(a) Nothing in these regulations shall be deemed to exempt an agency from any of the following requirements:

(1) Compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552);

(2) Compliance with any requirements to protect material that contains classified national security information;

(3) Compliance with requirements to protect personal or other information that may not be disclosed without appropriate authority under applicable laws and procedures, such as the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a);

(4) Compliance with laws and regulations applicable to federal records under Title 44 of the United States Code or regulations issued by the National Archives and Records Administration (36 CFR, chapter XII);

(5) Compliance with requirements to distribute publications through the Depository Library Program either directly or through NTIS as prescribed in subsection (d) of this section; and

(6) In the case of an agency that is also a component of an agency as that term is defined in § 1180.2, compliance with all applicable requirements and procedures of the parent agency regarding these regulations.

(b) Nothing in these regulations shall be deemed to require an agency to take any of the following actions:

(1) To use NTIS as an agency's exclusive distribution channel;

(2) To transfer to NTIS information on matters that are specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order; or

(3) to transfer, produce, or disseminate any other information that is required by law to be withheld, which the agency is authorized to withhold, or which is not intended by the agency for public dissemination.

(c) No contractor, grantee, or employee of a Federal agency shall submit a final STEI product directly to NTIS unless authorized to do so by the Liaison or the Liaison's designate, which authorization may be provided in an approved funding agreement (see Appendix to this part).

(d) In order to facilitate cooperation between agencies and the Depository Libraries—

(1) NTIS will, as soon as possible, but not later than six months from the effective date of these regulations, provide each Depository Library at no charge, online access to a current list of all final STEI products provided to NTIS under these regulations that have been entered into the NTIS system.

(2) The online system described in subsection (d) of this section will include an option that will allow each Depository Library thirty days from the date a product is added to the online listing to identify a product that it wishes to receive and that has not otherwise been made available to it.

(3) NTIS will accumulate these requests and, within a reasonable time, transfer them to the originating agency for fulfillment of each of the identified products.

(4) In lieu of the procedures described in paragraph (d)(3) of this section, NTIS will offer to enter into simple cost recovery arrangements with the originating agency to duplicate and ship the identified products to the requesting Libraries in the format that the agency determines to be most cost effective, including microfiche, paper, diskette, or disc.

(5) NTIS will also establish, as soon as practical, a system of full text online access to final STEI products for the Depository Libraries at no charge to them. Those final STEI products provided to NTIS in a format prescribed by NTIS as suitable for online dissemination under this system will be made available to the Libraries at no charge to the originating agency, will be maintained online indefinitely, and will be available to the Libraries without regard to the thirty day selection time limit described in paragraph (d)(2) of this section.

(6) The services in this paragraph will be provided to Depository Libraries on the condition that they agree to ensure that online access to the NTIS listing described in paragraph (d)(1) of this section is restricted to the Library and its staff and that the full text products provided online pursuant to paragraph (d)(5) of this section are available only to the community served by that Library.