The U.S. Government Printing Office - Marketing and publishing

Abstract

Official printer and sales agent for publications of the Federal government, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) receives typed and electronic manuscripts from virtually every agency of government. Either in house or through commercial procurement, GPO provides typesetting, printing, and binding services to produce finished publications. GPO also disseminates these publications through the 1400 Depository Libraries and the Superintendent of Documents Sales Program. GPO employs an hierarchical marketing system which helps assure public exposure for every sales program title, while assigning increasing levels of promotion for titles with the greatest sales potential. As a trend, GPO sees fewer consumer-oriented publications and more professional-use titles. GPO also observes a new appreciation of the value of government statistical information, and increased agency efforts to provide improved public access to this data. GPO is working with publishing agencies and information-technology suppliers to study ways of accommodating demand for electronic information dissemination.