WHEREAS, The Congressional Federal Depository Library Program administered by WHEREAS, The Government Printing Office recently released The Electronic Federal WHEREAS, GPO estimates that this transition will require the Superintendent of WHEREAS, Without appropriating the FY 1997 requested level of funding, essential RESOLVED, That the American Library Association urge Congress to fully fund the Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association San Antonio, Texas January 14, 1996 (Council Document 20.3) ALAAmerican LibraryAssociation RESOLUTION REGARDING A TRANSITION TO A MORE ELECTRONIC FEDERAL WHEREAS, WHEREAS, WHEREAS, WHEREAS, WHEREAS, INFORMATION SYSTEM The American Library Association has a long-standing record of support for a more electronic Federal Depository Library Program; and The Government Printing Office (GPO), by Congressional direction, has prepared The Electronic Federal Depository Library Program: Transition Plan, FY 1996-FY 1998, an innovative and thought provoking proposal to lead the FDLP to a more electronic environment; and The Transition Plan provides the foundation for increased public access to government information by offering new opportunities and mechanisms for the Federal government to share electronic information with the American public; and The time-frame for a transition to a more electronic FDLP must be reasonable and not impose barriers to public access to government information; and 24-564 96-39 1222 WHEREAS, WHEREAS, RESOLVED, RESOLVED, RESOLVED, At this time, there are no empirical data to suggest that a predominately electronic FDLP will result in cost-savings and preserve public access to government information; and Implementation of the Transition Plan requires substantial statutory changes to existing Federal information policy; now, therefore, be it That the American Library Association urge Congress to continue efforts to move the FDLP toward a more electronic information and dissemination program by adopting a 5-7 year time-frame for the transition, and be it further That the American Library Association urge Congress to reaffirm the Government's responsibility to provide Federal information in a format most appropriate to the public's needs by: supporting and funding the FDLP throughout the transition period at a level necessary to carry out a successful transition, and disseminating information in media appropriate to the information's content, use and audience, and ensuring no-fee public access to government information through depository libraries regardless of the agencies' cost recovery practices, and affirming the government's responsibility and strengthening its ability to archive and preserve government information for longterm access; and, be it further That ALA urge Congress to hold public hearings by both authorizing and appropriating committees prior to implementing the Transition Plan and to enact the necessary statutory changes to USC Title 44 in order to implement the Plan. Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association San Antonio, Texas January 14, 1996 (Council Document 20.4) Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Dennis Roth, if you would like to come forward, we have your testimony. We would appreciate you summarizing as best you can. Mr. ROTH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to invite our two vice presidents to join us. Mr. PACKARD. Of course, and introduce them, please. Welcome. We appreciate you being here. Mr. ROTH. To my immediate right is Judith Frasier, our Vice President for Dispute Resolution and Policies; and next down is Angie Smith, our Vice President for Training and Liaison. We all represent different parts of the library. I am more or less in the research part of it. Judy is from the reference part, from the Congressional Reference Division; and Angela is from the Library Services Division that gets us everything we need so we can do our jobs. So you have a broad spectrum of people here from CRS, and any questions you may-you will be able to get a wide viewpoint. Again, my name is Dennis Roth. I am President of the Congressional Research Association, which is the union representing employees of the Congressional Research Service. We represent both the professional and nonprofessional staff at CRS. We have been in existence for over 20 years. We believe that if you start with the civil service format in 1978, we have been in existence since then. Under that coverage, we have been one of the few legislative branch agencies that have been permitted unions; and we think, given our very closeness to you in terms of what we do and how we do it, we are evidence that a union can work in Congress. In your earlier discussions with the Compliance Board, you were a little bit wary about making mistakes and not knowing what is right and what is wrong; and I, who advocate that there is a lot of training and education that is necessary to make this work, just as you also talked about new technology and getting on to the computer systems. We need to learn what that is and how to do it. As you get into labor relations, that same type of training will be necessary. I would advocate that you do it jointly, by whatever happens with the employees. If labor and management understand the process together, we have always found it works much smoother than each person interpreting it on their own and then you fight over the interpretation, rather than the real substance of what you are trying to do. Also, in an open-shop environment, we are able to maintain a 65 to 70 percent membership rate. For the rest of the Federal Government, the rate is around 15 percent. So, again, that is evidence that if you do the right things, you can have the right people with you. CRS is now at a very crucial time in its history. As the Congress attempts to rightsize the legislative branch over the next several years, this subcommittee will be making decisions as to what services the Congress will need in order to make informed decisions regarding this country. I like to use the term rightsized as opposed to downsize, because rightsize means there is a method to the madness. Downsize generally says, we have too many people; we are going to get rid of them and just get the numbers down by the end of whatever the given period is. I think I have gotten Dr. Billington now to think in terms of rightsizing. He said it a couple of times. If you were at the hearings last November on the Oversight Committee where he did say rightsize as opposed to downsize and if we can get the subcommittee to think in that way, although we may be saying the same thing, when you say rightsize it really says you are thinking of it in a positive way to determine what you really need and how we are going to get there, rather than just elimination of bodies. CKS has not hired very many people since the days of GrammRudman-Hollings, which, as you know, is the mid-1980s. Because of this we have what I like to call a very mature work force, meaning that we will all be retiring or eligible to retire over the next decade. To learn the CRS work and how you do it takes-I call it an apprenticeship period, where you sort of interact with the Congress, you interact with the existing Members and members of our staff, and you learn how to fashion our responses to your needs. You can't just hire somebody tomorrow and expect them to be able to do the job that we currently do for you today. So we need to think of this, and this is why I would like to encourage this committee to sort of, if we could, focus on a way that you would see CRS. We talk about this being a 7-year process in trying to get the budget under control. But every year to cut a little here and cut a little there makes it very difficult to plan and to refill, to restock, because we will be losing a lot of our people, and to train them and to give them the knowledge we have. We are also knowledgeable in this organization, because most of us have been on the job 15 to 20 years. You can't learn all of that in a matter of a couple of weeks or even in a matter of a year. So we need to work with our new colleagues to bring them in. That is why if you have a targeted figure that you are doing, you could fill in those gaps where you need them and who is going to leave. I don't think I need to reiterate RIFs. The Director has done that in his testimony. I have done it in my testimony for the last several years. But if you need to ask us, we will be glad to tell you again how important we feel we are to you. Along that line, I want to let you know that most CRS staff still consider this a profession. They come to work, they put in more hours than they are paid for because they feel a dedication to be able to let you do your jobs the best you can do it. That is all up and down the ladder, and you don't find that very much in America today. Most people consider it a job. I go in at 9, and I leave at 5. I take my paycheck, and that is the end of it. CRS goes beyond that. We work for Congress. We are proud to work for Congress; and any way we can help you, we are glad to do it. CRS strongly supports the Director's request for just mandatories and price increases. This will allow us to fill in those gaps as people leave, do what I had mentioned earlier to bring on our new staff, know where we are going. If not, it will be very difficult to |