The Library Services and Content Management (LSCM) business unit of the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) began digital imaging works of the U.S. Government in 2016. The overall objective of digital imaging is to increase public access to historic Federal Government information by making it available digitally on GovInfo, and ultimately to make the entire National Collection of U.S. Government Information available digitally.
GPO’s System of Online Access Collection Development Plan support’s GovInfo to make it the “most comprehensive information repository serving the information needs of Congress, Federal agencies, and the public” and entails the ingest of current and historical content. LSCM reevaluates the Plan’s deliberate priority setting and planned collecting activities and goals annually.
LSCM utilizes two avenues to acquire digital images: digital imaging through contract vehicles and content digitally imaged by partners. Consider partnering with GPO to make the content you digitized more widely available. If you have a project that you would like to talk with GPO about, contact GPO’s partnership coordinator via askGPO; choose the GPO customer type, Federal Depository Library; and choose the category, Partnerships. To learn more about how to become a partner and see the list of current partners, visit the partnerships page.
Digital Imaging Specifications
- Follow the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative’s “Technical Guidelines for Digiting Cultural Heritage Materials” three-star level.
- Additional specifications include (exact specifications may differ based on the content being digitally imaged):
- 400 ppi (original document size) with 24-bit RGB color.
- Master file format: JPEG 2000 with up to a 20:1 lossless compression ratio.
- Searchable and optimized PDFs compliant to the PDF/A2-b format specification standard.
- OCR text saved as txt file format for each publication.
- Pages should have no visible skew (no more than between 0-1 degrees).
- Pages cropped so the page edge is showing with a border of no less than 1/16 inch and no larger than ¼ inch.
FY24 Accomplishments
- Completion of the U.S. Statutes at Large GovInfo collection.
- Added 4,446 Serial Set volumes containing 82,539 reports and documents to the GovInfo collection.
- Added 4,308 digitized Congressional hearings to Govinfo.
- Added 839 digitized Congress prints to GovInfo.
- Added 211 miscellaneous publications to Govinfo.
- Third Edition of the Checklist of United States Public Documents: Advance Sheets.
- Classification for United States Public Documents by Adelaide Hasse.
- Lots of executive agency annual reports.
FY25 Plans
- Continue to collaborate with the Law Library of Congress to make more digitized Serial Set volumes available on GovInfo.
- Complete the development of the digitized U.S. Reports collection on GovInfo, and make the digitized volumes available.
- Ongoing digitization of Congressional hearings.
- Digitization of additional depository shipping list, executive agency annual reports, and independent commission material.
Related Resources
- GPO Needs List
- “Digital Content Contributor Partnerships, Collaborating with GPO, Building the National Collection” webinar
- “Guidance for Digitally Imaging Content for Submission to GovInfo”