James Duggan, President of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) includes the following announcement in the February 2009 issue of his newsletter, From the Desk of James E. Duggan.:
“Earlier this month, the Government Printing Office (GPO) announced the release of the Federal Digital System (FDsys), GPO’s new digital system that provides access to government information from all three branches of government. At this first launch, FDsys contains more than 154,000 documents and many convenient features, including the ability to download metadata. While currently in public beta testing, FDsys is scheduled to replace the antiquated GPO Access in mid-2009.
During the past year, AALL and our members have provided support and feedback to GPO in the development of the new system. In May 2008, Mary Alice Baish testified before the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch in support of GPO’s $21.2 million request for FDsys, which was a significant portion of their Fiscal Year 2009 Appropriations Request. In addition, many AALL members offered their comments in small focus groups with the FDsys team at the AALL Annual Meeting in Portland and more recently at GPO’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. We are pleased that the FDsys developers implemented many of our suggestions, including numerous improvements to the actual design of the Web site and the option of searching by citation.
While FDsys is in public beta testing, we encourage you to explore the site, test the search capabilities, and think about improvements you would like to see. Please send your comments to the FDsys team at pmo@gpo.gov.”