I'm having trouble finding what this means. Does IA now have new obligations, or gets new information, or something else, or all of the above?

The submission says:

> These records account for “millions and millions of pages” that can take up entire floors of public libraries, Kahle said. San Diego’s public library gave up its federal depository status in 2020 because its government documents took up so much space and often went unused. [...] The GPO [...] has ramped up efforts to digitize the Federal Depository Library Program.

Does IA now have to store floors upon floors of paper copies of information, at least until it got digitized? Or are they now merely obliged to host the digital materials insofar as they already exist? That sounds like what they are doing already for the whole web, and also apparently since 2022 when they started "Democracy’s Library, a free online compendium of government research and publications", just that now they're legally obliged to do this or something?

What I find on doi.gov[1] is "The mission of Federal depository libraries is to provide local, free access to information from the Federal government" and nothing really further on what this concretely means. Sounds like just an obligation though?

What I find on gpo.gov[2] is "The Federal Depository Library Program [ensures] that the American public has access to Government information in depository libraries". Could mean anything. The program ensures that, but let's assume that means the designated libraries ensure that, so then do these libraries get extra info that the public doesn't get (but in order to disseminate them to the public)? Makes no sense either

The GPO page and the submission also say that "Members of Congress may designate up to two qualified libraries." Did they get picked and now it's IA's obligation, or did IA ask for this? What do they get out of it?

[1] https://www.doi.gov/library/collections/federal-documents

[2] https://www.gpo.gov/how-to-work-with-us/agency/services-for-...

As I understand it, it’s voluntary and like the government document version of the Twitter firehose. Direct access to all published government documents as they are created.

[flagged]