Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 10:56:01 -0500 (EST)
From: James McDonough <epin@access.digex.net>
Subject: EPIN Summary


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     SUMMARY OF ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER
                  VOL. 4, NO. 23; December 2, 1994
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INDEX:

1. PERRITT PRESENTS SWEEPING REPORT ON GOVERNMENT INFORMATION
2. GIWG CIRCULATING DRAFT OF ELECTRONIC FOIA PRINCIPLES
3. NTIS MOVES TO STORE ALL NEW INFORMATION IN ELECTRONIC FORM


1. PERRITT PRESENTS SWEEPING REPORT ON GOVERNMENT INFORMATION: The
report, "Public Information in the National Information 
Infrastructure," by Prof. Henry H. Perritt, Jr., of the Villanova
University Law School is a comprehensive "snap-shot" of the current
policy and practices regarding the dissemination of government
information in electronic form and a vision of a realizable
"electronic government" of the future. The 95-page report presents
useful descriptions of all major federal information intiatives,
along with a vision of an "electronic government." The study was
prepared earlier this year for the Regulatory Information Service
Center, General Services Administration, and for the Administrator
of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of
Management and Budget, and has recently become available over the
Internet. The report can be found on the Villanova Center for
Information Law and Policy server in FTP, Gopher and WWW. The FTP
address is: //ftp.law.vill.edu/pub/law/fed-
agency/OMB/pub.info.NII./ombreprt.txt. The WWW URL is:
http://www.law.vill.edu/Fed-Agency/OMB/pub.info.NII/ombtoc.htm.

2. GIWG CIRCULATING DRAFT OF ELECTRONIC FOIA PRINCIPLES: The
Government Information Working Group (GIWG), a sub-group of the
Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), is circulating a
10-page draft of "Electronic FOIA Principles" for public comment.
The purpose of the draft is to establish a set of principles in
regard to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for
information in electronic form. It is hoped the principles will
serve to assist legislators in developing "fundamental, workable
rules" for electronic FOIA requests. The draft is being circulated
by Bruce McConnell, GIWG Chair, and Chief, Information Branch,
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of the
Management and Budget.


3. NTIS MOVES TO STORE ALL NEW INFORMATION IN ELECTRONIC FORM: The
National Technical Information Service (NTIS) is laying the ground
work for conversion of all its new information holdings into
electronic form. In so doing, NTIS becomes the first agency outside
of the Department of Defense to make the decision to use electronic
form as its primary means of storing its documents. NTIS--which
distributes government scientific, technical and engineering
information--plans to maintain an electronic storage facility at
its Springfield, Va. site from which it will fulfill orders for
documents in either electronic, printed or microfiche form. The
agency is currently negotiating the purchase of "hands-free, high-
speed," scanning equipment to allow it to transform written
material it recieves from agencies into electronic form. NTIS has
hooked up its electronic storage facility to a Xerox Docutech
system, which allows the agency to produced printed, bound copies
of the electronic document. NTIS calls the storage facility, the
Docutech and the implementing software its "Automated Storage,
Transmission and Retrieval" (ADSTAR) system.  


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INFORMATION NEWSLETTER and subscription rates contact:

James McDonough
Electronic Public Information Newsletter
epin@access.digex.net
Tel:/Fax: (301) 365-3621