In a case of the left hand of government having no idea what the right hand is doing, the U.S. government has entered into a book deal with the very same iBookstore that the Department of Justice says is guilty of anti-trust violations.
The deal with the Government Printing Office (GPO) will make a wide swath of documents and ebooks available through the iBookstore. While some government documents are available for free, a number of documents and full-length ebooks are not.
Documents originating from the White House that are currently available free of charge include Economic Report of the President and The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2013.
Ebooks available for a fee include On Course to Desert Storm, published by the Department of Defense, and Ponzimonium: How Scam Artists are Ripping Off America, published by Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The agency has made many partnerships in order to make content more easily available via digital channels. They already have similar partnerships in place with Google Play, Barnes & Noble, OverDrive, Ingram, and Zinio. Through each outlet, the agency has made 250 documents and ebooks available. It expects to add more content to the iBookstore over time.
It can be a challenge to locate the titles published by the agency on the iBookstore, as there is no consistent author or publisher to search for. Authors can be government staff members, committees, or an entire agency. However, most do list the name of the agency responsible for publishing the content.
The GPO is one of the oldest federal agencies, celebrating its 150th anniversary last year. It is responsible for making the content from various federal agencies and all branches of the government available to Americans, as well as being responsible for preserving and cataloging key government documents.
