Technical reports and non-depository publications

Abstract

Federal non-depository publications disseminated by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) increased slightly in number in 1992 as compared to 1991. This continues the trend for slight increases each year rather than the decreases of the years previous to 1991. NTIS continues to receive and disseminate federally funded research and development reports, which are abstracted in Government Reports Announcements and Index and related abstract journals. Many of the publications described in this column came directly from the authoring agency, however. These were sent either via an agency mailing list or through library solicitation. Last year, government information specialists believed the GPO Wide Information Network Data Online Act of 1991 (WINDO) would be a positive move toward establishing a single point of public access to federal electronic databases. This bill died in committee with the close of the 102nd Congress. A more limited bill was introduced in the 103rd Congress and passed as the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1992 (Public Law 103–140, 107 Stat. 112). This law establishes GPO as a gateway and provider of electronic information, but limits its authority to acquire and disseminate that information as compared to the WINDO bill. The law requires GPO to create and maintain a directory of federal publications in electronic format and to provide online computer access to this directory and to other documents, for which GPO can charge reasonable fees. The law permits GPO to provide access to this online system to depository libraries without charge. However, no additional appropriations were authorized for GPO to implement the provisions of the Act. Meanwhile, federal agencies continue to utilize electronic formats to disseminate information at an increasing rate. A number of non-depository CD-ROM databases are included in this review. In many cases, the data on these CD-ROMs have not been previously available. All except one of the publications reviewed below were published in 1992. Short quotations, which are not referenced in the reviews, were taken from the preface or introduction of the document. I wish to express my appreciation to Fred C. Schmidt (FCS), Head, Documents Department, Colorado State University Libraries, for the reviews he contributed and for his help and support in the production of this column.