Federal Manager's Daily Report

Legislation has been introduced to change the name of the Government Printing Office to the Government Publishing Office to better reflect the agency’s changing role in the face of digital technology.

A provision of the bill (S-1947, introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.) would also change the agency leader’s title from public printer, to “director,” and strike a requirement that he or she “be a practical printer and versed in the art of bookbinding.”

Agency head Devita Vance-Cooks has been pushing for a name change to reflect the balance of the agency’s increasingly digital work, and a more content-centric orientation rather than print-centric. The agency recently issued a strategic plan for 2014 – 2018 describing plans to provide more options for official, digital, secure publishing services to meet the changing information needs of Congress, agencies, and the public, keeping place with rapidly evolving technology and work patterns.