From http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/28111-1.html

GPO outlines digital conversion plans

By
Jason Miller

GCN Staff

The Government Printing Office over the next two years will transform
the way it collects, authenticates, stores and shares federal documents.

By December 2007, GPO will implement the Digital Content System and
update processes for collecting and storing past, present and future
government records.

GPO officials today outlined their plans in a
new strategic plan.

"Last month, 50 percent of all government documents were born digital
and will never be printed by the government," public printer Bruce James
said. "But
GPO is still required by law to gather and catalog these electronic
documents, to distribute them electronically and to ensure their
perpetual availability
to the public. This task calls for a whole new set of skills and
tools-what we call a digital information factory."

The agency, along with the Federal Depository Library Program, will set
standards for digitizing well-known public documents and assuring their
quality.
GPO plans by 2008 to digitize 70 percent of all historical documents
dating back to the 1787 Federalist Papers.

GPO also will relocate its main facilities in Washington and create a
backup facility at the Energy Department's Nevada Test Site for housing
security-
and intelligence-related documents. The agency will develop special Web
search tools and training so librarians can locate federal information.
It also
will consolidate 53 regional depositories into two databases, one on the
East Coast and one on the West Coast.

To help with the changes, GPO will open a Digital Media Services Office
to provide training for GPO employees on the new technologies. It also
will reorganize
around six lines of business, agency officials said.

Finally, the agency will consolidate its financial, human resources and
procurement applications into one enterprise system, which GPO also
plans to have
ready by December 2007.


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