QUESTION FOR THE RECORD FROM MR. PORTER Mr. FAZIO. I have a question for the record from Mr. Porter. [The question and response follow:] Question. Dr. Billington, you are requesting a total increase of $1,268,000 (over 25% over last year's level) for the purchase of books. $840,000 of the increase is to recover lost purchasing power as a result of currency appreciations; the rest of the increase is to recover funds not granted last year? Given our ongoing fight to control our deficits, what can be done to absorb these costs? Why are most of these purchases from overseas? Response. The appropriated book funds available to the Library were reduced by $651,000 ($5,242,000 to $4,591,000) in FY 1986, further reduced by $75,000 (to $4,516,000) in FY 1987, and increased by only $428,000 (to $4,944,000) in FY 1988. Thus, in FY 1988 our purchasing power is $298,000 less than it was in FY 1985. In the meantime, the average cost of library materials has risen steadily and the value of the U.S. dollar has dropped precipitously. Worldwide inflation & devaluation of the U.S. dollars have continued in FY 1988 and may continue in FY 1989. Since FY 1986 steps that we have taken to absorb these costs included: refining the specifications of our orders for current books to be more selective in quality and quantity (purchases of new books in FY 1987 alone declined by approximately 30,000 volumes); subscriptions to serials & periodicals were weeded, multiple copy orders for serials were reduced, and over 2,000 subscription orders were cancelled; purchases of non-current materials and non-book materials were sharply reduced; purchases of numerous recommended items have not been approved or have been deferred. The total increase of $1,268,000 requested for FY 1989 is to maintain the Library's purchasing power at the FY 1987 level. We believe that we have already reduced purchase to a dangerously low level and that reducing the purchasing power below the FY 1987 level will cause irreparable harm to the Library's collection. Most of these purchases are from overseas because most of the Library's receipts of U.S. produced publications are acquired by gift, exchange, the Cataloging-in-Publication program, or copyright deposit. Foreign materials also are essential to maintain the Library's collections and provide the basis for cataloging and reference service. CATALOGING ARREARAGES Mr. FAZIO. Apparently there is an arrearage in the cataloging program, too. Would you comment on that activity? Are you trying to eliminate backlogs? What is the problem there? Dr. BILLINGTON. I think I will defer to our master on such matters. Henriette Avram's knowledge is legendary in this field. Let me say while she is getting up here, there has been a marked increase in the price of law books and other books quite apart from the changed value of the dollar abroad. That impacts and has a very negative effect on our law collections. Mr. FAZIO. It is like the Defense Department asking for a reprogramming. Of course, when requests are put in national security terms, they are more powerful. Show us what you have been unable to do because of the dollar value. Dr. BILLINGTON. We would be pleased to do that. Dr. BILLINGTON. We will be happy to do that. Mrs. AVRAM. Funds were provided by the Congress to work on the arrearage problem. We were beginning to work the arrearage down by using overtime and contract labor. Gramm-Rudman-Holling intervened. The funds were eliminated, and thus work on the arrearage stopped. What we have been doing is putting present staff on the arrearage whenever we can. Of course, to do what my friend John Broderick, did-I will take advantage of the moment to say that the 1988 summit reduction in the 1988 act, the decrease in staff, will again hurt and increase the arrearage. It does not give us the opportunity to reduce the arrearage. Mr. FAZIO. So you have not made up for the arrearage that exists? Mrs. AVRAM. We still have an arrearage. What we are trying to do is take care of the current arrearage, that part of the arrearage that is new material. Dr. Billington already talked about the importance of acquiring new material. Mr. FAZIO. You can't use it if it is not cataloged? Mrs. AVRAM. That is right. Mr. FAZIO. The problem obviously is that you have to set priorities. How do you do that when you have only so many people? Mrs. AVRAM. We have a list of cataloging priorities and we have a selection officer. The selection officer determines what the priorities are. If you are interested, we can submit for the record those priorities. Mr. FAZIO. Please do. I would like to know more about the cataloging priorities. [The following information has been supplied for the record by the Library of Congress:] The Library of Congress receives materials from a wide variety of sources (purchases, copyright deposits, gifts, exchanges with other institutions, the CIP program, transfer from other government agencies, etc.). One of the basic tenets of collection development has always been that materials must be acquired when they are newly published; if they are not acquired when first published, they will probably not be available later. Consequently, there is some realization that more may be coming in than can be processed. The department has always had arrearages. Although the Library has anticipated large-scale increased acquisitions by requesting additional staff to process them (e.g., the opening up of the People's Republic of China resulted in large increases in the availability of Chinese materials which resulted in the request for and granting of additional positions to process those materials), there often continues to be an imbalance because of a variety of other factors. No one of those factors can be said to be necessarily more crucial than any other. In addition, a decrease in the acquisition budget does not necessarily translate into a commensurate drop in materials to be cataloged, since the Library does not purchase all its materials. The Library processes its materials according to a system of priorities which are based on the presumed value/use of the material. There are five priority levels which divide generally into the following categories: Priority 1: Materials needed by the Congress or other high government officials; materials given prepublication cataloging requiring fast turn-around time. Priority 2: Materials in English that have high research value or use in the Library's collections. Priority 3: Materials in English that have medium research value or use and matters in other language that have high research value or use in the Library's collections. Priority 4: Materials in English that are wanted for the Library's collections but that have lower research value or use and materials in other languages that have medium research value or use in the Library's collections. Priority 5: Materials in languages other than English that are wanted for the Library's collections but that are of lower research value or use. Materials in this priority are not given full cataloging treatment. Rather, a minimal record is created that allows it to be retrieved by title and author, but without subject access; all materials have a fixed shelf location. Library of Congress Regulation 411-1 which details the Library's priority system is attached. As noted above, various factors contribute to the building of arrearages. Those factors are (A) Budgetary problems: For the past several years the Library has had to absorb its share of budgetary reductions related to the attempt to reduce federal spending and the deficit. This has resulted in the necessity to freeze a certain number of positions, some of which were earmarked to deal with the arrearages. Currently as the result of the 1988 Bipartisan Budget Agreement, most positions cannot be filled unless they can be filled from within Processing Services. There is no indication as to when this situation can be lifted. (B) Technological changes and developments: The increasing reliance on automation techniques has an effect on an individual's production/productivity especially at the beginning stages of this reliance. The same can be said of enhancements or other developments to the system that supports this reliance. (1) The Library recently changed its computer terminal. This has necessarily meant a period of time for staff to adjust to the differences between this new terminal and the older one to which there were accustomed. (2) For several months the Library experienced slow system response as a result of the increased use. However, a recent enhancement to the system has reduced the waiting time between transactions. (3) Last fall the Library's automated in-process system was replaced by new software requiring additional work by the Library's preliminary cataloging staff. This again has resulted in a learning period for staff to adjust to the requirements of the new software. The status of Processing Services' arrearages at the end of fiscal year 1987 are noted in the table below. They are compared with the status at the end of fiscal year 1984. In fiscal year 1985 the Congress authorized $50,000 a year for five years for the Library to catalog its arrearages. During FY 1985 the Library systematically reviewed its old arrearages and reselected them in accordance with the current policies and priority system. Many items were designated for minimal cataloging, some were deselected, and some continued to be designated for full cataloging treatment. The Library did catalog 38,000 titles from those arrearages. However, the GrammRudman-Hollings legislation put an end to the contract and overtime funding. 89,000 Books in Processing Services' custody that have received no cataloging processing at all..... 130,000 During the current fiscal year the arrearages have grown significantly due to lack of staff resources. It is estimated that by the end of FY1988 an additional 40,000 titles will have been added to the arrearages. This is crucial since the titles are not accessable either to users of the Library's collections or to staff recommending or purchasing new titles. The Library is investigating ways to cope with this problem on an interim basis. Processing Services is investigating means of redistributing the work among the several divisions to allow the cataloging of at least the higher priority material. In addition, the department is planning an experiment to test the feasibility of restructuring the cataloging operations by having the material flow through fewer staff. If successful, these measures will reduce throughout time and increase production for higher priority materials once the staff get over the initial learning curve. Regarding throughput time for the cataloging process, the following table presents figures for 1985, 1986, and 1987 which illustrate the mean number of days required to catalog material by priority. Increased throughput time contributes to growing arrearages; however, the measures cited above are intended to improve throughput time and therefore also alleviate the arrearage problems-although timely cataloging is dependent upon sufficient staff. This Regulation establishes the priorities governing the cataloging and recataloging of materials for the Library's collections and the revision of These priorities also apply catalog records for materials previously cataloged. as far as is practicable to the production of cataloging records. The implementation of this system of priorities is the responsibility of the Assistant Librarian for Processing Services and the Director, Collections Development Office. In accordance with LCR 320, it is the immediate responsibility of the Selection Office, Collections Development Office, to assign processing priorities except in those instances in which this function is assigned to a Whenever selection specialized division or project or designated officer thereof. and assignment of processing priorities occur outside the Selection office, this Office shall exercise general coordination and guidance for the maintenance of conformity to the new system. Together, the Assistant Librarian for Processing Services and the Director, Collections Development Office, will establish such procedures as may be necessary to make the priority system effective. They are authorized also to make minor adjustments in the allocation of priorities to the categories of materials shown below in order to insure that the priority system works in the best interest of the Library and its internal and national services. All cataloging, recataloging, and revision of existing cataloging records will be accomplished in the order of the priority that is assigned to the material or the cataloging records as shown in the table below. At each stage in the process items of highest priority (lowest priority number) will be processed before any others. Revisions of earlier records occasioned by cataloging new items of higher priority will be given the priority of the new item in stages where all the work must be kept together. Exceptions to established priorities may be made as appropriate, e.g., to provide suitable material for trainees, and to provide materials for catalogers with special skills or special language abilities. quate supervisory controls will be provided to insure that absences of personnel do not delay materials of high priority. Priority 1 Material needed by Members of Congress or their staffs, CIP materials, including both pre- and post-publication items Ade 84-072 0-88-19 (Supersedes March 16, 1971, |