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TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1996.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

WITNESSES

JAMES H. BILLINGTON, THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS

THOMAS P. CARNEY, ACTING DEPUTY LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
SUZANNE E. THORIN, ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN

WINSTON TABB, ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN FOR LIBRARY SERVICES
MARYBETH PETERS, REGISTER OF COPYRIGHTS

DANIEL P. MULHOLLAN, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH
SERVICE

FRANK KURT CYLKE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL LIBRARY SERVICE FOR THE BLIND AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED

HERBERT S. BECKER, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

JO ANN C. JENKINS, CHIEF OF STAFF, OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN GERALDINE M. OTREMBA, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE

JOHN D. WEBSTER, DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL SERVICES

JOHN O. HEMPERLEY, BUDGET OFFICER

JOHN RENSBARGER, INSPECTOR GENERAL

OPENING REMARKS

Mr. PACKARD. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we will bring this hearing to order. We don't have another member of the committee with us, but we are going to go ahead because of time. We expect votes to begin somewhere around 3 o'clock, and I don't want to have too many interruptions, so I think we will go ahead.

It is always a pleasure to have the Librarian with us, along with many of your staff, your key staff people, and the heads of different parts of your department. We are grateful to have you here, Dr. Billington.

BUDGET REQUEST

The 1997 budget for the Library calls for $512.5 million from a variety of sources, including appropriated funds, receipts, gifts, trusts and revolving funds, and the reimbursable program-$373 million from appropriated funds, and that is an increase of $20.6 million, or a 5.8 percent increase over current levels.

The Library is requesting an additional 61 positions above the current level of 4,214. And then there are an additional 505 FTEs that are supported from other sources, from my reading of the information.

We are grateful to have you with us, Dr. Billington. We will let you introduce those who are with you of your staff, at least those that you would like; and then I would like you to proceed as you wish.

(829)

I received your all members of the committee have received your written testimony. I read all of it, all 33 pages, or so of it, and we appreciate it. And I would prefer that you don't read it verbatim. You do as you wish, but I think that you can summarize. And that is true with the others that will be testifying; if you have submitted written statements, you may wish to summarize.

Before I ask for your testimony, however, I would like to just make comments that I have made in the hearings thus far, last week and this morning.

BALANCED BUDGET

I have a commitment to do my share when I say "my," I mean this subcommittee's share of moving toward a balanced budget in seven years. I can only do that, at least my portion of that commitment to a balanced budget-I can only do that with the help and cooperation of the agencies that come under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee; and the Library is certainly one of the significant agencies that does, and we are grateful to have them as part of our jurisdiction.

The Library of Congress was the only agency last year that we did not impose a rather significant decrease in budgeting-budget levels. You had, for the most part, level budgeting; and in some instances, a little bit of an increase in one or two areas.

I don't expect that to be the case this year, frankly. I think that the Library will probably be called upon to take some reduction from last year's levels. That won't be easy to do, and it certainly is not in keeping with what I read in your statement; but nevertheless, I think that the Library will find it very difficult to have the increases that you are seeking.

Nevertheless, I certainly want to hear your justifications, your feelings about the request; but I want you to know up front that this may be a more difficult year for us than in the past.

Thanks for being here, Mr. Taylor from North Carolina, who has joined us.

Having said that, we want to help the Library be as successful as it has been in the past, and even more successful, in its role. There is no question it is a premier agency, well run, and well staffed; and we appreciate you and your staff and the way that you are managing the Library, obviously. We have I have a responsibility to reach the reduction levels that have been imposed upon me, and I need your cooperation. I need that of every other agency that comes under our jurisdiction to help us reach those goals.

What those goals are this year, we still do not know. But nevertheless, we sense that the road to a balanced budget over the next seven years is not a one-year road. Last year, we made some significant progress in the right direction. We have restructured some of the agencies. We certainly are still in a very significant downsizing mode. And we want the Congress and the agencies that come under this legislative branch committee to be a model for other committees in the Congress to follow.

With those preliminary statements, now I would look forward to having your testimony. You may wish to introduce some of your staff first, if you would like.

Dr. BILLINGTON. Thank you.

With me are Thomas Carney, the acting Deputy Librarian of Congress; Suzanne Thorin, Associate Librarian; Winston Tabb, Associate Librarian for Library Services; Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights; Daniel P. Mulhollan, Director of the Congressional Research Service; Frank Kurt Cylke, the Director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped; Herbert S. Becker, Director, Information Technology Services; Jo Ann Jenkins, Chief of Staff, Office of the Librarian; Geraldine M. Otremba, Director of the Congressional Relations Office; John Webster, Director of Financial Services; and John Hemperly, Budget Officer.

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you very much. If you would like to proceed

now.

LIBRARIAN'S STATEMENT

Dr. BILLINGTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will not give you the full statement, but rather begin by first of all thanking you for the opportunity to be here once again with a committee which has been so supportive.

It is as if the world's largest oil reserves were sitting here on Capitol Hill as America was headed into the automobile age, and all we had to do was to extract and refine it into the fuel of progress. Knowledge and information are now the crucial commodities of our age, and the largest supply in all of world history is right here in the Library of Congress. So our job-and it is a very heavy and weighty responsibility-is to extract and refine it so that it can help fuel another age of progress for this country.

And unlike oil, the supply of knowledge is inexhaustible, is constantly increasing, and has potentially almost infinite uses. And unlike a deposit of oil, which is just fixed, knowledge depends on a network of institutional relationships that the Library of Congress has built up over nearly 200 years.

This Congress, and this committee in particular, has been the force that has sustained, created, supported this unique national resource, recognizing through its generosity that this Library is profoundly different from other parts of the legislative branch of government.

The Congress created here something that no one else has even attempted since the great Library in Alexandria at the end of the Ancient Age, namely, a universal collection of human knowledge and creativity. And Congress has embodied within the Library, largely through the copyright deposit, the closest thing anywhere to a mint record of America's history and creativity.

LIBRARY PRIORITIES

The Library's first priority is service to the Congress, as our chart here indicates.

The second is sustaining these unique collections; and third is making more of its riches more useful to more people.

[The strategic priorities chart and services to the nation charts follow:]

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The Library's mission is to make resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.

PRIORITIES

1. The first priority of the Library of Congress is to make knowledge and creativity available to the United States Congress.

II. The second priority of the Library of Congress is to preserve, secure and sustain for the present and future use of the Congress and the nation

• a comprehensive record of American history and creativity

• a universal collection of human knowledge

III. The third priority of the Library of Congress is to make its collections maximally accessible to (in order of priority)

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IV. The fourth priority is to add interpretive and educational value to the basic resources of the Library.

Feb 1996

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