The breakdown of the $175,000 requested for 1962 is as follows: Wage board increases__ For projected increase in salary level for 1962 over 1961 due to : Ingrade increases__ $50,000 Reallocations_____ 40,000 10,000 Subtotal. 100,000 75,000 For reallocations to meet deficiencies resulting from reallocations in fiscal years 1959 and 1960 in excess of amounts appropriated therefor.. Total requested__ 175,000 Cost of reallocations. It was not until fiscal 1959 that the cost of reallocations under this appropriation become a significant factor. On the basis of an analysis of all reallocations and similar classification actions, the extent to which annual salaries under this appropriation were increased because of reallocations in fiscal years 1959 and 1960 is indicated as follows: 1959 1960. Total increase in annual salary level 1959 and 1960 $57, 350 74, 603 131, 953 As stated above, it is estimated that only about 40 percent of the amounts requested for the combined purposes of ingrades, reallocations, and wage board increases were for projected reallocations. On this assumption, the extent to which reallocations proved to be in excess of the amounts requested is as follows: Increase in salaries due to reallocations, 1959 and 1960 Allowed for reallocations: 1959: 40 percent times $64,215_ 1960: 40 percent times $68,245. Total....... $131, 953 25,686 27, 298 52, 984 78,969 Cost of reallocations in excess of amounts appropriated Even sharper evidence of the effect of reallocations on the position structure under this, the main appropriation financing the basic operations of the Library, is furnished by the increasing lapse used to balance the internal budget of the Library. In preparing the detail of personal services schedule for the 1960 estimates, it was necessary to provide a lapse of $55,081, equivalent to 10 positions, in the then current year column (1959) to balance the personal services budget. This lapse has been increased to $225,167, equivalent to 38 positions, in the current year (1961) column of the 1962 estimates. The difference, which constitutes a significant gap in the ability of the Library to finance authorized positions, is due for the most part to the reallocation factor. Grade level at the Library of Congress. As previously stated the Library has for a long time lagged behind in allocating grades in accordance with Civil Service Commission standards, and has consequently lagged behind other Federal agencies with respect to grade levels. This can be demonstrated, without too much difficulty, by reference to the budget document, "Budget of the United States, 1962." The average general schedule (GS) grade under this appropriation for 1961, that is after the accelerated reallocation program of 1959 and 1960, is 6.6. If this grade level is compared with that of other agencies having a fairly large percentage of professional and technical personnel, it is found that the average grade at the Weather Bureau for 1961 is GS-8.2, at the Patent Office GS-8.3, and at the National Bureau of Standards, GS-8.2. AVERAGE GRADE LEVELS Mr. STEED. According to page 92 of the bill, the average GS grade level went up this year over last but dropped back in 1962 under the proposal made here. Why is that? Mr. MUMFORD. Many of the positions granted last year were clerical positions of lower grade. Mr. STEED. On page 92, next to the last item, it shows that in 1960 the average GS grade was 6.3, it went to 6.6 in 1961, and is now estimated at 6.5 for 1962. It was to clarify that that we asked the question. Mr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, I think the explanation for that is that many of the positions that we are requesting for this year such as labelers and filers, would be relatively low grade. Mr. STEED. In other words, this type worker is not the highest skilled involved last year, on the average? Mr. MUMFORD. No, sir. INCREASE FOR RENTAL OF TABULATING MACHINES Mr. STEED. On page 6 of the justifications, under item 3, rental of additional tabulating equipment, you are asking for an increase of $13,000. Give us a little more information on just what that involves. Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask Mr. Gooch, Director of the Administrative Department, in whose department this activity is carried on, to speak to that. Mr. Gooch. Mr. Chairman, about 20 years ago the Library first installed equipment for use in control of certain statistical and fiscal operations having to do with the card distribution service and some of the operations on the increase of the collections handled by the Order Division. There has been a very gradual increase in the rental of equipment from that date to the present time, and there has been a very great extension of this method from the Card Distribution and Order Division work into other functions of the Library. At the present time the equipment is used for the preparation of all of the Library's payrolls, biweekly, throughout the year, which involves preparation of a number of byproduct documents and statistical runs. It is used in the card billing operation, in the compilation of cataloging statistics for the descriptive and subject cataloging divisions, in the work of the Order Division in the purchasing of materials from around the world, and in a number of smaller operations such as recording charges of books on loan to Government libraries, and the weekly tabulation and running of the study room reservation list. There are still other uses for the equip ment. During 1961 we are using 16 pieces of IBM equipment at an annual rental cost of approximately $34,000. We are asking for an increase for 4 new pieces of equipment which would bring the total under rental up to 20. We have also included two machines for replacement of older models, which will increase the versatility of this operation. I might add that a great deal of work is done in keeping control of our time and leave records by the use of punched cards and tabulating and calculating equipment. This equipment has become an indispensable part of the Library's accounting and statistical control, and this increase is a modest one in terms of equipment now becoming available. INCREASE FOR SPACE RENTAL Mr. STEED. On the matter of the $3,000 increase under item 4 for space, what is the situation now relative to this? That has been superseded by the statement? Mr. MUMFORD. That is correct; that is no longer applicable. The sheet we have submitted replaces that. NEW POSITIONS REQUESTED Mr. STEED. Under the item of $193,100 for your requested new positions, all told how many new positions did you get under this item last year and, if it is available, for the year prior to that? Mr. MUMFORD. Twenty-five last year, Mr. Chairman, for this appropriation. Mr. STEED. To conserve time, would you take up these several items under No. 5 and give us additional information as to why these extra personnel are needed. POSITIONS FOR FILING CARD CATALOGS Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The first item is concerned with maintaining currency in filing in the card catalogs. We are asking for four positions there. I think it is self-evident that the utilization of the Library's collection rests largely upon the catalogs. In other words, the catalogs are the key to the collections. We have had no increase in this filing staff for many years. We have quite an accumulation of cards waiting to be filed, which means that the books which they represent are not available to people. There are 200,000 cards awaiting filing in the three main catalogs of the Library. As the catalogs become larger, a filer can file fewer because it is spread out to such an extent it takes him longer to find the place in the catalog where the cards go, and so the process becomes slower, and with the same staff we simply have not been able to keep up with the production of the cards for the currents books that are coming in. This is badly needed in order to have the key to make this material readily available. Mr. ROGERS. This affects not only members of the public who come in to use the catalog but affects our staff in the Legislative Reference Service who want new books and have reason to believe they are in the Library but cannot find them in the catalogs; so it is a serious impairment of service. Mr. MUMFORD. Here again, if pages 15 and 16 were placed in the record, I think it tells the complete story, Mr. Chairman. Mr. STEED. We will do that. (The pages follow:) Catalog maintenance division, 4 positions Filing Section: 2 GS-4 filers, at $4,056______ Total (4)__-------- ------- $8, 112 7, 530 15, 642 Utilization of the collections of the Library rests in large measure on information found in the card catalogs. Consequently, not only must the cataloging process be as rapid as possible, but also the subsequent steps involving the preparation and filing of the catalog cards must be performed expeditiously. The contents of the card catalogs have increased by approximately 9 million cards in the past 10 years with no increase in personnel during that time to offset the accompanying decrease in filing rate due to the physical expansion of the files or to offset the increasing number of cards to be prepared and filed. At present there are 10 assistants involved almost exclusively in filing into the 3 main catalogs of the Library. Their filing capacity as a group is approximately 1 million cards a year, or 100,000 per year per individual; however, in fiscal 1960, 1,221,860 cards needed filing in these 3 catalogs. As a result, about 200,000 remained unfiled at the end of the fiscal year. Two GS-4 filer positions are requested to maintain the catalogs on a current basis. Arrangers preparing cards for filing have faced a similar situation involving not only increasing numbers of cards to be prepared for the general catalogs but increasing responsibilities connected with the preparation and distribution of cards to other catalogs. Two GS-3 arranger positions are requested to keep current the work of preparing cards for filing. To maintain currency in the recording and control of serials: POSITIONS FOR RECORDING AND CONTROLLING SERIALS Mr. MUMFORD. The next item is concerned with maintaining currency and recording and control of serials. Serial publications comprise the most current and in many fields the most significant contribution to the Library's collections, and the serial record is concerned with recording these as they come in and providing a key to the fact that the Library has a particular serial publication. Here again we have had increases in the volume of material received due to additional publications from around the world as well as in this country. We have a backlog of material there of some 115,000 pieces waiting to be checked into this serial record. The current staff is not adequate to handle this workload. The Library must place certain labels and marks on books. These include the putting of a label with the classification and the call number on the book and a bookplate in the book. In recent years we have been able to get more binding work done than previously by having some of it done through commercial binders, and we have a large accumulation of books that are waiting for labeling, without which they are totally unavailable for the use of the Government and users generally. There are some 60,000 at the present time out of service for this reason. We exercised special efforts last year, which did result in the labeling of more volumes by diverting time from other activities, but there is still a very large workload there which we cannot handle with the present staff of labelers. Mr. STEED. Based on the trend over the last few years, do you believe that these 10 new positions in your processing department will bring you current and enable you to keep up with the flow that is anticipated at this time? Mr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, it is very difficult to make predictions about the need for help in the Library. As more demands are being made upon the Library because of interest in different areas of the world, especially the Orient, the Soviet Union, the satellite countries, to acquire more materials from those areas, it means more processing of the materials and services in regard to them. I would hesitate very much to make predictions. As I have said before, it is inevitable that a large research library, such as the Library of Congress must grow if it is to continue to fulfill its mission. But the granting of these positions would help us get on an even keel at least for the time being in the filing of the cards and in the labeling of the books and in the checking in of the serials in the serial record. Mr. STEED. Will you give us a little additional information on the extra positions asked for under the Reference Department. POSITIONS FOR REFERENCE AND CIRCULATION SERVICES Mr. MUMFORD. The first group of positions here is to maintain adequate reference and circulation service and to meet increasing demands in the Orientalia, Slavic, General Reference and Bibliography, and Stack and Reader Divisions. We are asking for one GS-7, three GS-5's, and one GS-3. To run through these, position by position, one of them is that of reference librarian in the Japanese Section. This is requested to cope with the current heavy workload in reference, circulation, and translation services. There is presently a staff of four in this section, and they are not able to keep up to date in reader and reference service and translation of vernacular materials for Members of Congress and the processing of materials and acquisition work. This section has custody of 439,000 volumes and pamphlets and over 250 bound newspaper volumes. More than 22,500 items were added to the collection in the fiscal year 1960. If I may request that page 29 go into the record, this shows the workload and the increase that took place in 1959 and 1960. Mr. STEED. Without objection, we will insert page 29. (The page follows:) Orientalia Division-one position One new position of reference librarian, GS-7, in the Japanese Section is requested to help cope with the current heavy workolad, in reference, circulation, and translation services. The present staff of four, plus the section head, are unable to keep up to date in reader and reference service, translation of vernacular materials for Members of Congress, processing of materials, and acquisition work. The Japanese Section has some 439,000 volumes and pamphlets in its custody and over 250 bound newspaper volumes. More than 22,500 items were added to the collection in fiscal year 1960 compared to about 4,000 the year before. Increases in workload are shown below : Although one additional reference librarian position will not enable the Japanese Section to keep current in its work, it will improve the reference and translations services. |