Publishing and Depository Services (PDS) Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) Presented at the Queen’s Printers Annual Conference Halifax 2009

PDS Program Evaluation 2008 Objective Conducted by PWGSC’s Audit and Evaluation Branch to assess the relevance and cost-effectiveness of Program and measure successfulness in meeting its mandatory objectives within a changing environment Findings PDS is more relevant than ever and consistent with GC policies and priorities and continues to meet on-going publishing and distribution needs of federal organizations. PDS has successfully adapted to changing environment and Canadians are accessing more publications each year (2.5 million downloads in 2004-2005 compared to 9.2 million in 2008-2009) A centralized Publishing and Depository Services model is the most efficient means of ensuring accessibility. Compliance by departments remains an on-going concern. PDS administers and protects the integrity of government information through streamlined processes for Crown Copyright management Increasing IT costs, declining revenues and funding uncertainty impedes effective management

PDS Program Evaluation 2008 (cont’d) Recommendations Increase and formalize its efforts to engage federal departments to improve their compliance in order to increase the number of publications made available to Canadians. Develop options to obtain funding to deal with increased costs and workload. Action Plan PDS created and implemented Action Plan Quarterly Reporting to the Deputy Minister on deliverables.

Virtual Roundtable Project 2009 Objective Conduct an analysis / environmental scan of PDS environment to more effectively respond to evolving needs of Canadians. Methodology A state of the art internet based forum was organized enabling participants to take part in a guided Virtual Roundtable discussion. Four VRT were held involving 43 participants representing the publishing, library and IM/IT specialists; experts in the field of publishing and the internet. Key Findings Strong support for PDS as the lead organization in the GC responsible for ensuring that Canadians have continued access to federal publications Stakeholders stressed importance and need for a central, coordination agency to be the registry and access point to both print and electronic. Challenges Users rely heavily on PDS services Eager to see additional investments in such areas as IM/IT and marketing to increase access Little or no readiness whatsoever to accept new user or service fees to support service improvement.

Current Issues and Challenges Common Look & Feel 2 (CLF2) Mandatory compliance by December 2008 Phase I CLF2 is a Treasury Board Policy composed of a set of standards that govern: web and email addresses; accessibility, interoperability, usability of web sites; common web page formats; All “publicly facing” web content must meet CLF2 requirements including database contents. Basic requirements XHTML is the primary file format for web publishing. All content including e-pubs must be in XHTML. Once this requirement is met, then alternate formats such as PDF may be provided. Departments required to convert existing documents, all content, web addresses and email addresses must conform to Official Languages requirements. Major concern for DSP – impossible to convert existing e-collection in PDF to XHTML DSP seeking exemption from: producing XHTML version 2.0 accessible alternate formats, past and future; renaming files and domains to meet bilingual requirements past and future; submission to Treasury Board: December 1, 2008. Request for additional clarification from TB: June 2009 Decision still pending

Current Issues and Challenges (cont’d) Web Site Integration (planned launch date July 2010) DSP and the Publications Web Sites will be combined into a single CLF2 compliant web site. Driven by Treasury Board's requirement for all GC Internet sites to be CLF2 compliant by 1 January 2009. Represents a significant investment in IT costs and resources Compliance with Treasury Board Communications Policy Communications Policy Requirements (Section 27) Maintain index that lists all of an institution’s published works, free and priced; Forward the index with regular updates to PWGSC for entry into the GC’s central publishing database; Provide copies of published works to PDS.

Current Issues and Challenges (cont’d) Action taken by PDS Round table meetings with DGs of Communications and Treasury Board; Increased awareness and acceptance at senior levels of importance of complying with Section 27; Increased “buy in” by departments and significant increase in backlist monographs in Weekly Checklist; Policy is currently under review and will be strengthened thus providing PDS with more authority. Noticeable increase in compliance by most departments Publication Index is forwarded twice a year for inclusion in GC Publications Database (publications.gc.ca). Benefits to PDS, Library Community and Canadians Increased authority for PDS; Higher compliance levels = more publications. Monitoring of compliance Once new policy is implemented, PDS will be reporting to Treasury Board on compliance of departments

Crown Copyright Management As a follow up to the PDS Evaluation Management Action Plan, a review of current policies and processes was conducted Meetings were held with Treasury Board Secretariat, Industry Canada (including their legal counsel), Canadian Heritage and Public Works and Government Services Canada’s legal counsel. Objective: To streamline processes for copyright requests and to facilitate public access to publications information regardless of format. Result: No permission will be required to reproduce free and priced publications for non commercial purposes regardless of format. TBS has approved PDS changes to “Important Notices” on government websites. Next steps: Meetings and information sessions will be held with departments in the fall. Implementation date: Last quarter 2009-2010

Challenges Ahead Technology E-collection DSP currently acquires PDFs for their well-known stability; Major costs associated with server space to house e-publications, and for the hardware, software, and technical expertise required to publish and maintain them; How much is it going to cost to keep e-pubs on-line and accessible for the next 100 years, compared with the cost of keeping a print copy? Risky Business – significant information holdings could be wiped out or become unusable. System Constraints and Considerations Current computerized applications are reaching the end of their lifecycles Realignment of IT and business requirements is imperative PDS will be developing an Enterprise Architecture Model based on business, data, application and technology requirements Solutions and opportunities will be elaborated and mapped into a consolidated migration plan spanning the next three years IT Costs IT costs continue to increase on a yearly basis PDS will require increased multi-year funding to cover developmental and implementation costs of new technology standards.

Challenges Ahead (cont’d) Funding Obtaining permanent stable funding to support on-going and future program delivery remains an on-going issue. Budgetary restrictions were imposed on departmental spending and hiring from December 2008 to April 2009. We fully expect that there will be similar limitations in the current exercise 2009-2010 Program Review PWGSC is planning on conducting a departmental-wide Program review to reallocate funding to support high-priority programs