The Commerce Department's decision to close the National Technical Information Service has set off a battle involving the Government Printing Office, the Library of Congress and key lawmakers about what to do with the agency's assets and employees.
On Aug. 11, Commerce announced its intention to close NTIS and transfer its collection of nearly 3 million scientific, technical, engineering and related business information titles to the Library of Congress. Under Commerce's plan, the Library of Congress would assume NTIS' functions and legislation would ensure that agencies post all scientific and technical information on their Web sites.
But at a congressional hearing Tuesday on Commerce's decision, GPO chief Michael DiMario made a pitch for merging NTIS into GPO. DiMario cited similarities in the two agencies' functions, GPO staff expertise, and the elimination of wasteful competition between the two operations.
In addition, GPO "has a strong interest in making the NTIS collection available to depository libraries," DiMario said. NTIS has the single largest collection of "fugitive documents," a term used by librarians to describe government reports that cannot be accessed for free by the public.
If GPO were to take over NTIS, additional appropriations and full-time employees would be needed to manage the distribution of NTIS material, DiMario said.
While GPO put in its bid for the agency, other public and private stakeholders at the House Science Subcommittee on Technology hearing criticized Commerce's decision to close NTIS.
According to Deputy Secretary of Commerce Robert Mallet, the decision was purely financial. "The closure decision was not lightly entered into," Mallet said.
Since 1987, when Congress mandated that NTIS become self-sustaining by charging fees for its reports, the agency has suffered from financial woes. In recent years, the rise of the Internet has adversely affected NTIS sales, as agencies simply post reports on their Web sites for free.
But Reps. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Tom Davis, R-Va., said that flaws in NTIS's business model were not reason enough to shut the agency.
Moran and Davis argued that public service, rather than fiscal discipline, should be the most important factor in deciding whether NTIS should stay in operation. "If the only reason that it is being terminated is because it's not self-sustaining- that's not good enough," Moran said.
According to Davis, two-thirds of documents requested from NTIS are more than three years old, and thus were created before the advent of the Internet. "The Library of Congress has not been tooled to make this information available on the Internet," Davis said. "Where do you make up for this expertise that we're so willing to discard?"
Caroline Long, a librarian at The George Washington University, said it would take at least five years before agencies would be ready to make reports available online.
"Take the time to do it right because this collection is of critical importance to the research and development enterprise and to the economic well-being of the nation," she said.
Other witnesses criticized the plan to rely exclusively on the Internet for public access to NTIS records. "Some people do need paper," said Bonnie Carroll, a 30-year veteran of the information access business.
As for NTIS employees, the Commerce Department is taking every step to ensure that they will find jobs in other parts of government, Mallet said. "We are keenly aware of the impact this proposal will have on families," he said.
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