The fiscal 2002 budget request contains four major elements. Before I explain those elements, I would like to highlight the Library's decision to withdraw the Copyright Office's request of $2,688,109 and 13 FTEs to accelerate the development of the Copyright Office's electronic registration, recordation, and deposit system (CORDS). Since the date the Library's fiscal 2002 budget was submitted to the Congress in January 2001, the Copyright Office has received new information from its reengineering project team that points to the need to do further analysis of the Office's total systems requirements before any further acceleration of the CORDS systems is undertaken. We are also reducing the Copyright Office's use of receipts by the $1.1 million that was budgeted to fund a portion of the CORDS project. I ask that the Congress maintain the fees accumulated in the Copyright Office's no-year receipt account (including the $1.1 million) for the inescapable and significant automation costs that we know will be necessary to fund the Office's electronic transformation in the future. The Register of Copyrights, Ms. Marybeth Peters, will elaborate further on this change and the critical need to maintain the no-year receipt account in her statement. The numbers contained in this statement have been adjusted to reflect the decision to withdraw the Copyright Office's request. Program Decreases ($121.4 million) -- The Library's fiscal 2001 budget provides no-year funds for several activities that do not require additional funding in fiscal 2002 and may or may not continue beyond fiscal 2001. Specifically, the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program ($99.8 million), the establishment of a Center for Russian Leadership Development ($10 million), three digital access projects ($10.6 million), and a phased reduction in the Integrated Library System ($1 million) are program decreases in fiscal 2002. Mandatory Pay and Price-level Increases ($20 million) -- The Library's budget funds primarily people and technology -- categories where costs increase each year because of mandated pay and inflationary price-level increases. Unless these increases are funded, existing programs must be cut. Funding our fiscal 2002 budget request for mandatory pay and price-level increases will enable the Library to sustain its basic, traditional services while addressing its inescapable digital request for fiscal 2002 covers support for the Congressional Research Service's conduct and delivery of policy analysis and research; the National Digital Library's continuing infrastructure requirements; and the Library's computer security infrastructure. Technology is going to define how we do business with our principal client, the Congress of the United States, for the foreseeable future. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) must have necessary policy expertise to assist the Congress as it considers laws affected by technology. The Director of CRS, Daniel Mulhollan, will elaborate further on this request in his statement. Collections Access, Preservation, and Security Increases ($11.8 million) -- The Library's massive multiformat collections are the heart of the institution. As these artifactual collections continue to grow, reflecting the unceasing creativity of American and other authors, the Library must continue to invest in securing and preserving these cultural records, our primary assets. The funds requested for collection care will enable the Library to deacidify books printed on deteriorating paper; test options for developing a paper-strengthening capability; clean and repair materials destined for remote storage; and, following the opening of the Ft. Meade repository this year, we will begin realigning the multimillion-volume general collections so that books are properly housed. The Library's budget request for fiscal year 2002 -- $442.7 million in net appropriations (as adjusted) and $34.7 million in authority to use receipts -- supports the Library's mission to make its resources available and useful in the increasingly digital 21st century. This is a net decrease of $68.4 million or 13.4 percent below fiscal 2001 ($121.4 million in decreases less program increases of $51.6 million and receipts decreases of $1.4 million). A major part of the $51.6 million in program increases ($20 million) is needed to fund mandatory pay raises (driven largely by the January 2002 pay raise of 4.6 percent) and unavoidable price-level increases. The Library is requesting an increase of 108 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions - from 4,099 to 4,207 FTEs. Even with such an increase, the Library would still have 342 fewer FTEs (or 7.5 percent less) than in fiscal 1992. - The Library of Congress Today The core of the Library is its incomparable collections -- and the specialists who interpret and share them. The Library's nearly 121 million items include almost all languages and media through which knowledge and creativity are preserved and communicated. The Library has more than 27 million items in its print collections; 12 million photographs; 4 million maps, 2 million audio recordings; 800,000 motion pictures, including the earliest movies ever made; 4 million pieces of music; 54 million pages of personal papers and manuscripts, including those of 23 Presidents of the United States, as well as hundreds of thousands of scientific and government documents. New treasures are added each year. Notable acquisitions during fiscal 2000 include: nearly 100 additional old volumes to help reconstruct Thomas Jefferson's original library; a rare, complete and perfect Venetian map of 1559 describing the whole world; the maps drawn by Lafayette's cartographer; the papers of Philip Roth and Lucas Foss, the Kenneth Walker architectural drawings; the letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay; the first known map of Kentucky; the Coville Photography collection; a unique collection of Russian sheet music covers; and the film collection of Baron Walter de Mohrenschildt. During fiscal 2000, the Library also reached agreement on the regular, ongoing deposit of the archives of electronic journals published by the American Physical Society; continued its relationship with Bell & Howell on cost-effective access to its digital archive of U.S. doctoral dissertations; and built on the existing gift agreement with the Internet Archive to select and acquire open-access Web resources of special interest to the Library -- such as the Web sites of all U.S. Presidential candidates. Every workday, the Library's staff adds approximately 10,000 new items to the collections after organizing and cataloging them. The Library then finds ways to share them with the Congress and the nation -- by assisting users in the Library's reading rooms, by providing on-line access across the nation, and by featuring the Library's collections in cultural programs. Major annual services include delivering more than 590,000 congressional research responses and services, processing more than 580,000 copyright claims, circulating more than 22 million audio and braille books and magazines free to blind and physically handicapped individuals all across America, and cataloging more than 250,000 books and serials that provide the nation's libraries with inexpensive bibliographic records and save them an estimated $268 million annually. The Library also provides free on-line access, via the Internet, to its automated information files, which contain more than 75 million records -- to congressional offices, Federal agencies, libraries, and the public. The Library's Internet-based systems include major World Wide Web (www) services (e.g, Legislative Information System, THOMAS, <www.loc.gov>, Global Legal Information Network, the Library of Congress On-line Public Access Catalog, at <www.catalog.loc.gov>), and various file transfer options. Library of Congress programs and activities are funded by four salaries and expenses (S&E) appropriations supporting congressional services, national library services, copyright administration, services to blind and physically handicapped people, and management support. A separate appropriation funds furniture and furnishings. - Digital Futures Initiatives The Library of Congress is bringing America's story -- in all its variety -- to everyone, whether at work, in their homes, in schools, or in libraries. The digital explosion has imposed on us a new mission-critical workload and the need to expand our high-quality free on-line services to the Congress, K-12 education, and the American public. This task must be superimposed on our equally critical traditional services of acquiring, cataloging, preserving, serving, and storing artifactual materials. The Library is requesting $18.8 million and a 80-FTE increase to support the Digital Future, which consists of three components: |