[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3307]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today as the chairman of the Joint 
Committee on Printing to recognize the Government Printing Office, GPO, 
on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. GPO opened its doors on March 
4, 1861, the same day that President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of 
office for his first term. Since that time, the agency has used 
constantly changing technologies to meet the needs of the Congress, 
Federal agencies, and the public. During GPO's early days, employees 
relied on ink and paper to publish the text of President Lincoln's 
Emancipation Proclamation. Today, as another President from Illinois 
leads the Nation, GPO employees are using the latest digital technology 
to document the activities and decisions of our Government and to 
fulfill GPO's founding mission, which is ``Keeping America Informed.''
  While GPO's past has been about printing, its present and future are 
being defined by electronic publishing. GPO has been investing for more 
than a generation in digital production and dissemination technology, 
an investment that has yielded significant improvements in 
productivity, capability, and savings for the taxpayers. The GPO 
estimates that converting to electronic, digital technology has 
resulted in a savings of 66 percent on the cost of congressional 
printing alone. Deploying such technology has also reduced the number 
of employees to fewer than at any time in the past century. And it has 
reduced dramatically the number of copies of official documents that 
are printed.
  GPO's partnership with the printing industry supports tens of 
thousands of jobs. At the same time, by using GPO as a central 
procurement agency, the Federal Government reduces substantially the 
cost of these contracts to the taxpayers.
  GPO now has a range of products and services that could only have 
been dreamed of 30 years ago: Online databases of Federal documents 
with state-of-the-art search and retrieval capabilities available to 
the public without charge, Government publications available as e-
Books, and a public presence not only on the Web but also on Twitter, 
Facebook, and You Tube. No longer is GPO primarily a publisher of 
printed government documents, but a fully integrated electronic 
publisher and clearinghouse whose products are available in many 
Internet-based locations. In addition, the State Department relies on 
GPO to provide highly secure U.S. passports containing sophisticated 
smart chips. GPO does this in conjunction with the private sector, 
which supplies certain critical components.
  Another key function of GPO is its partnership with more than 1,200 
Federal depository libraries across the country. These libraries, 
established by statute in all 50 States, make Federal documents 
available to millions of students, researchers, businesses, and others 
every year in both digital and print formats.
  In short, GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of 
information products and services for all three branches of the Federal 
Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as 
well as the official publications of Congress, the White House, and 
other Federal agencies. In addition to publication sales, GPO offers 
permanent public access to Federal Government information at no charge 
through GPO's Federal Digital System--www.fdsys.gov--and through 
partnerships with approximately 1,200 libraries nationwide that are 
part of the Federal Depository Library Program.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the GPO on its 150th 
anniversary and on its contributions to keeping the public informed.

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