Gateways to Government Information: The Depository Services Program and Canadian Government Publishing

An Executive Summary

PUBLIC ACCESS PROGRAMS SECTOR

PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES CANADA

December 17, 1999

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The two programs
• Canadian Government Publishing (CGP)
• Depository Services Program (DSP)
• Why DSP and CGP are valuable
• The challenges ahead
• Possible directions for the future
• Consequences
• Conclusion

As the government takes advantage of information technology to bring itself closer to citizens and stakeholders, two programs—Canadian Government Publishing (CGP) and the Depository Services Program (DSP)—should be given greater opportunity to maximize the value they add to government information products.

These high value, low cost programs are connecting Canadians to one another and to their government. DSP and CGP are "flying the flag" for better, more transparent government from one end of the country to another, and through the Internet, they are providing this service worldwide. The two programs also fill a gap for those without Internet access in Canada’s urban, rural and remote communities, and they speed the transition to electronic distribution of documents.

Properly supported, the programs become even more powerful levers to strengthen connectivity, to make it easier to use government information, and to foster a citizen base that is used to looking for, using and creating knowledge. This paper will look at ways the government can make the most of its investment in CGP and DSP. It will also examine ways these programs can reach their full potential and help the government achieve its objective of becoming the country most connected to its citizens.

Both CGP and DSP have undergone several formal reviews and have been designated as core government services. By quickly addressing the significant challenges facing them, we can prepare the programs to move forward as they support and complement a range of current citizen-centred initiatives, including Service Canada, the Canada Site, Government Enquiries Centre (1 800 O-Canada), the Community Access Program, Canadian Heritage visibility initiatives, and Canada Business Service Centres.

In operation for more than 100 years, CGP is the Government of Canada’s official publisher and helps ensure public access to government documents. The following are among its roles:

• Provides mandatory and optional publishing services to Government of Canada departments and agencies.

• co-ordinates federal government publishing activities;

1. administers Crown copyright and licensing;
2. provides information, guidance and advice on publishing policies, practices and standards in accordance with Treasury Board Directives;
3. offers a range of services that spans the entire publishing process;
4. plans and implements a three-party co-publishing program, involving client departments who are responsible for content and private sector publishers who are responsible for all aspects of publication;
5. operates a central ordering, warehousing and distribution facility and ensures that government publications are distributed directly to the public and to a network of more than 2,300 bookstores and distributors throughout Canada and in other countries;
6. produces sales catalogues, guides and tools to help people find the information they need, both in paper and electronic formats;
7. manages a database of government information content;
8. promotes federal government publications and products (including those in such alternative formats as Braille) by participating in book fairs, trade shows and other promotional events; and
9. secures publications on behalf of DSP.

CGP is funded on a full cost-recovery basis through the sale of publications and services provided to client departments.

Funded through appropriations, DSP distributes copies of government publications to 955 depository libraries across Canada and throughout the world, which then make the material available to the public. These libraries in turn share their expertise on government information with the public.

DSP provides a "public information safety net" that complements the activities of CGP. It can weave this net because it is able to tell people what documents the government has produced, and because it ensures that this information is widely distributed and that is available at no-cost. It is the authorised creator, custodian and record-keeper of information on government documents and it defines what exactly a government document is.

Under DSP, federal departments and agencies are required to send their publications for distribution. About half of all government departments and agencies comply with this requirement, leaving gaps in the DSP catalogue. Some departments that have significant cost recovery publishing programs do not see it as being in their interest to contribute to the DSP. In other cases, departments have no systematic method of identifying and depositing with the DSP. Statistics Canada, whose publications are particularly important to library collections, participates in DSP, as do both houses of Parliament.

DSP also maintains electronic repositories of government documents that can be readily accessed through the Internet. It further participates in the System of Interactive Government Information (SIGI), a pilot project to develop a practical model for the deposit and preservation of electronic documents.

DSP maintains and supports the infrastructure of the public information safety net. This includes, among other activities, developing and co-ordinating training, facilitating international publication exchanges on behalf of the Government of Canada and supporting the media outlets used by the government to make citizens aware of information.

In offering "one-stop shopping" as part of a comprehensive public access approach, both programs already make it easier for the public to navigate the vast, and often confusing, array of documents available to them. Both programs are essential lynchpins in the government strategy of connecting Canadians.

In preparing the companion background paper, many of the programs’ diverse stakeholders were interviewed, including government departments and agencies, booksellers, publishers, libraries and non-governmental organisations. These stakeholders reiterated the importance and value of these programs to them.

Meeting the expressed needs of Canadians

There are four areas where stakeholders have come to depend on CGP and DSP.

1. Reliability: Citizens and stakeholders rely on CGP and DSP to establish cross-government standards that will distinguish between information that meets rigorous publication requirements and information that has a very short life cycle. Such standards and assistance are especially important as more information appears on Web sites. CGP also reliably protects Crown copyright.
   
   
2. Comprehensiveness: The more comprehensive the information from a particular source, the more useful that source is likely to be for greater numbers of people. As governments publish more on the Web, Canadians want a navigator who can help them integrate information from a variety of different sources, in various formats, which the programs do through their cross-government catalogues and databases, and through a central call centre.
   
   
3. Accessibility: Taxpayers pay for the development of government information and must be able to access that information, preferably through their medium of choice, on or off the Internet. Furthermore, the effectiveness of many programs depends on information reaching as broad a target audience as possible. The CGP and DSP "metadata" (or information about information) make people aware of what is available and help them to find it. Furthermore, DSP makes it much easier for departments to meet the requirement of the Government Communications Policy to maintain an index of published material.
   
   
4. Preservation: DSP helps the National Library and National Archives as they store information for future generations, thereby preserving our national cultural and historical memory. The DSP catalogue, for example, is serving as an informal standard for deciding which electronic documents are worth preserving. And, of course, DSP provides the bulk of the National Library’s government documents.

Filling a valuable and unique niche unfilled by anyone else

Some confuse the functions of DSP and CGP with the mandates of such bodies as the National Library (NL) and the National Archives (NA). In fact, the latter are two very different bodies with very different objectives.

1. The National Library collects, preserves and promotes the published heritage of Canada. It collects Canadian publications and Canadian publishers are required by law to send copies to the NL.
2. The National Archives preserves Canada’s archival heritage. It collects government records and unpublished records from private collections. The National Archives is not really in the business of lending out or publishing documents.

Whereas the National Library and National Archives are based in Ottawa, DSP and CGP are actively providing a government presence in every major community from coast to coast, and they are further providing a virtual presence through an online catalogue of 100,000 paper and electronic publications. More than 90 percent of Canadians live within easy access of a depository library.

Unique in the government, DSP and CGP provide "metadata," or information about information across government. Because of this, the government can fulfil information requests for comprehensive content ("What information is available on …?" "Where can I find out about …?").

Providing crucial support for key government objectives

DPS and CGP have been invaluable tools, wielded by government to help it advance on several vital communication and information management fronts. Both programs have been integral to some of the portfolios most dear to the government’s heart.

1. Making government more efficient: Both clients and the government save money when the one point of contact is a set of experts who understand publishing and who are aware of the complex array of government content. Duplicating this effort from department to department would not be cost-effective, especially since it would jeopardise economies of scale and increase confusion to the public.
   
   
2. Building social cohesion: The programs provide a federal presence in 955 libraries and in 2000 book retailers and resellers from coast to coast. They also give all Canadians access to the huge amount of information that has been assembled on their behalf. The programs support the Canada Information Office and Canadian Heritage, and they complement the Federal Identity Program. More generally, they build awareness among Canadians of Canada’s common history, values, culture and achievements as a nation.
   
   
3. Making government transparent and accountable: By structuring, organizing and cataloguing information, CGP and DSP help government become more transparent and accountable. They ensure a formal record of departmental behaviour. As well, the programs, by increasing the amount of publicly available information, reduce the cost of responding to requests under Access to Information, particularly with the potential savings from the deposit of electronic documents with DSP.
   
   
4. Engaging citizens: Flowing from the previous point, increased transparency in government and greater information all help citizens become more engaged and more active in contributing to solutions to some of this country’s issues.
   
   
5. Serving Canadians better: CGP and DSP have an integrated approach to information delivery, and citizens can access the information in a variety of ways. Both programs have been "early adopters" of information technology, and they are well positioned to support and complement a range of current citizen-centred initiatives, including Service Canada, the Canada Site, Government Enquiries Centre (1 800 O-Canada), Service Canada, Government Online and Canada Business Service Centres. They are also well positioned to provide valuable links to the Canadian publishing community.
   
   
6. Enhancing Canada’s image abroad: Without CGP and DSP, Canadians would lack any alternative to the proliferation of American data and information. Providing this information promotes Canada’s image, values and culture abroad and supports the Canadian studies community around the world. DSP also helps meet Canada’s obligations under international treaties for information exchange.

CGP and DSP have advanced several aspects of the government agenda, but there are several areas in which the programs have unfulfilled potential.

1. There are opportunities to build partnerships to improve access and "inter-mediation."
2. There is a need to reconsider the current funding arrangements.
3. There are opportunities for greater synergy through co-ordination with existing initiatives, most specifically those related to public access.

The previous section raised three areas where the two programs could be strengthened. We now turn to possible new directions.

Improve access and inter-mediation

The programs act as intermediaries between information and the people who use it. Because of the programs, human intermediaries can direct people to the information they need. But the programs need innovative tools to organize information, to support individual search styles and to let users customize information. DSP libraries also need support mechanisms to provide effective "inter-mediation" services in the area of electronic documentation. In addition, the public should be able to use their portal of choice and not be limited to a government portal.

Reconsider funding arrangements

There is a danger that, given the wrong funding mechanism and continued erosion of these programs, not only will the programs be weakened, but that people who have become expert in delivering the programs could drift away. Here are some possible solutions to these funding problems.

For the CGP …

1. Maintaining CGP on full cost recovery is not consistent with its proposed central role as government-wide public access coordinator of the management and distribution of publications. The current arrangements encourage the organization to focus on revenue generating rather than on its primary public interest role. Cost recovery discourages rather than encourages the participation of client departments in the program. Cost recovery appears to add costs that have no direct benefit to the author departments. At the same time, CGP subsidizes publishing costs through its sales revenues. This indirect cost reduction is transparent to author departments. Thus, moving CGP to appropriations-based funding would enable it to play its core role more effectively than at present.

For the DSP …

2. DSP needs to be funded to a level where it can maintain full public access, which means setting aside money to compensate government publishers who charge for their materials. (In particular, this would cover such major information sources as NRC/CISTI, NRCan and the National Library’s AMICUS database.) Acquiring this product would cost an extra $6.9 million in 1999/2000, although eliminating print-on-demand would reduce this amount by $495,000.

Enhance synergy with related initiatives

There may be further opportunities for synergy among CGP, DSP and related initiatives, such as Service Canada, the Canada Site, Government Enquiries Centre (1 800 O-Canada) toll free phone service, the Canada Business Service Centres and the Canada Information Office.

Failing to keep pace with changing demands on CGP and DSP, particularly at a time when information management is being revolutionized, would hinder the government’s ability to meet several of its Government On-Line objectives. This would especially be the case if the central content repository were to be lost. Information would be harder to find, the federal government would be more remote from the lives of its people, and costs will rise as other departments reinvent the wheel of distributing documents to the public. Unless Government information content is reliable, well structured and easily accessible, complex e-transactions will be difficult, if not impossible.

In effect, diminishing the role of the two programs would serve to disconnect Canadians, rather than to connect them, and a key component of the government’s public access approach would be lost.

Today, 92 percent of Canadians live within easy access of a depository library. This means that CGP and DSP have provided exemplary tools for connecting Canadians to each other and to their federal government.

Currently, both programs are at risk. Without these programs, the dissemination of information will be more expensive and more fragmented. Users in all communities across Canada would find it harder to get information and would have fewer ways of doing so.

However, by beginning a realistic discussion of new directions, particularly those regarding funding, the two programs can achieve their full potentials and continue to be leaders in the information business.