ADDITIONAL SPACE REQUIREMENT

Mr. STEED. You made reference in your statement to the problem you have of trying to acquire some additional space. What is the present situation?

Mr. MUMFORD. As indicated in the preliminary statement, the General Services Administration was not able to find space available within a reasonable distance that would meet our weight-bearing capacities, and so it is arranging for a building to be constructed on the lease-purchase basis in Suitland.

Mr. Gooch, would you like to elaborate on the present status of it? Mr. Gooch. At the present time the General Services Administration is working toward the completion of specifications for the invitations to bid. It is estimated that the quarters will be ready for occupancy in February 1962, as closely as they can estimate at the present time. We have supplied them with the necessary data for the specifications. Beyond that it is a matter of the technicalities of contracting with a construction company.

Mr. STEED. What size will this space be and what major activities do you plan to place out at Suitland?

Mr. Gooch. The building itself will consist of a single floor of approximately 62,500 square feet in area to house the Card Division staff and card stock, the Government Printing Office Branch which prints the cards for the Library's catalogs and the Card Distribution Service, and a part of the collections of prints and photographs now occupying bookstack space in the Library Annex.

PROPOSED THIRD LIBRARY BUILDING

Mr. STEED. What does this do to the long-range plan for an additional building in the immediate vicinity of the present Library property?

Mr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, as soon as the third building is constructed for the Library this activity would be brought back to the third building. This is a temperorary measure. It is a simple warehouse-type of building to meet these needs. I think I am correct that. the General Servcices Administration will probably eventually own the building under the arrangements. Is that correct?

Mr. Gooch. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEED. Are you able to give us any information as to the status at this time of the plans for the new building?

Mr. MUMFORD. The Architect of the Capitol can give you a more detailed picture than I can, but, as you know, the Congress authorized the Architect to proceed with plans for the new building and appropriated money for this planning. The Architect has made arrangements with a group of architects who have been working with us on the details of the plan. Of course the Library itself, our staff, has spent a great deal of time in the last 2 or 3 years evaluating our needs and projecting them over a period of time and considering the reallocation of certain activities, a rearrangement of services and activities among the three buildings.

SPACE RENTAL FUNDS

Mr. STEED. On page 2 of your statement, Doctor, you give us some information on your rentals. Could you detail that a little more specifically for us?

Mr. MUMFORD. I have a single sheet here which explains this. The 1961 appropriation was $211,400. It has remained unused, as explained in the preliminary statement, and will revert to the Treasury. In lieu of a request for the full year, we are submitting a revised request for rental for 6 months and the necessary staff, the moving costs, and the purchase of a truck, for a total of $159,200.

Mr. STEED. As I read this, generally speaking the moving costs and the truck cost would be nonrecurring?

Mr. MUMFORD. That is correct, sir.

Mr. STEED. But in a full year the items for the rental and the staff, since this is on a 6-month basis, would approximately double? Mr. MUMFORD. That is correct.

REALLOCATIONS OF POSITIONS

Mr. STEED. Can you give us a little more information on this matter of reallocation of positions? How much will be involved, all told, in that?

Mr. MUMFORD. The problem is this, Mr. Chairman: As is noted in the text on page 62, from year to year the general salary level of employees increases from a variety of causes apart from general Government salary increases. These causes include ingrade increases, wage board increases, and reallocations of positions and similar Classification Act actions.

During recent years Congress has generously granted requests made by the Library for increases justified on the basis of these causative factors. For example, $64,215 was authorized for fiscal 1959 under this appropriation head; $68,245 for 1960; and $77,244 for 1961.

However, an analysis of funds available to finance all the positions authorized by Congress indicates that the amounts requested in recent years to meet the cost of ingrades, wage board increases, and reallocations fall substantially short of meeting actual costs. This is due for the most part to the failure of the Library to recognize the impact of a somewhat accelerated reallocation program which was mandatory for the Library in view of clear findings of existing grade levels very much below levels existing elsewhere and very much below the levels authorized by classification standards.

The breakdown of the amount that we are requesting under "Salaries and expenses," $175,000, is on page 63 of the justifications. For projected increase in salary level for 1962 over 1961 due to ingrade increases, reallocatons, and wage board increases, we are requesting $100,000; and for reallocations to meet deficiencies resulting from reallocations in fiscal years 1959 and 1960 in excess of amounts appropriated therefor, we are requesting $75,000, making a total of $175,000.

As I have indicated in a general way, the Civil Service Commission has revised standards from time to time. And, as I have indicated, they have chided us for not reviewing positions more frequently to see that they were at the proper level. They make periodic audits, but it does mean the level of positions has risen to the point where in 1959 the lapse factor accounted for 10 positions in other words, the difference between the amount of money appropriated and the number of positions allowed was 10 positions-and it is now 38 positions.

We have been losing ground badly in that respect. This is no fault of the Library. We are simply following civil service standards in the allocation of positions. I think it is significant to note, however, that the average grade of position in the Library at the present time is 6.6, and this is well below that of some other agencies with comparable staff to that of the Library of Congress.

Mr. STEED. While this same situation exists in all your activities, these figures you have just quoted from page 63 relate only to this part for reallocations under the general heading "Salaries and Expenses;" is that correct?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes.

Mr. STEED. Do you ever get any offsets in downward revisions? I suspect practically all of them are upward, but do you have any downward revisions?

Mr. MUMFORD. Not very often. There have been a few instances where civil service audits have recommended or required a downward revision, but very, very few.

Mr. STEED. How much of this whole activity is within your power and how much of it is what you would term mandatory?

Mr. MUMFORD. As indicated in the preliminary statement, I carefully review the allocation as determined by the classification officer and his staff. If the classification is not satisfactory to the individual, he may appeal to the Civil Service Commission for a review of it. However, while I am not an expert at classification, I do study very closely the work of the classification staff and it is my function to approve or disapprove or raise questions regarding the grades suggested or recommended.

Mr. ROGERS. Although the Librarian has the power to classify, he must do so within the Classification Act, and so we are bound to observe these regulations and standards, and the Civil Service Commission watches over our shoulder. Therefore we must do it right. We cannot go far out of line either up or down or they will criticize us and make us conform.

Mr. STEED. These repeated requests for these ingrade promotions that you make, are they the so-called Ramspeck promotions?

Mr. ROSSITER. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEED. What turnover of personnel do you have? Is there very much turnover?

Mr. MUMFORD. For the clerical staff and the lower grade staff, deck attendants and so on, it is rather high, I would say 30 or 35 percent. For the professional staff it is relatively low.

Mr. STEED. The reason I asked that is this: Let us assume a person who has been with you a long time has a certain number of promotions and then for some reason he leaves your service and you start out with a replacement. Does that replacement start at the bottom of the ladder and work up?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes.

Mr. STEED. What benefit, budgetwise, do you get from that sort of a situation?

Mr. ROSSITER. We gain, of course, but we are generally faced with a terminal leave payment; so the terminal leave payment just about offsets the gain we make.

Mr. ROGERS. For example, in 1959 and 1960 the total increase because of reallocations was $131,000. What we asked for in those 2 years was $52,000 for this particular purpose, and that has left a gap of over $78,000. Although we make up a little bit through staff turnover, I think the Library is just typical of the whole Government in that there is an upward revision of positions and upgrading of stand

ards.

Mr. MUMFORD. And it means we have had to leave positions unfilled in order to close that gap. We could not keep all the appropriated and budgeted positions filled until we had closed that gap.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Mr. STEED. Dr. Mumford, on page 4 of your statement you make reference to "information retrieval." Just what does that mean? Mr. MUMFORD. It refers to the use of mechanization in activities of processing and the possible storing of information through electronic means and being able to retrieve it through machines. As you no doubt know, there is a great deal of study and activity going on in this field today. The Library has had an internal committee for about 3 years studying the problem and trying to keep abreast of it, but because of the responsibilities of their regular duties it is not possible for members of the committee to give the intensive attention to this area that should be given.

There are some who believe that the time will come when you can push a button and get all the information you want on a particular subject. This is being done in some fields today, and we feel that it is necessary for the Library to stay abreast of these developments in mechanization not only for ordinary business operations-we have mechanized a number of these over the years but to be aware of the possibilities not only of machinery that might be available today but that may be developed and be applied to a large research library. This could have a great impact on the future of the Library.

Mr. STEED. Would this be a field of mechanization entirely new and different from the mechanization you have been able to adopt?

Mr. MUMFORD. Well, we have used mechanization in such things as card billing for card distribution and for overdue notices.

One thing that has been brought out in the preliminary studies made by companies coming in at their own expense and taking a look at our operations is that it is not possible to do the thing piecemeal, and that a good deal more study is needed. It would consist of more attention to the routine operations and also attention to the possibility of storing the content of a book or magazine article and of being able to retrieve it mechanically.

Mr. STEED. Have any of these companies gotten far enough along to make a prediction as to how soon something practical along this line might be available?

Mr. MUMFORD. I do not think we have any close predictions as to when it might be, but mechanization is being used for specialized purposes in some areas and it may be that some of it will be applicable to the Library.

MICROFILMING PROGRAMS

Mr. STEED. How extensive is the microfilming that is carried on at the Library?

Mr. MUMFORD. We have set aside a certain portion of our book funds each year, with the approval of this committee, for microfilming deteriorating materials and for acquiring materials, particularly periodicals and newspapers. These two allotments total $64,500 which is not large in view of the fact that we have some 100,000 volumes of newspapers that are in a rapidly deteriorating condition that should be converted to microfilm.

Mr. STEED. What space saving are you getting and expect to get through microfilming?

Mr. MUMFORD. As we have indicated in the text, the microfilm occupies about 8 percent of the space that the conventional newspaper volumes do.

Mr. STEED. How do microfilms hold up? How long do they last? Mr. MUMFORD. Under proper conditions of humidity and temperature they should last indefinitely. The Bureau of Standards has made intensive tests of microfilms and under certain conditions they last indefinitely.

Mr. STEED. Do you have air-controlled storage for your microfilms? Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, sir.

ADDITIONAL POSITIONS REQUESTED

Mr. STEED. In the overall budget request, Doctor, how many additional positions are contained in this budget request?

Mr. MUMFORD. For all the appropriations?

Mr. STEED. Yes.

Mr. MUMFORD. I was going to ask Mr. Chairman, that you insert

page 4, which shows this. There is a total of 78 positions.

Mr. STEED. Page 4 has already been inserted in the record.

What is the total figure we allowed you last year?

Mr. MUMFORD. Is your question directed to positions or money, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. STEED. Positions.

Mr. MUMFORD. Eighty-two.

Mr. STEED. And this 78 this year is an additional increase on top

of that?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes. As I pointed out in the preliminary statement, quite a large proportion of these positions are in a self-supporting activity, the Card Distribution Service.

Mr. STEED. As I remember, last year a substantial amount of the increase we allowed you was in the Legislative Reference Service. Is that Service pretty well under control now?

Mr. MUMFORD. I would be glad to have the Director of the Legislative Reference Service, who is outside, speak to that. It has helped enormously, and while the number of inquiries handled per staff member will be higher, we thought we could get by next year without additional staff, and we are not asking for additional staff for the Legislative Reference Service.