GPO and LOC Launch Digital Projects

One of the goals of the Government Printing Office is to digitize the “legacy” collection of key Congressional publications. This week Mary Alice Baish, the new GPO Superintendant of Documents, announced that GPO will be collaborating with the Library of Congress to digitize portions of the Statutes at Large and Congressional Record, and to provide enhanced online access to the Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation (CONAN). From the announcement: ” The digitization project will include the public and private laws, and proposed constitutional amendments passed by Congress as published in the official Statutes at Large from 1951-2002. GPO and LOC will also work on digitizing official debates of Congress from the permanent volumes of the Congressional Record from 1873-1998. These laws and documents will be authenticated and available to the public on GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) www.gpo.gov/fdsys and the Library of Congress’s THOMAS legislative information system www.thomas.gov. The other project will provide enhanced public online access to the Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation (CONAN), a Senate Document that analyzes Supreme Court cases relevant to the Constitution. The project involves creating an enhanced version of CONAN, where updates to the publication will be made available on FDsys as soon as they are prepared. In addition to more timely access to these updates, new online features will also be added, including greater ease of searching and authentication. GPO authenticates the documents on FDsys by digital signature and these authenticated documents are also available on the Library’s THOMAS system. This signature assures the public that the document has not been changed or altered since receipt by GPO. This digital signature, viewed through the GPO Seal of Authenticity, verifies the document’s integrity and authenticity.”