This morning's keynote by Bruce James of the USGPO was fascinating. The USGPO is the largest printing & information processing facility in the world. They employee 2500 people, but that number is going down as they automate and innovate.
Mr. James presented the rich history of the GPO from the 1813 passage of a bill declaring that information belongs to the people to the present. And he made it sound like he was there and was taking us all along for the ride!
Since he started at the GPO in 2003 he has been on a mission to modernize the organization from the core. They now have a strategic vision in place - that is the music. They are working on the words - the new structure, business units, business practices, etc. Great progress has been made.
Last month 50% of the GPO output was born digital and will never be printed by the government. And last year they made $11 Million - after years of losses. 256,000 documents are now available online and 3M will be digitized. The users of GPO data have asked for digital formats rather than paper, and that is what they are now delivering.
He also understands and worries about all our library concerns - preservation and authentication - who will assure that this digitized text is the real thing? - access, indexing and all.
What an exciting time we live in!!
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