Craftsman + Businessman = Public Printer

WASHINGTON - When you say the "Government Printing Office", most people think of the big, hulking volumes of the federal budget, or thick agency and congressional reports. But now, the GPO is making the transition to a digital world, and a new boss says he is trying to keep the "nation's printshop" relevant.

Bob Tapella, the U.S. Public Printer and head of the Government Printing Office, has been in printing for about 30 years, by his own accounting.

"I started as a calligrapher, and illuminator," he said in a recent interview at his GPO office, "then I got into book binding, and design, print brokerage. I got a degree from Cal Poly/San Luis Obispo in print management." He adds that he has also managed five different printing businesses.

Six years ago, Tapella moved from California to Washington, D.C. to become one of the main assistants to the previous Public Printer, Bruce James, and then replaced the man who hired him last October.

In addition to his experience as both an artist and businessman in the world of printing, Tapella has also worked closely for the GPO's biggest, and earliest client: the U.S. Congress.

"Having worked as a district (office) director for a member of the House, chief of staff for another House member, working for the Clerk of the House, and also for one of the oversight committees, I have a deep understanding of the legislative process, and an interest in it." He describes the intersection of his love of printing and fascination with the work of lawmakers as "just too interesting."

Tapella says that the GPO dates back to 1861, when its first client was the Congress, and that client, he says, remains one of the mainstays of his agency. "There are 27 steps in the legislative process, and GPO is involved in 12 of them," he says. One of the most important is that the GPO publishes the Congressional Record, the official printed journal and record of the proceedings of both the House and Senate.

"We have typesetters and composers who work overnight daily when the House and Senate are in session to publish and deliver the previous day's record the next morning."

The GPO is also responsible for printing variations of different bills as they make their way from committee to the full House or Senate.

For Bob Tapella, the next step in the evolution of the GPO is making more and more government content available in a digital format. And he tells FederalNewsRadio that one of the biggest challenges he and the GPO face literally boils down to "keeping it real":

In a printed document, you know when it came from GPO. In the electronic world, how do we know that, and what constitutes an official version? Four years ago, we started a program called FD-SYS, originally called the "Future Digital System", now called "GPO's Federal Digital System", and it will be the repository of all the known documents that are in the Federal Depository Library Program, that we will make available electronically.

Tapella also says that the GPO has a program to continually research new, emerging technologies for distributing information. As an example, he says he's personally a fan of the new "Kindle" electronic book reader from Amazon.com. He finds the device, with its wireless internet connectivity, a handy way to daily keep up with newspapers and magazines, especially when he travels.

However, he says that it may be sometime before GPO begins to offer publications for the Kindle, explaining that the technology behind the device is proprietary, and that degree of exclusivity conflicts with his personal obligation as the nation's Public Printer to make the government's information available widely, and without regard to an exclusive technology.

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