March 2018 Release Notes

Published: April 12, 2018

Release Notes

FDsys retirement update; govinfo fixes and enhancements

Since the last govinfo release in December, activities to support the transition from govinfo's predecessor site, FDsys, have continued including work in preparation to enable redirects from FDsys to govinfo. Other activities included applying security updates, building new development and testing environments, and making a range of fixes and enhancements to site display, search functionality, the content management system, and developer tools.

FDsys Will Be Retired in December 2018

govinfo was launched in 2016 to eventually replace GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) website. This December, FDsys will be retired and govinfo will take its place.

What do I need to know about the transition?

In December 2018, FDsys will be retired and govinfo will take its place as your source for official U.S. Government information from all three branches.
govinfo provides access to the same publications and search functionality as FDsys, but has a new look and new features.
FDsys users should transition to govinfo and create any new links to govinfo instead of FDsys.

Attention Data Users: Please explore the govinfo developer tools available for your use (sitemaps, link service, etc.) If you have questions regarding the transition or the use of govinfo developer tools for updating processes, please contact GPO or open an issue on GPO's GitHub page.

Is everything that is available on FDsys available on govinfo?

Both FDsys and govinfo provide access to the same repository of content on the backend and will do so until FDsys retires. Either site will provide you access to the content; however, GPO encourages users to transition to accessing content from govinfo instead of FDsys in preparation for the retirement of FDsys later this year. Looking for a certain FDsys resource on govinfo?

Will my links to FDsys break?

While both FDsys and govinfo are operational, your links to FDsys will continue to resolve to FDsys. Immediately before retiring FDsys, GPO will enable automated redirects to govinfo. GPO will make every effort to ensure FDsys links are redirected as close as possible to the equivalent govinfo link. When creating new links to content and pages please link to govinfo instead of FDsys.

Where can I get help and find more information?

Learn more about the transition from FDsys to govinfo, explore the govinfo help pages for help finding publications, learning what's available, sample searches, metadata fields for each collection, tutorials, handouts, and more.

Send feedback about govinfo or contact GPO with any questions.

Fixes and Enhancements

*Please note that certain fixes and enhancements require content to be re-processed or re-published for the updates to take effect. This will be completed over a period of time. Content made available after these fixes and enhancements have been implemented will reflect the updates.

Site Display - Updated browse display for multi-book issues of the Congressional Record and entire sections of the House Rules and Manual; enabled automatic download for large MODS files instead of rendering in the browser which resulted in slow loading times; and implemented other minor fixes and enhancements.

Related Documents Feature - Added links to Details pages for certain publications in a series that are linked by an ILS number that corresponds to records in GPO's Catalog of Government Publications (CGP). Learn more about finding related documents on govinfo.

Example of links to related documents on a Details page for an issue of the Treasury Department Reporting Rates of Exchange

Parser Updates - Made updates to ensure all committee names are parsed from Congressional Hearings, enable subtitle fields to be parsed and displayed for certain publications, enable correct parsing of dates that include parentheses in select collections (e.g. Congressional Bills), and remove parsing of a specific field for publications at stakeholder request. Learn how GPO uses custom parsers to generate metadata.

Search Functionality - Made a fix for search queries that contain words or operators that start with a collection code and appear before the collection operator. See a list of collection codes and learn about using field operators in search queries. Also implemented a fix for citation search of digitized issues of the Federal Register.

Example of a search query using field operators including the collection code for the Public Papers of the Presidents collection

Content Management - Implemented several improvements for content management system features including sorting, exporting files, preventing upload of temporary files, and enhanced security for publishing web content.

Developer Tools - Fixed link service to correctly link to select parts in the Code of Federal Regulations that include letters in addition to numbers (GitHub Issue 1 ). For example, using the govinfo link service, a link to 15 CFR 4a from 2017 can be constructed using this pattern: /link/cfr/{titlenum}/{partnum}?link-type={link-type} The resulting link is: www.govinfo.gov/link/cfr/15/4a?link-type=pdf. Learn more about the link service, available for 13 collections.