Prepared Remarks of Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero at a ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of establishment of the Government Printing Office. The event took place in Harding Auditorium at the GPO.
June 23, 2010
The Archivist was introduced by Public Printer Robert C. Tapella.
Who is the Archivist?
The Archivist of the United States is the head of our agency, appointed by the President of the United States.
What's an Archivist?
Thank you, Bob. Happy Birthday, GPO! A 150th birthday is indeed cause for celebration, and congratulations for reaching this milestone.
Congratulations in particular to the employees of the GPO: the men and women who do incredible work—both in terms of quantity and quality—to meet customer needs. This is especially the case with the tight turnarounds necessary for the daily Federal Register and Congressional Record.
The National Archives has a unique relationship with the GPO. It is a customer, like all other Federal agencies. But it also counts the GPO as an Affiliated Archives for the purpose of preserving the thousands of Government publications available online through GPO Access. This agreement was the first of its kind between the Archives and another Government agency to specifically address electronic government records.
And the GPO and the National Archives have a special partnership relationship in publishing the Federal Register.
The Federal Register, sometimes described as the Federal Government’s legal newspaper, will celebrate its own 75th anniversary later this year. This partnership is most likely one of the longest-running, most successful in U.S. Government annals.
GPO and the Federal Register have never missed publishing the Federal Register on any day—regardless of rain, shine, snow, floods, electrical emergencies, national attack—in all of those 75 years.
Since 1934, the number of individual pages of the Federal Register has totaled 2,897,948, and the number of individual pages of the Code of Federal Regulations has totaled 4,340,004 pages!
To say that another way, between our two agencies, over the 75 years of our partnership, we have passed back and forth between us more than 7 million pages. That’s a pretty strong and enduring partnership!
Together, we have successfully done our respective parts to help fulfill the promise of the Constitution for a government that works under the rule of law, assures due process of law, and works best when the public is a full participant.
Thank you, all—and Congratulations, GPO!