From jrussell@gpo.govMon Feb 5 11:15:08 1996 Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 01:18:49 -0800 From: "Judith C. Russell" Reply to: Discussion of Government Document Issues To: Multiple recipients of list GOVDOC-L Subject: FDLP Study: Task 9B: US Court of Appeals' Opinions STUDY TO IDENTIFY MEASURES NECESSARY FOR A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION TO A MORE ELECTRONIC FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM (FDLP) PRELIMINARY REPORT: TASK 9B: US COURT OF APPEALS' OPINIONS As part of the Study, a task force examined issues surrounding inclusion of electronic information in the FDLP when that information is not already included in paper or microfiche format. The slip opinions of the U.S. Court of Appeals were selected as an example. This task force was lead by Gary Bowden, Administrative Office of the Courts. This preliminary report of the task force is being made available for review and comment. Comments should be submitted by Friday, February 16, 1996, by internet e-mail to study@gpo.gov, by fax to FDLP Study at (202) 512-1262, or by mail to FDLP Study, Mail Stop SDE, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20401. ***************************************************************** TASK 9B: Evaluate how United States Court of Appeals' published slip opinions might be included in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) electronically, although traditionally they have not been a part of the FDLP in either paper or microfiche format. BACKGROUND All production of opinions are handled locally by the individual courts of appeals. There is no centralized administrative control over the slip opinion process, beyond the initial contracting assistance provided by the Administrative Office (AO). All policy regarding production and distribution is made by the appellate court. The opinions are typically produced, and distributed to the court and paid/free subscribers, by contract vendors. Access to appellate opinions is available in both print and electronic format. Historically, the courts have provided hard copies of slip opinions to interested law schools within the circuit, often in exchange for free subscriptions to the law journal from the school. Other non-profit organizations also have received free subscriptions to the published opinions. Opinions always have been available to the public in the circuit libraries. Electronic access to appellate opinions is available through a variety of sources. In addition to the electronic legal research options available from numerous commercial vendors, all 12 circuits also use electronic bulletin board systems (BBS) as a means of providing public access to recent published opinions. Each circuit only has its circuit opinions available; however, one circuit is attempting to pull in opinions from other circuits in order to offer an expanded resource to the public. The BBSs are set up on toll-free telephone lines and opinions are primarily provided in ASCII or WordPerfect format. There is no full text search capability. In most instances, there is some general court information provided and an index of cases is available to assist the user in their search. Typically users do not read cases on the BBS, but download them to their PCs to keep costs down and improve readability. Each circuit has established its own local rules for access and availability to these bulletin boards. The courts are allowed, by Congress and subsequent Judicial Conference policy, to charge a fee for access to appellate opinions. Currently, the appellate courts are split evenly between courts that charge a fee and those that provide free access. However, recent Judicial Council actions across the country indicate that more circuits will be applying the PACER (public access) fee to non-exempted callers. The current PACER fee is $0.75 per minute, which is based on the Judiciary's estimate of the cost to electronically disseminate the information. Judicial Conference policy does allow courts that charge the fee to exempt non-profit organizations from paying it. The Judiciary has no plans at this time to initiate an internal process to collect opinions and post them on its own Internet Web Site, which is still in its infancy. However, there have been several developments recently in Internet access to the opinions. One circuit is using a third party Internet host to upload its opinions to the Internet. There is also a commercial vendor who has added all appellate published opinions to its Internet Web Site, purchasing opinions from the court when necessary and then posting them to the site for free public use. In addition, a consortium of prestigious law schools, generally one from each circuit, is attempting to provide free access to most appellate opinions through each school's Internet Web Site. Circuits are being approached individually about participating. This effort now has opinions from all but the First Circuit. The member law schools have complete responsibility for retrieving the opinions, processing them as they determine necessary and uploading them to the Internet. The judiciary is monitoring this project, and when requested to offer fee exemptions, has shown support for its development. FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY DISSEMINATION The Judiciary operates under an indefinite waiver from the requirement to utilize the Government Printing Office's (GPO) printing resources. This waiver was granted by the Joint Committee on Printing in 1985 and does require that the Judiciary participate in the FDLP by providing copies of opinions to all requesting libraries. The Judiciary has worked with GPO to implement this relationship; however, to date no agreement has been reached on an efficient and effective means for distribution of thousands of opinions each year. In 1994, serious negotiations began in order to determine how opinions could be distributed electronically, as the Judiciary recognized that this was the only efficient means of handling the large volume of opinions. However, this project has been delayed in recognition of GPO efforts on setting up its Web Site, the court's progress at establishing a bulletin board in each circuit, and now the current GPO study. DISSEMINATION ALTERNATIVES Alternative A The Judiciary could provide electronic versions of the slip opinions to GPO, which would in turn add them to the GPO Access Web Site as full-text searchable databases. Due to the decentralized nature of the Judiciary, there is no guarantee all court of appeals will participate. Nor can the individual appellate courts be forced to comply with a request to send the opinions to GPO or the AO. Therefore, under this alternative it would be necessary for the Administrative Office to collect the opinions and send them to GPO. The Judiciary would establish a reimbursable agreement with GPO to pay the costs of routine preparation, conversion, and storage of the electronic data. Benefits The printing waiver granted to the Judiciary is continued. Public access is improved, a goal the Judiciary has pursued actively in recent years. As a full-text searchable database, opinions are more useful. Long term accessibility is maintained by GPO and the FDLP. Disadvantages/Problems Collecting opinions from the courts and providing them to GPO will require AO staff resources to develop the opinion collection application and monitor the daily collection. This will mean increased costs for the AO which seeks to control any new program costs. Increased costs would be incurred by the Judiciary for the data formatting and storage done by GPO. This would not be true if the Electronic Federal Depository Library Program Transition Plan is approved, in which case costs for conversion and storage would be paid for by the FDLP appropriation. Unless there is a time delay in mounting the opinions to GPO Access, there is a possibility that including the opinions in the FDLP will result in lost revenue. The Judiciary now is able to charge access fees to information users that will cover the cost of dissemination. These funds have been used by the Judiciary to fund various electronic public access projects, including the appellate BBS. The availability of slip opinions on GPO Access may reduce current revenue received from BBS users who will turn to the GPO Web Site to get their information free of charge. This will limit funds available to the Judiciary to pursue future electronic access projects. Alternative B The Judiciary could provide electronic versions of the slip opinions to GPO, which would in turn add them to the Federal Bulletin Board for depository access. Benefits The printing waiver granted to the Judiciary is continued. Public access to opinions is improved by having one central location for all opinions. Long term accessibility is controlled by GPO and the FDLP. No additional conversion or storage costs would be incurred by the Judiciary. Disadvantages/Problems As the individual appellate courts cannot be forced to comply with a request to send the opinions to GPO or the AO, centralized collection of opinions by the Administrative Office would be necessary. This will mean increased costs for the AO. There is a possibility that including the opinions in the FDLP will result in lost PACER revenue. Only about 341 depository libraries are registered to use the Federal Bulletin Board. Opinions would be available only as ASCII or WordPerfect files making them less useful than a full- text searchable database. Alternative C The Judiciary has experienced general acceptance and broad use of the existing BBS. This could be made the center of the FDLP electronic access program. Depository libraries could be offered free access to the opinions on each circuit's BBS. A user from a home PC may be limited to accessing the BBS through a depository library if this is possible. The GPO Locator could direct users to the Appellate BBS for slip opinions. Benefits The printing waiver granted to the Judiciary is continued. Public access to opinions is improved. There is no need to establish a centralized collection method, therefore no additional costs are incurred by the AO. Additional costs for BBS and new password maintenance and any additional phone lines or requirements for larger PCs for the BBS could be met with existing electronic public access (PACER) funds. Disadvantages/Problems With multiple locations, it is more difficult for users to locate the information they need. Opinions would be in ASCII and WordPerfect format, so text searching would not be available. Depository libraries would have to register and become familiar with multiple bulletin board systems. Long term accessibility is determined by each circuit and cannot be guaranteed. Alternative D The Judiciary could support its own Internet Web Site to collect and store opinions. The opinions would be full text searchable. The GPO Locator would direct users to the Judiciary Web Site for opinions. Benefits Public access to opinions is improved. The printing waiver granted to the Judiciary is continued. Security and control of the information would be controlled by the AO. The visibility and image of the Appellate Courts and the Judiciary is improved. Costs for maintaining opinions on the Web Site would be offset in part by other applications the site would provide. As a full-text searchable database, opinions are more useful. Disadvantages/Problems As with Alternative A, the individual appellate courts cannot be forced to comply with a request to send the opinions to the AO. Therefore costs would be incurred by either the court's staff or AO staff to collect and format the opinions for dissemination. Unless their is a delay in mounting opinions to the AO Web Site, revenue might be lost from users of the BBSs if the information is provided free of charge. Alternative E The law school consortium project is the leading effort to consolidate the slip opinions on the Internet. The Judiciary could endorse the law school consortium project and create a partnership between the consortium, Judiciary/AO, and GPO. Rather than the Judiciary or GPO maintaining the data, the consortium would provide access to the opinions. The GPO Locator would refer users to law school Web Sites. Currently, the consortium schools retrieve opinions from their local circuit BBS and if opinions are needed from another circuit the user is transparently directed to the other law school Web Site with the requested opinions. Benefits The printing waiver granted to the Judiciary is continued. Public access to opinions is improved. There is no increase in the resources needed by the Judiciary. This information service will be maintained and improved by the laws schools. There is some time delay in opinion availability. This would reduce the amount of revenue lost due to inclusion of opinions in the FDLP. Disadvantages/Problems Depository access to opinions would not be as timely. The Judiciary and FDLP are dependent on the law schools to maintain access to the opinions. There is no guarantee that opinions will be available for long term access. Arrangements concerning this issue would have to be made with the participating law schools before GPO could endorse the project. Not all circuit opinions are available through the consortium at this time. Each of the laws schools determine how they wish to format the opinions. There is no standard format or appearance. Information is located at several sites. The user must know which circuit issued the opinion they are looking for in order to find it. The GPO Locator could help overcome this problem. ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED In reviewing alternative methods for electronically disseminating slip opinions to the public, a list of issues has developed. Some of these issues already were raised during the development of the BBSs and were handled according to the interests of the circuits. Others will be more important should the Judiciary, through the Administrative Office, determine it is in its interest to develop a centralized access point. Long-Term Access How long are opinions maintained online? Can/should there be some type of electronic archiving process? What organization has responsibility for creating an electronic archive if one is necessary? Is there demand for near line access such as CD-ROM? Requirements for Electronic Access Should electronic access be developed to assist in legal research or is it strictly viewed as a dissemination process? Legal research requires full text search software and access to historical records, both of which add significant costs to making opinions available electronically. Need and Demand for an Alternate Method of Dissemination With the current variety of non-profit and commercial sources for slip opinions, is it necessary to develop another alternative through GPO or the Judiciary? Is there market demand that is not being met by the current alternatives? Ensuring the Integrity of Data What controls exist in any electronic system to ensure integrity of data? Is there a need to have "true" or "certified" electronic versions of slip opinions? Since each circuit formats its decision uniquely, in order to provide an accurate and exact copy Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format files would be needed. Costs for Dual Format Distribution The Judiciary will continue to have a demand for paper ***************************************************************** Judy Russell Comments should be submitted by Friday, February 16, 1996, by internet e-mail to study@gpo.gov, by fax to FDLP Study at (202) 512-1262, or by mail to FDLP Study, Mail Stop SDE, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20401.