The Library Services and Content Management (LSCM) business unit of the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) began digital imaging works of the U.S. Government in 2016. The overall objective of digital imaging is to increase public access to historic Federal Government information by making it available digitally on GovInfo, and ultimately to make the entire National Collection of U.S. Government Information available digitally.
GPO’s System of Online Access Collection Development Plan support’s GovInfo to make it the “most comprehensive information repository serving the information needs of Congress, Federal agencies, and the public” and entails the ingest of current and historical content. LSCM reevaluates the Plan’s deliberate priority setting and planned collecting activities and goals annually.
LSCM utilizes two avenues to acquire digital images: digital imaging through contract vehicles and content digitally imaged by partners. Consider partnering with GPO to make the content you digitized more widely available. If you have a project that you would like to talk with GPO about, contact GPO’s partnership coordinator via askGPO; choose the GPO customer type, Federal Depository Library; and choose the category, Partnerships. To learn more about how to become a partner and see the list of current partners, visit the partnerships page.
Digital Imaging Specifications
- Follow the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative’s “Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials” three-star level.
- Additional specifications include (exact specifications may differ based on the content being digitally imaged):
- 400 ppi (original document size) with 24-bit RGB color.
- Master file format: JPEG 2000 with up to a 20:1 lossless compression ratio.
- Searchable and optimized PDFs compliant to the PDF/A2-b format specification standard.
- OCR text saved as txt file format for each publication.
- Pages should have no visible skew (no more than between 0-1 degrees).
- Pages cropped so the page edge is showing with a border of no less than 1/16 inch and no larger than ¼ inch.
FY26 Accomplishments
- Over 4.3 million pages of content were made available on GovInfo.
- A new Govinfo collection was launched including reports from all three branches of Government. You can discover 3,657 annual reports through the collection.
- In FY 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court’s born digital volumes were added, expanding the collection to include volumes 2 through 586.
- Continued collaboration with the Law Library of Congress to digitize and describe the U.S. Congressional Serial Set. In FY26, LSCM ingested 38,656 congressional reports and documents from 2,087 Serial Set volumes. As of today, there are 11,941 Serial Set volumes available on Govinfo.
- The collection of historic depository shipping lists was enhanced, adding 13,366 microfiche format shipping lists.
- 2,664 Congressional Committee Prints.
- 1,800 publications from the Office of Education under the Dept. of the Interior (I 16).
FY27 Plans
- Continuing digitization of the Code of Federal Regulations and beginning the design process that will support adding the digitized volumes to the day forward collection on Govinfo
- Developing the Foreign Relations of the United States collection, which will bring together volumes in the Serial Set, volumes contributed by the State Department Office of the Historian, and volumes scanned by LSCM
- Continuing the digitization of Congressional hearings
- Continuing the digitization of miscellaneous publications, including annual reports
Related Resources
- GPO Needs List
- “Digital Content Contributor Partnerships, Collaborating with GPO, Building the National Collection” webinar
- “Guidance for Digitally Imaging Content for Submission to GovInfo”