Mr. Bow. Will the chairman yield for a question on this subject? Mr. STEED. Yes. Mr. Bow. The last sentence on page 29 says, "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." What would you need to get current? Mr. BASLER. I would not want to estimate off the cuff, but I think we need about six more positions in the Orientalia Division. The increase in the past 12 months in the Orientalia Division-which includes Japan, China, southeast Asia, and south Asia-has been very heavy, and we are going to have to ask for some more positions in our next year's budget. We will ask the Librarian. I do not know what he will be willing to ask of this committee. Mr. Bow. When we talk about not keeping current with the work, what is not being kept current? What type of thing are we talking about? Mr. BASLER. We are talking about, for one thing, giving answers and reference service to requests made for information based on materials in this collection. We are talking about keeping up with the checking and filing of materials received. For instance, there is our union catalog of oriental materials. We are talking about the work all across the board, including the handling of translation requests, which sometimes we simply cannot handle-we do get them from Members of Congress because we do not have enough people available to do all the work we have to do. Mr. Bow. Prepare and submit for the record the number of requests you have had from Members of Congress for translations of Japanese materials, please. Mr. BASLER. We can get that. (The information follows:) There were 63 individual requests covering 130 items amounting to 214 pages of translation. Mr. Bow. That is all. POSITIONS FOR SLAVIC AND CENTRAL EUROPEAN DIVISIONS Mr. MUMFORD. The next request in this group of maintaining adequate reference and circulation service and to meet increasing demands is for two positions in the Slavic and Central European Divisions. One GS-5 searcher and reference assistant is requested to perform acquisition and searching in the Library's catalogs and in other reference and bibliographic tools for the nine recommending officers of the Division, to determine whether the items searched are in the collection. Some 20,000 items must be searched each year. The position will also locate materials for the area specialists to assist them in performance of their reference and bibliographic assignments. There is no lower level position in the Division at the present time for this work, and as a consequence, it has to be done by higher level staff, who have to take time from their other professional duties. Here again, Mr. Chairman, we are feeling the impact of more and more requests for information. This thread runs through all of these requests for strengthening resources of these divisions, the additional requests and demands that are made upon the Library for information from these areas. The second position there is for a GS-5 circulation and reference assistant to receive, identify, and arrange some 3,000 publications received weekly in the Slavic Room and to record them in a visible file which now consists of some 2,700 entries for current serial titles (primarily Russian, East European, and Baltic publications in both the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets). Other duties will include the distribution of service copies of Slavic and Central European serials to other areas of the Library and to the stacks, arranging and shelving the publications retained in the Slavic Room for ready reference. I would like to request here that page 31, which shows workload, be included in the record. Mr. STEED. Without objection, we will insert page 31 at this point. (The page follows:) One GS-5 circulation and reference assistant is required to receive, identify, and arrange some 3,000 publications reecived weekly in the Slavic Room, and to record them in a visible file which now consists of some 2,700 entries for current serial titles (primarily Russian, East European, and Baltic publications in both the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets). Other duties will include the distribution of service copies of Slavic and Central European serials to other areas of the Library and to the stacks; and arranging and shelving the publications retained in the Slavic Room for ready reference. Statistics showing related workloads are given below: Mr. MUMFORD. The next position in this category is that in the General Reference and Bibliography Division, one GS-5 library assistant for the Public Reference Section is requested to provide searching service and assistance to the Section head and the 14 reference librarians. Searching is performed in the several catalogs and shelf lists to determine the availability of items which should be assigned to numerous reference collections in the Library or to decide whether items must be ordered. Special searches are made at the direction of the reference librarians to locate material needed by readers. Some 18,400 searches were made in 1960, compared with 13,020 in 1959, an increase of 42 percent. Again, there is no position at this level there at the present time, and the addition of the position would free the GS-7 and GS-9 and GS-11 reference librarians from subprofessional duties to provide reference services. Mr. STEED. Are any of these additional positions, if granted, to be dropped later on when this work has been caught up or is this permanent? Mr. MUMFORD. I think this is likely to be a continuing workload, Mr. Chairman. I know of no reason to assume that it would be reduced in the future. On page 33 of the justification book we are asking for one position for the microfilm reading room. As the Library acquires more and more material on microfilm and microprint or microcards, it takes some additional staff. We have not had any addition here for many years, while the number of microfilm reels, microcards, and microprints in the collection has increased from 186,445 to 359,833. We are asking for a deck attendant at GS-3 to locate and serve items to readers and shelve new items, reshelve used materials, accession and perforate newly received microfilm, label containers, and arrange and file cards in the special catalogs in the room. I request that the table at the top of page 34, showing the increase in workload here, be inserted in the record, Mr. Chairman. Mr. STEED. Without objection, the table will be inserted at this point. (The table follows:) In the last 5 years there have been the following increases: Mr. MUMFORD. We now come to the Manuscript Division, for which we are asking four positions. The Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress has one of the largest and richest collections in the country. Therefore, it seems essential that its collections be included in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, which is being compiled under a grant from the Council on Library Resources, Inc., to which the principal historical societies and principal libraries of the United States are contributing descriptions of their collections. The fulfillment of the responsibility of the Library of Congress to list its manuscript collections in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections requires additional staff. At the present time there are almost 1,500 collections and 3,300 single items in the Manuscript Division for which no description exists. These collections need describing or arranging or both preparatory to submitting manuscript data sheets to the catalogers of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections for the preparation of cards. There are 841 collections sufficiently well arranged so that qualified personnel could draft descriptions which would be satisfactory for cataloging purposes. After this is completed, we contemplate the remaining 640 unarranged collections can be worked off gradually. This National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections is and will be an extremely valuable tool to research workers and scholars throughout the country in ascertaining where material is located in manuscript form. We have had a National Union Catalog of Books for many years, but it was possible to bring this National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections into being only through a grant from the Council on Library Resources. Mr. HORAN. Who compiles that? Mr. MUMFORD. The Library compiles it with staff that is supported by the grant from the Council on Library Resources. Mr. BASLER. I might add this. It will not simply mean that this National Union Catalog will make the material more available for scholars elsewhere; it will help in serving the material to the people who come to the Library of Congress. We have acquired a great many collections of manuscripts over the past, and this is the first time we have ever been put under the gun, so to speak, to catalog our own collections. We have had the collections there. If people come in, they say, "What do you have?" We say, "You can look." This movement by all the manuscript depositories in the country to make this national catalog has placed on us the obligation to do something. We have never had the staff to arrange and describe these collections for cataloging. These positions will put this material in a catalog form where it will be much more readily available for service in the Library itself. Mr. HORAN. This appropriation then is for manuscripts in your own possession? Mr. BASLER. That is right. Mr. HORAN. But the National Union Catalog includes other libraries and their materials? Mr. BASLER. Yes, sir. Mr. HORAN. Even private libraries in the city of Washington? Mr. STEED. Once you have completed this cataloging and have it in being, will you need this much staff to keep it current? Mr. BASLER. The continuing process here is one which will go over many years. It is going to be an awfully long time before we get all our material cataloged and arranged for cataloging. Mr. MUMFORD. I think the committee is familiar with the type of collection we are talking about. For instance, the personal papers of Admiral Leahy or the papers of the Wright brothers. We have the papers of 23 of the Presidents, but provision has already been made for arranging and microfilming them. We are concerned here with the papers of people who have been prominent in our national life, who have made an impact upon the national scene, such as Cabinet officers, military leaders, or outstanding scientists and literary people. The purpose of this catalog is to describe the collection, not to inventory every piece in the collection, but to describe the collection in such a way that it can be better serviced here and that the person at a distance will know where the material relating to a particular person is located. Mr. MUMFORD. Shall I proceed? POSITION FOR ORIENTALIA DIVISION Mr. MUMFORD. We are asking for one GS-5 processing and reference assistant in the Near East Section, Orientalia Division. The Near East Section covers a wide area. I will not read all the countries, but on page 36 of the justifications you will see the area that the Near East Section covers. The staff now consists of the Section Head, responsible for administrative and high-level reference work, and a staff of three reference 69462-61-3 librarians and a clerk. Each of the reference librarians has a language and area specialty-Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. The position requested will free the reference librarians for higher level and more prompt reference, bibliographical, and acquisitions recommending duties in this important geographical area. This position is needed primarily to perform custodial and processing duties, including the receipt and recording of incoming materials in the several languages, shelving and reshelving material, searching items in connection with acquisition recommendations, sorting by title newspapers and periodicals in the various languages, preparing material for binding-some 500 to 600 serial titles, including newspapers, are currently received and bringing up to date the serial record of the Near East Section. At present there are 250 serial titles for which the issues received are completely unrecorded. The collection in the custody of the Near East Section comprises about 33,400 volumes and over 1,000 bound newspaper volumes. There is a workload table on page 38 which shows the increased use in this area. I would request that the top part of page 38 be inserted in the record. Mr. STEED. Without objection we will include it at this point in the record. (The table above referred to follows:) Increases in workload are shown below: Mr. MUMFORD. The next items are to provide adequate clerical assistance in the Map and the Science and Technology Divisions. We are asking for one GS-4 clerk-typist in the Map Division, and one GS-5 secretary in the Science and Technology Division. The Map Division, with a staff of 19, has only one secretarial position to provide secretarial and clerical services for the entire Division. This includes serving as secretary to both the Chief and Assistant Chief of the Division, keeping time, leave, and payroll records, serving as receptionist, answering more than 500 telephone calls per month, typing between 160 and 175 letters, memorandums, or publications per month, maintaining the files, et cetera. The GS-4 clerk-typist requested is needed to relieve higher level personnel from typing their own work and from performing timeconsuming clerical tasks. Then in the Science and Technology Division, a secretary is urgently needed for the two GS-15 science specialists who work on congressional requests with the senior specialist in science of the Legislative Reference Service. These specialists conduct studies on scientific subjects requiring high level research and reference work. The typing |