Pueblo Distribution Center handled 3.2 million orders in this program last year, and all expenses associated with the effort were recovered from GSÅ. I am proud of the improvements we have made or plan to complete this year. I am also proud to be able to state that our request for Fiscal Year 1980 of $23,037,000 is $1,428,000 less than the total for Fiscal Year 1979. |