Blind and handicapped persons of all ages and stations in life

Each and all of them are completely dependent for their reading matter braille, records, tapes, large print upon the Library of Congress system of libraries for the blind and physically handicapped.

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Your failure to provide the additional $2,000,000 we request will not mean a reduction of library services to many of these people, but rather, that many blind people, many people unable to use or read regularly printed matter, will be without any library service at all.

APPROPRIATIONS FOR BLIND

Senator HOLLINGS. I have received communication from Eileen D. Cooke, Director of the Washington office of the American Library Association to which is attached a statement concerning appropriations for the blind contained in the Legislative Branch appropriations bill.

I will ask to have Ms. Cook's statement inserted in the record at this point.

(The statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF EILEEN D. COOKE

The American Library Association, a nonprofit educational organization estab-
lished in 1876 and uniting some 30,000 librarians and other public-spirited citizens,
maintains a strong interest in the Library of Congress which serves the interests
of every library in the land as well as the needs of all Members of Congress. As
the preeminent national library of the United States, the Library of Congress
requires a satisfactory level of support if it is to continue helping all libraries
advance the educational, economic, scientific and cultural development of the
American people. The American Library Association therefore strongly endorses the
request of the Library of Congress for funds for the fiscal year 1974. The As-
sociation is interested as well in the line-item for the Office of the Superintendent
of Documents which includes support of the depository library system.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

National Serials Data Program

We request that special attention be given to the need for support for the
National Serials Data Program. This item was included in the budget request of the
Library of Congress but was not included in the bill before this Subcommittee.
The National Serials Data Program is a cooperative effort to develop authoritative
cataloging information, in machine-readable form, on serial publications, such as
periodicals and other forms of literature that are issued at intervals in a
uniform format. There is an urgent national need on the part of libraries and
many others for automated bibliographic information of this kind.

The National Serials Data Program was begun during the last fiscal year by
the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library and the National Library
of Medicine, with the aid of a grant from the Council on Library Resources, a
private nonprofit organization established in 1956 to aid in the solution of
problems of libraries generally and of academic and research libraries in partic-
Interest has also been taken in this work by the National Science Founda-

ular.

tion, the National Academy of Sciences, the American National Standards Institute,
the American Chemical Society, the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing
Services, and the American Society for Testing and Materials.

The

Specialized and research libraries need computerized records of serial publi-
cations so their users can locate and gain access to them and the information they
contain. Such an automated system of bibliographic data should be uniform to be
of maximum value to libraries throughout the country and to keep the cost of
transferring data and developing new informational tools as low as possible.
sheer magnitude of the problem facing libraries today is suggested by the fact
that, since the Transactions of the Royal Society began publication in London in
1665, the number of learned journals has increased tenfold every half-century, and
this phenomenal rate of increase is not likely to slacken. We urge the Subcommittee
to permit the Library of Congress to continue its support of the National Serials
Data Program, as the other two great national libraries, the National Agricultural
Library and the National Library of Medicine, are prepared to do under their re-
quests for appropriations for 1974.

Other Bibliographic Services

There are other centralized services provided by the Library of Congress that
are vital to the Nation's libraries and their millions of users, especially the
educational community of students, teachers and scholars. Among these are such
long-established programs as the Card Division and such newer endeavors as the
National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging, and the Cataloging-in-Publication
Program. These programs are saving time, honey and materials for libraries of
every kind--public libraries, school and academic libraries, special libraries
and information centers--throughout the Nation. We urge their continued support
by the Subcommittee in its consideration of the Library of Congress request for
1974.

National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging

Particularly, we request that adequate support be given the National Program
for Acquisitions and Cataloging (NPAC), the centralized acquisition and cataloging
program authorized under title II-C of the Higher Education Act. Through NPAC, the
Library seeks to acquire, catalog, and disseminate cataloging data rapidly for all
current monographic materials of research value, thus enabling research libraries
to reduce their own prohibitively expensive and duplicative original cataloging

of books. The Library reports that NPAC coverage of current monographic materials can be improved if the program is authorized to expand to additional countries of the world not presently encompassed. Completion of coverage in Europe, for example, requires only funding and authorization to include Greece, Hungary, Iceland, the Irish Republic, Poland, Portugal, and Turkey. In addition, more attention is needed to those areas of the world where modern principles of librarianship, publishing and book distribution are yet to be fully developed.

The Library reports that with NPAC support, it is now meeting approximately 75 percent of all cataloging needs, and enabling materials to reach users much faster, with great economies to libraries and with an unparalleled degree of cataloging fullness, language and subject coverage. Through this program, researchers and scholars in every subject area are gaining more rapid and complete access to the world's recorded knowledge. The program is of vital importance and should be funded at the $8.5 million level requested by the Library of Congress. Division for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

The Division for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is also of special national significance because it acquires, catalogs and distributes materials that can be "read," in a manner of speaking, by the blind and other physically handicapped persons. This work, too, is conducted in cooperation with libraries throughout the country and is supplemented at the State and local level by funds provided under the Library Services and Construction Act. We note that the Library's request for funds to establish two multistate centers to serve as storage and distribution points for these materials through a wide area was denied by the House, and we ask the Committee to approve this request. Braille materials, in

particular, take up much storage space, as do many of the older "talking books" recordings still in use. Local libraries need central storage facilities for some of their materials for the blind and physically handicapped, so that they are readily accessible as users ask for them. We therefore support the full request of the Librarian of Congress for the Division for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

Affirmative Action Program

We urge that increased funding be made available to strengthen the Library's affirmative action program so that all Library employees are assured of equal employment opportunity, in conformance with the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 (PL 92-261).

OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS

Depository Library System

The American Library Association, in the interest of providing the broadest possible public access to U.S. Government information and publications on the local level, urges additional financial support for the depository library system so that all the American people will have access to a high quality depository library. Particularly, the Association requests that sufficient funds be provided during FY 1974 to enable the Superintendent of Documents to make prompt delivery of books and pamphlets to depository libraries throughout the Nation, to eliminate the large backlog of outstanding orders from libraries and individuals, and to provide more adequate inspection of depository libraries as provided by law.

In the past, lack of funds has caused neglect of first-hand investigation of the needs and the performance of depository libraries.

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