‘Privatizing’ Technical Research Library Studied : Critics Hit Plan to Sell U.S. Agency
The Reagan Administration has asked the Commerce Department to study whether the government agency that is the storehouse of 40 years of government-funded technical research should be sold, in whole or part, to the private sector.
The Office of Management and Budget wants to consider alternatives for “privatizing” the National Technical Information Service. NTIS, which is part of the Commerce Department, was set up shortly after World War II to collect the technical information generated in the United States during the war effort and information contained in documents captured from the Germans and the Japanese.
From those beginnings it expanded to collect government-produced technical and scientific research.
The notion of turning over NTIS over to the private sector has drawn fire from critics, including librarians across the country, who argue that putting the information service in private hands could destroy its effectiveness. Critics also question the value of transferring the service to private hands, since it is self-supporting as a government operation.
“NTIS has done a consistently fine job as an agency under the U.S. Department of Commerce,” wrote Larry Chasen, manager of the General Electric-Space System Division Library, in response to a request for comments on the proposal. “In view of the fact they are self-supporting, I really cannot see why OMB’s feathers have been ruffled. We have utilized NTIS every day since its inception, with beautiful results. A change to the present fine system of handling technical information is a step backward.”
In fact, according to Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Calif.), a member of the House Committee on Science and Technology, under the present system NTIS can and does enter into arrangements with private business to offer functions that can be done more cost-effectively by the private sector.
“To go beyond this logical provision, given all the probable negative consequences, is to invite the permanent loss of one of this nation’s true treasures,” Brown wrote.
Collects Data Globally
NTIS collects government-produced technical information from all over the world. According to NTIS deputy director Joseph E. Clark, about a fourth of the information that the agency collects comes from outside the United States, the result of exchange agreements. Although federal agencies are not required to turn over the results of their research and the research they fund to the NTIS, most do, since it saves the individual agencies the bother of storing and distributing the information themselves.
Most of the users of the information are small businesses.
NTIS covers its costs by selling reports and leasing its database, one of the top 10 databases in the world, to commercial information companies that sell computer access to it. NTIS adds about 70,000 new technical reports to its bibliographical index every year, and provides access to about 2 million technical reports in all.
OMB spokesman Ed Dale said the OMB has not recommended privatizing NTIS.
“What we asked them to do is study it,” he said. “They have every right to say, ‘No, that’s a terrible idea.’ ”
The American Library Assn., the Assn. of Research Libraries and librarians from research facilities and universities around the United States have generally spoken out in opposition to privatization, questioning whether a privatized version of the operation would retain reports that attract few users and whether federal agencies and other governments would continue to make information available to a privately run operation on the same basis that they do now.
“We couldn’t guarantee that the information stream would continue,” said Clark. “We have been told by government agencies and foreign governments that they have serious doubts that they would continue if we were taken over by a private enterprise.”
Looks for Improvements
Clark said he expected the study of alternatives will provide an opportunity to learn what the agency might do better, however.
The Information Industry Assn. has suggested a balance between private and public functions, with the taxpayer picking up the cost of collecting and organizing scientific and technical information, which then would be sold by private industry. NTIS would continue to provide individual reports to the public at cost, but would be prohibited from maintaining and selling databases that could be made available from the private sector.
Several companies currently sell products derived from the information collected by NTIS.
“The problem is that we find ourselves competing with NTIS,” said Kenneth B. Allen, vice president for government relations for the Information Industry Assn. “We’re sort of at an impasse. The government can’t do a much better job than it’s doing, and the private sector is unwilling to put much more into it” because of competition from NTIS.
Funding the collection and organization of information through appropriations would be warranted because access to the information is in the public interest, Allen said, adding: “If you don’t believe it’s benefiting the entire public, we would raise the question of why NTIS is in business at all.”
