United States, such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, et cetera, are awarding contracts to one of the vendors-Akzo. We are hopeful that the other bidders that participated in our procurement will get additional contracts. I am not currently aware that any of them are being shown the same level confidence that the Akzo process is at this time. Mr. FAZIO. We will be monitoring their experience very closely. Mr. HARRIS. Yes. The Librarian is asking you to unfreeze $375,000 so that we can proceed as vigorously as possible in the next few months to pursue the resolution of the problems with the Akzo process. Mr. FAZIO. We will certainly try to make a decision on that soon. Dr. BILLINGTON. That is, of course, not part of the appropriations request this year. Mr. FAZIO. That is not fiscal year 1993 funds? Dr. BILLINGTON. This is an authorization of money already appropriated. Mr. HARRIS. In the first one-year phase, we are asking you to unfreeze $375,000. We estimate that only $72,000 of that amount would go directly to Akzo to pay for approximately 12 test runs. Mr. FAZIO. Where would the rest go? Mr. HARRIS. The remainder of the $375,000 would go for technical support and consultant fees and supplies such as buying demonstration sets of books that we have to have in the first round of procurement, laboratory analysis, transportation back and forth a dozen times. We have a breakdown which we would be glad to give you. Mr. FAZIO. We will take a look at it and give you our response. [The information follows:] Library of Congress-Mass deacidification program We will leave it at that. We need to digest this. I appreciate the fact that you knew we would be interested in the action plan and had one prepared. Ed is developing a tremendous amount of expertise in this area. I am not going to make any statements until I have had time to talk to him because he will just correct them. I appreciate your presentation. We will get into this a little more and let you know. Thank you. I have a question I will submit for the record and also a question from Mr. Porter. PRESERVATION Question. During the aftermath of the deacidification contract withdrawal, we heard that alternative testing criteria might be more useful than the standard MIT fold tests and other conventional testing methods. Specifically, Harvard chemistry professor Andrew Barron, and Dr. Christian Herren, a Swiss chemist, have suggested more modern testing methodology. Are your scientists looking into that? Response. Yes. In fact, the Library used the molecular level chemistry methods that you are referring to in the early stages of development of the DEZ process. Our recent RFP also required all offerors to submit chemical test data for consideration by our evaluation panel. We utilized information from both chemical and physical testing methods because of the complementary functions of the two approaches. Based on a sophisticated evaluation using these testing methodologies, the Harvard University libraries have selected Akzo's DEZ process for preserving their collections. Andy Barron has expressed interest in closer collaboration with the Library of Congress after he publishes the initial findings resulting from his recent tests. On behalf of the Swiss National Library and the Swiss National Archives, Christian Herren, at the Propellant Plant at Wimmis, is emphasizing fundamental chemical properties of cellulose in determining the efficacy of the Akzo and FMC processes. As at Harvard, the Swiss have considerable resources in terms of sophisticated chemical research equipment and technical staff to conduct their study. They hope to complete their preliminary evaluation by the end of March this year. The Swiss also acknowledge the complementary nature of chemical and physical testing methods. As a result, they are developing an agreement with the Library of Congress that will enable chemists from both countries to compare data from these two methods in order to permit all of our institutions to make the best possible decisions about mass deacidification. QUESTION FROM MR. PORTER Question. It is my understanding that there were apparently two competing technologies for the Library's earlier RFP. There may be others in the field. How is the Library working with the private sector to encourage the development of these technologies? How is the Library helping the private sector to meet the Library's specifications? Response. There were actually three firms that submitted proposals to the Library's Request for Proposals: Wei T'o Associates, FMC Corporation, and Akzo Chemicals. After the cancellation of the procurement, the Library developed an action plan to address the remaining problems with the one process which demonstrated at that time the potential to meet all requirements. Library staff conducted an exhaustive survey to identify all potential competing technologies, including meeting with the principles of nine institutions and firms offering or developing deacidification services. The Library publicly announced its continued strong commitment to the use of mass deacidification as a major component of its preservation program. Preservation staff met with some, and offered to meet with all, firms to provide a detailed and comprehensive description of the Library's deacidification requirements. The preservation staff are maintaining contact with firms offering deacidification services; and, as processes develop to the stage where they can demonstrate the potential to meet all essential deacidification requirements, the Library will offer to test and evaluate treated materials submitted to it and will publish the results. NATIONAL TRANSLATION CENTER Mr. FAZIO. We talked a lot about the National Science Center. How is the National Translation Center doing? Dr. BILLINGTON. We project for this year that it will come close to breaking even. It is not quite there our projection is about $30,000 down but we project it in the black for next year. There has been tremendous effort made on it this year. Mr. FAZIO. You have done a little marketing? United States, such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, et cetera, are awarding contracts to one of the vendors-Akzo. We are hopeful that the other bidders that participated in our procurement will get additional contracts. I am not currently aware that any of them are being shown the same level confidence that the Akzo process is at this time. Mr. FAZIO. We will be monitoring their experience very closely. Mr. HARRIS. Yes. The Librarian is asking you to unfreez $375,000 so that we can proceed as vigorously as possible in th next few months to pursue the resolution of the problems with t Akzo process. Mr. FAZIO. We will certainly try to make a decision on that so Dr. BILLINGTON. That is, of course, not part of the appropriatio request this year. Mr. FAZIO. That is not fiscal year 1993 funds? Dr. BILLINGTON. This is an authorization of money already ap priated. Mr. HARRIS. In the first one-year phase, we are asking you t freeze $375,000. We estimate that only $72,000 of that an would go directly to Akzo to pay for approximately 12 test Mr. FAZIO. Where would the rest go? Mr. HARRIS. The remainder of the $375,000 would go for t cal support and consultant fees and supplies such as buying stration sets of books that we have to have in the first ro procurement, laboratory analysis, transportation back and dozen times. We have a breakdown which we would be glad to give you Library of Congress-Mass deacidification program Dr. BILLINGTON. Down from $94,000 in 1991. We project a $17,000 loss this year and a $30,000 profit next. In any case, Don Curran can give you more details if you want them. Mr. CURRAN. As you know, the effort here is to provide what amounts to a new service for the Library of Congress. That new service, in the first instance, is not so much to deal with the existing file of 400,000 records that we received from the Chicago Library. It is to encourage the scientific community in the United States to actively participate in the process by beginning to contribute translations into English of various scientific materials that they have done themselves, from German, from French or whatever. We then become the distributor of that information and offer it for sale to the rest of the interested community, primarily not so much in the library communities but in the industrial scientific community. We have sent out solicitations to participate. One of the key issues to deal with is copyrights. We have entered into an agreement with the Copyright Clearance Center who represent the original intellectual copyright owners, who are primarily European journals, and we pay them a use copying fee. We have crossed that bridge which we consider a crucial first step. We are now trying to get contributors to begin to participate, Federal agencies and the rest of the people who have made these translations into English. That is a matter of encouraging them to participate in this effort. We sent out 50,000 solicitations. We are going to meetings and trying to build up this cadre of participants and offering for sales indexes to the file. So we are trying to get into business this year. We are having some success but getting into business takes time. Our sales revenue for this year is down somewhat from our original forecast in part because of getting it in place. This is an experiment. It might not work. We are going to find out whether it works or not. There are people who are genuinely interested in this. Mr. FAZIO. Where are you finding the most interest? Mr. CURRAN. In the scientific communities. Mr. FAZIO. Pure science, basic research? Mr. CURRAN. More in applied science. Mr. FAZIO. They weren't aware that they needed this before? Mr. CURRAN. It didn't exist. The groundwork for this kind of a technical active exchange is now being laid and we will find out whether there are enough active participants to reach that crucial mass where we can sell $300,000 worth of these services to make it pay for itself. We hope we can because we believe it is a useful thing for American business to make it work. We are giving it our best shot. Mr. FAZIO. I think we should break for lunch now and return at 3:30, when we will continue and complete the Library's budget request. We made a lot of progress, but we may have a different mix of people here at 3:30. We have made enough progress that we can give ample time to our outside witnesses. So I will see you all after |
