GPO Gets New Name at Last

It took a while, but on Tuesday the Government Printing Office was finally, officially rechristened the Government Publishing Office. The change, proposed by U.S. Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks and introduced into legislation last January, better demonstrates the current role that GPO plays in providing access to government information in digital format, such as apps and ebooks.

Buried two thirds of the way down in the "Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015" (Section 1301 to be exact), passed by Congress and signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama, are these words: "The Government Printing Office is hereby redesignated the Government Publishing Office."

Also gone, however, will be the title Public Printer, which is now replaced with "Director of the Government Publishing Office" (making Vance-Cooks the first to hold that title). A closer reading of the bill shows that Congress took this opportunity to clean up the language that describes the GPO, altering numerous references to "he" and "his" and other antiquated assumptions that the leader of the GPO would always be a male.