Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined electronic information dissemination processes at four agencies, focusing on the: (1) Department of Agriculture's Computerized Information Delivery Service; (2) National Technical Information Service's Bibliographic Database; (3) Bureau of the Census' general information dissemination program; and (4) National Library of Medicine's Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System.

GAO described the users and uses of data, agency planning activities, data integrity practices and controls, agency costs for information dissemination, and practices paid by information users.