What are Digital Access Partners?
If you have digitized or born digital content within scope of the National Collection in your institution’s repository, this partnership may be right for you.
Digital Access Partners (DAPs) make a commitment to make publicly accessible digital resources within scope of the FDLP at no fee. GPO directs users to these resources via bibliographic records in the CGP and PURLs. In the event the DAP is no longer able to retain or make the resources publicly accessible, the partner will transfer copies of the digital resources and any associated metadata to GPO.
Active Digital Access Partners
| Partner | NCSA | Contribution |
| Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records | West | Arizona Memory Project |
| Central University Libraries of Southern Methodist University | South | Historic government publications from World War II |
| Cleveland Public Library | Midwest | Historic war related government publications |
| Donald E. Pray Law Library, College of Law at the University of Oklahoma | South | American Indian and Alaska Native documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899 |
| Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis | N/A | Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER) |
| Government Accountability Office (GAO) | N/A | GAO Reports and Comptroller General Decisions |
| Library of Congress (LC) | Northeast | Born digital and digitized publications within scope of the National Collection available through all Library of Congress websites |
| Milner Library, Illinois State University | Midwest | Answering the call: World War I posters |
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) | N/A | NASA STI repository |
| National Library of Medicine | Northeast | Publications, bibliographic files, terminology, and other data files in medicine from NLM |
| National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) | N/A | NREL publications |
| Naval Postgraduate School | N/A | Homeland Security Digital Library |
| NOAA Central Library | Northeast | NOAA Institutional Repository |
| Ralph Brown Draughon Library, Auburn University | South | Air Information Circulars |
| Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland School of Law, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights | Northeast | Historic publications of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights |
| University of Iowa Libraries | Midwest | U.S. Government posters |
| University of Kentucky Libraries | South | WPA publications |
Digital Access Partner Spotlight
A GPO partner since 2001, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is the only Federal laboratory focused on research, development, and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. Researchers, scientists, and staff at NREL focus on sustainable transportation, energy production, renewable electricity, and systems integration.
Information on these projects and many more can be found in the NREL Publications Database, which contains bibliographic information on publications from NREL staff and subcontractors from 1977 to the present. Included in the database are technical reports, journal articles, conference papers, patents, presentations, books, fact sheets, and brochures. Many of the publications are also available in full-text. In addition to providing permanent public access to publications in the NREL Publications Database through the partnership with GPO, NREL also notifies GPO when new publications are added to the database. This allows GPO staff to acquire and catalog the publications more quickly. There are currently over 2,600 NREL publications in the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications.
Benefits of Being a Digital Access Partner
Gain national recognition for the work of your institution.- Increasing access to and discoverability of parts of the National Collection.
- Consultation with GPO’s digital preservation experts.
Expectations for Digital Access Partners
- A written public access plan or public access policies relating to the availability, reliability, and accessibility of Government information.
- The support and maintenance of a fully accessible and functional digital platform, information systems, and automated services for distributing, discovering, and searching for Government information.
- Provision of Government information to the public in a variety of open, accessible digital formats, ideally those formats which are listed in the Library of Congress’ recommended list of Sustainable File Formats and, where applicable and possible, to the Federal Agency Digital Guidelines Initiative.
- Documented knowledge of the specific technical and information needs of their user communities, including the FDLP, and their stakeholders necessary to access and make use of their digital collections.
- The implementation of controlled metadata schemas to describe, organize, and provide access to Government information.
- The implementation of persistent identifiers to ensure all digital objects are uniquely identifiable, traceable, and that users are able to access the digital resources via persistent links.
- The institution must provide a copy of the access and mater files along with any accompanying metadata to GPO in the event the institution is no longer able to provide no-fee public access.
- The content covered by the partnership agreement is within scope of the FDLP.
How to Become a Digital Access Partner
Please contact us via askGPO to learn more about how your institution can participate. When submitting a question, select the category, “Partnerships.”