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Bill Would End US Govt's Sale of Already-Available Technical Papers To Itself

Posted by timothy on from the what-and-forgo-the-multiplier-effect? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Members of the Senate have proposed a bill that would prohibit the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) from selling to other U.S. federal agencies technical papers that are already freely available. NTIS is under the Department of Commerce. The bill is probably a result of a 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which points out that 'Of the reports added to NTIS's repository during fiscal years 1990 through 2011, GAO estimates that approximately 74 percent were readily available from other public sources.' Ars Technica notes that the term 'public sources' refers to 'either the issuing organization's website, the federal Internet portal, or another online resource.'"

6 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bad idea? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 2

    I am presuming that the NTIS does not run with massive profits or have staff with obviously higher salaries than elsewhere. In that case the fees they receive would probably go to cover legitimate work - for example, the work of gathering these papers into one repository. Something being publicly available doesn't mean easily or obviously accessible, and gathering and systematizing it is value-adding legwork. Hence given a choice they would either stop doing that, or increase the price of the remaining 25% of papers massively. I don't have direct knowledge of the situation, but it seems like one where there is potential for unintended consequences.

    Exactly. I do not know about NTIS, but there are fee for service gov't agencies that charge other agencies for what they do. They differ from appropriated agencies, who get a fixed amount of money from the budget, in that they need to make enough to cover costs. If they don't, they ultimately need to cut expenses like any private organization. In addition, other agencies do not have to use their services, they can buy them on the open market as well if the cost is less.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  2. Re:Bad idea? by Lehk228 · · Score: 2

    people wonder why government acts so inept at times, yet they keep electing herp and derp to congress

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  3. What the bill really is doing by tomhath · · Score: 2

    The NTIS was established before the internet made information easy to find and download. Back in the day it made sense to provide that service; NTIS was self-funded by the modest fees it charged. But times have changed; today it's a dinosaur agency that provides no value, loses money and should be sunset. Here's a better summary of what's going on.

    1. Re:What the bill really is doing by NicBenjamin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's not very convincing. $1.3 million a year is literally a rounding error of a rounding error in the context of a $Trillion budget. Since Senators make $174k each, and they have offices with dozens of people, it's likely the salary of the people who just wrote a proposal to defund this agency cost more then the agency did.

      And if you read your source critically you'll note that it actually proved the agency has value. 26% of it's reports are not available to the government from free sources. The other 74% are clearly not in an easily searched place or nobody would pay the NTIS from their budget to access the damn things.

      BTW, the source you link to is a reprint of the press release from McCaskill's office, not an independent take at the issue. And even in her press release McCaskill just doesn't supply a very convincing array of facts.

    2. Re:What the bill really is doing by murpup · · Score: 2

      The question in my mind, however, is - if they do shut down this agency - then what will they do with all the old paper-only reports that were published before the internet and electronic documents came about? Presumably, all those old reports have been scanned into microfiche, ready to be reprinted on demand. What happens to those? I would hope that before eliminating the agency, there would be an effort to scan all those microfiche to pdf and make them available for free on the web. Or maybe just hand them over to Google and let them scan it all in and host it.

  4. I used the NTIS last month: The Long Tail by __aapopf3474 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I was doing research earlier this year and needed a paper summarizing a taxpayer funded project from 1967. This paper was not to be found anywhere else but at the NTIS. Libraries listed the NTIS as the place that had a copy. If the NTIS was not able to sell me a copy of the paper, then I would not have been able to get the information. Closing the NTIS only makes sense if the entire contents of the NTIS's archives are made available on the Internet.

    The problem is that the most popular NTIS stuff is already on the net, but the remaining 30% (the long tail) is not.

    The federally funded research was about these large (miles in radius) circles found in Nevada. There was conjecture that they were from a nuclear test. It turns out that they were from a toxic cloud test that was done using a solid rocket engine treated with beryllium. See http://pacaeropress.websitetoo..., http://aair.smugmug.com/Aviati... and http://blackrockdesert.org/wik...

    The NTIS had the paper in question, which I was able to get and confirm that the semi-circles were created as part of the test. There was no mention of the test in the local papers or anywhere else I could find. If the NTIS did not have the paper, then my only hope would have been to ask Aerojet, the company contracted to do the research. The odds of them having a paper from 1967 is pretty low.

    I realize that this question is not a critical, life threatening question, but determining *why* the circles where there and dispelling rumors about nuke tests is useful. The pursuit of the truth is lofty goal. Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it. In the case of this study, it turns out that there was an inversion layer that prevented a bunch of the particulate matter from reaching the ground in the test site. Maybe this is a well know mechanism now, but if I were researching atmospheric pollution, then I would want to review a study like this. If this study is not accessible, then it is like it never happened.

    If the NTIS is disbanded, then we are basically tossing a bunch of tax-payer funded projects in to the shredder.

    Interestingly, Canada is going through a somewhat similar issue where libraries containing research materials are being closed. Here an article from 2012: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

    I'm no fan of big government, but if the NTIS is to be closed, then the entire contents of the NTIS library must be made freely available.