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General SCOTT. I would just add that one of the difficult chal lenges is to be able to find the people who have the technica knowledge and then to be able to pay them comparable to what the civilian industry is paying them. That is one of the challenges tha we are facing when we look for people who have the knowledge o the new technical storage capacities, this digitally-based, and tha is something that we are continuing to struggle with.

Dr. BILLINGTON. I want to just pay tribute to our technical peo ple, because they have done tremendous work in keeping up with this exponential growth, because we had a billion electronic trans actions last year. Our electronic transactions, unlike banks and other institutions, contain a great deal of data. These are very data-heavy transactions. There is a tremendous burden here, and we really can't pay competitive salaries with the private sector This is definitely a problem, but the dedication and the hard work of the people who have made it possible to field a billion trans actions in a year and to keep getting out so much material is really extraordinary. That is why we do need this additional infrastruc

ture.

If we are talking about infrastructure, we are talking about two things, both storage capacity, these expensive technical things, and we are mainly talking about people, and that is what is so essential.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

Mr. TAYLOR. Dr. Billington, you are requesting about $2.1 million to begin an eight-year project to inventory the 17 million books and bound periodicals in the Library's collection. It was our understanding that one of the benefits of the Integrated Library System would be for the first time the Library could maintain inventory control over its collection. Has the Integrated Library System proven to be ineffective in this regard, or would this inventory project be accomplished as part of shifting to the Fort Meade storage facility?

Dr. BILLINGTON. No. It is not at all. The Integrated Library System has created a means and a mechanism by which it is possible to gain inventory control. This has been a constant concern of audits and reviews of the Library-item-level inventory control.

The Integrated Library System has made it possible for the first time to do this, but in order to do it, you have to check what is on the shelf. There has to be a one-time, basic inventory, which is very labor-intensive work. The Integrated Library System has given us a tool with which to do this, and that is why this is so important, because it will give us total inventory control, which we have never really been able to have before. This is a process that involves 17 million printed items, books and periodicals that have

to be inventoried.

Mr. TAYLOR. I have a question [The question and response fol

INVENTOR

You are requesting funding ($2.1 milli

will submit for the record.
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CONTROL

to begin an eight

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Statement of Daniel P. Mulhollan
Director, Congressional Research Service
before the

Subcommittee on Legislative
Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
Fiscal 2002 Budget Request

June 26, 2001

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to personally present for your consideration the fiscal year 2002 budget request for the Congressional Research Service.

Observations

The rise of technology and the Information Age have fundamentally changed the way Congress works, from the nature of the public policy issues you debate, to the ways in which you conduct your work each day to the methods you and your staff use to communicate both within and outside of Capitol Hill.

There are new issues before you. Technology is impacting virtually every public policy area that you consider. From privacy rights to taxation, you consider technology issues that are complex, interdisciplinary, highly specialized, rapidly changing, difficult to master expeditiously, and increasingly sophisticated. The 107th Congress is demonstrating continued intense interest in policy issues arising from the production and use of information technology. Members of the 106th Congress introduced hundreds of information technology bills and virtually every committee considered legislation related to some aspect of information technology. This is in marked contrast to over four years ago when Members of the 104th Congress introduced only several dozen information technology bills.

Your day to day work has changed as well. You and your staff operate in an environment of intense immediacy. You need information today- tomorrow, next week, next month are too late. Given this environment, you have turned to technologies that will provide you with information as quickly and efficiently as possible. You expect to access information 24 hours a day, seven days a week from wherever you are, be it in your Capitol Hill offices, at home, in your districts, or overseas as a member of a congressional delegation. You and your staff have less time to read through books

for facts, figures, and targeted information that you can download, manipulate, and pass along. E-mail and the Internet have also revolutionized the way you communicate among yourselves, with your staff, with your constituents, and with the hundreds of groups and organizations that you rely upon for information and insights, including CRS. This trend is particularly evident in your staff, who are increasingly technically savvy. For them (some have dubbed the e-generation) the ease and immediacy of e-mail is more conducive to their work style than voice mail and "phone tag".

The research and analytical work we do in CRS to support your legislative responsibilities has also been changing. The complexity and inter-relatedness of many of the issues facing Congress require CRS staff to be able to work together on issues and share data and information. As research is shifting from a primarily paper-based world to a digitally-dominated universe, research methods are evolving. The nature of CRS research is changing: from individual research to team and Service-wide research; from a single discipline perspective to integrated, multi-disciplinary perspectives; from individual data and information owners to groups who own and share their research; from main-frame dominant applications to network-dependent applications; and from paper and microfiche to the Internet, the Web, and multi-media.

What do these changes mean? They mean as Congress changes, so too must CRS. When Congress re-constituted CRS in the early 1970's, it did so with a vision of us as an extension of their own personal and committee staffs a shared pool of staff that could work seamlessly alongside Members and staff to support the legislative work of the nation.

We take seriously our statutory obligation to each Member and committee of Congress to provide you with the best analyses and information this country has to offer, and to do so in ways that meet your legislative needs and time frames.

You expect CRS to keep pace with you, and your staff, in addressing information technology policy issues and in integrating new technologies into our work. Just as you are grappling with policy implications of complicated technology issues, so too do you expect CRS to be analyzing and studying these issues. Just as you are communicating through e-mail, so too do you expect CRS to communicate through e-mail. Just as you are utilizing web pages to gather and disseminate legislative information, so too do you expect CRS to have a strong web presence. And just as you and your staff go "on-line" to retrieve data and information directly from other sources, so too do

Statement of Daniel P. Mulhollan
Director, Congressional Research Service
before the

Subcommittee on Legislative
Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
Fiscal 2002 Budget Request
June 26, 2001

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to personally present for your consideration the fiscal year 2002 budget request for the Congressional Research Service.

Observations

The rise of technology and the Information Age have fundamentally changed the way Congress works, from the nature of the public policy issues you debate, to the ways in which you conduct your work each day to the methods you and your staff use to communicate both within and outside of Capitol Hill.

There are new issues before you. Technology is impacting virtually every public policy area that you consider. From privacy rights to taxation, you consider technology issues that are complex, interdisciplinary, highly specialized, rapidly changing, difficult to master expeditiously, and increasingly sophisticated. The 107th Congress is demonstrating continued intense interest in policy issues arising from the production and use of information technology. Members of the 106th Congress introduced hundreds of information technology bills and virtually every committee considered legislation related to some aspect of information technology. This is in marked contrast to over four years ago when Members of the 104th Congress introduced only several dozen information technology bills.

Your day to day work has changed as well. You and your staff operate in an environment of intense immediacy. You need information today-tomorrow, next week, next month are too late. Given this environment, you have turned to technologies that will provide you with information as quickly and efficiently as possible. You expect to access information 24 hours a day, seven days a week from wherever you are, be it in your Capitol Hill offices, at home, in your districts, or overseas as a member of a congressional delegation. You and your staff have less time to read through books

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