In October, Bruce James, the Public Printer and head of the U.S. Government Printing Office, told a meeting of federal depository librarians that the GPO Access service does not have a sustainable business model and that GPO needs to "create a business model that will once again allow us to bring revenue in the door." GPO Access is probably the federal government's greatest success on the Web. As currently constituted, it's a vital source of information and a revolutionary improvement in the delivery of government information to the American public. But it's also a model of commitment to the right way to handle that information. It doesn't skimp on what it offers, including most of its best-known and even bulkiest titles. Most important, it has a standing and publicly announced policy that any publication it carries―and they now number in the hundreds of thousands―will be carried forever. GPO Access is a true archive, a repository for the ages, a "Web site of record." It has earned its more than 37 million uses a month.
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