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Collection of Last Resort
Summary of GPO's April 2004 Draft Plan

The draft plan is available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/clr.doc
Comments may be directed to Judy Russell at jrussell@gpo.gov.

GPO will proactively acquire and preserve tangible and electronic copies of Government publications for inclusion in the Collection based on the requirements of all GPO information dissemination programs. In addition to publications acquired, harvested, or created for the information dissemination programs, the Collection will include agency source data files acquired pursuant to the OMB compact or other GPO services to publishing agencies. GPO will provide online public access and other information products and services derived from the digital preservation masters and other items in the Collection.

Over time, the Collection will become a comprehensive set of tangible and electronic titles that will backstop the tangible collections in regional depository libraries or shared repositories into which regional library collections may be consolidated in the future.

GPO will explore the potential for establishing contractual relationships with libraries and other organizations to house the tangible Collection versus maintaining and preserving the tangible and electronic collections ourselves. The plan will be developed in consultation with the library community.

• The Collection is primarily created to support the FDLP goal of no-fee permanent public access, but also supports other GPO information dissemination and preservation programs, including print-on-demand for publications sales.

• GPO will have an enterprise-wide Collection of digital materials, including preservation masters and access copies.

• Collection assets will be maintained in geographically dispersed locations.
• Collection management will be benchmarked against the criteria for assurance developed by the Center for Research Libraries.

• Collection preservation activities will be based on the agreement between GPO and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) designating GPO as an archives affiliate.

• The Collection includes the existing FDLP Electronic Collection.

• The Collection's contents will be described by standard metadata schemes. Bibliographic records will be included in the National Bibliography and accessible through GPO's online catalog.

• Digital and tangible assets in the Collection's "dark archives" are held primarily for preservation rather than public use. There are no direct users of the print copies in the dark archive.

• Access copies of the Collection's electronic assets will be publicly accessible.

• GPO will acquire tangible copies from a variety of sources, including the transfer of portions of the legacy collection from depository libraries to GPO.

• It will take three to five years to assemble the tangible Collection and digitize the 2.2 million titles (60 million pages) in the Collection.

• It is estimated that the depository library community and others will make an initial investment of $50 million to digitize legacy collection print materials.

• GPO has included $1.5 million in its FY 2005 Salaries and Expenses Appropriation request to cover the initial startup costs for the Collection. GPO estimates the Government's portion of establishing and managing the Collection at approximately $1.5 million per year for the next five years.

• The tangible products in the Collection will exist as a source and a backup for the digital objects Collection. After digitization, copies of the original publication, even if disbound, will be retained and preserved in case the item must be digitized again in the future.

• Digital objects in the Collection, whether harvested or created by GPO, will be certified as authentic, official versions.