fuel-spiralling upward, it becomes increasingly difficult for libraries to extend services to those not served or not served adequately. Indeed, many libraries are finding it difficult to maintain the level of service they have been providing. Yet even under such conditions, LSCA has helped the states and localities to find a way to provide new service to groups requiring it. In short, LSCA funds have provided and continue to provide the incentive for libraries in all parts of the country to serve the unserved.

For example, in my state, Oklahoma, LSCA money in 1973 and 1974 was used, in part, to fund a multi-county demonstration project in the southwestern part of the state. This project brought library services to Harmon and Jackson counties counties which had never before had library services. The citizens of these two counties found the services so valuable that when the demonstration project funds were withdrawn last year they did not wait for the state to pick up the funding; they voted a 2-mill library tax on themselves to keep the library going. One way in which libraries have extended their services to those unable to come to the library in recent years is through books by mail programs. In a typical program, the library mails out a catalog highlighting titles in its collection (or listing a paperback collection assembled for the purpose) to target groups. Families or individuals can then borrow and renew or return books entirely by mail and without any expense to themselves.

The Report of the 1973 Conference on Books by Mail Service1 indicates that rural books-by-mail programs are reaching from 10 to over 50 percent of rural population hitherto unserved by any of the standard public library services in the local area. Urban or metropolitan books by mail programs are the main source of books for a growing segment of those homebound, institution bound, and the elderly, and reach from 4 to 6 percent of the total population in the local urban area. The circulation cost of such programs seems to be comparable to branch or bookmobile circulation, although whether books by mail remains a viable alternative depends partially on the extent of the rise in postal rates. The library postal rate is now scheduled to rise over 300 percent according to the latest rate change requested by the Postal Service.

The North Central Regional Library in Wenatchee, Washington, began a booksby-mail program to serve low-density rural populations spread over a wide geographical area. The service proved to be extremely popular, growing at a rate of from 30 to 50 percent each year.

It accounts for over 10 percent of the total library circulation. At the termination of the LSCA funds that had been supporting it, the Library Board decided to keep the Mail Order Program, finding that it turned out to be quite competitive with other alternatives in terms of cost and more advantageous in terms of achieving the objective of equalizing library service. For this library, the main strength of the program lies in the fact that it does not require the concentration of population in a locality that bookmobile or branch service would require.

In New York, the Wyoming County Library, after having extended its booksby-mail service to the inmates of the Attica Correctional Facility for over a year, received word in June, 1973, that they would receive $5,000 to make the library staff, catalog, and book collection more fully available to the residents of Attica. The $5,000 was part of a larger $20,000 grant being made to Attica under LSCA to support a project providing paperback books for the reading interests of prison inmates. $10,000 of the grant was used to buy paperback books to place in cellblock libraries. $5,000 went to a professor of library science at SUNY, Geneseo, to train six inmates in library duties and to select the books for paperback collection.

We were disappointed that Title IV of LSCA, Older Readers Services, has never been funded since it was enacted in 1973. However, we are pleased that some services to the elderly have been carried out under Title I, including projects in California, Missouri, and Wisconsin. In 1974-75 LSCA grants in California included $38,660 to the Inland Library System for its ORIFLAMME service to the aged project, and $30,000 to the San Joaquin Valley Library System's program for the handicapped and aged. Much more could be done along these lines if there were additional funding.

An example of the variety of outreach services aided by LSCA funds is provided by the state of California. Highlights among 1975-76 grants include

1 Books by Mail Service: A Conference Report. June 23, 1973, Las Vegas, Nev. Sponsored by Council on Library Resources and Indiana State University, Dept. of Library Science. Ed. by Choon H. Kim, pub. by Indiana State University, Sept. 1973.

$290,287 to the Oakland Public Library for development of bilingual library service to the Asian community; $137,000 to the San Joaquin Valley Library System to establish library service to 15 correctional institutions in four counties; $127,537 to the San Jose Public Library for purchase of Spanish language materials and demonstration of bicultural service in both branch libraries and community centers; $77,111 to the Sonoma State Hospital resident library and mobile unit, including service to assist released patients in the community; and $107,610 to the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System, Los Angeles County, for special services to an estimated 55,000 deaf and hearing impaired residents.

These examples serve to illustrate how effectively the Library Services and Construction Act has aided libraries to serve those not served adequately or not reached at all. This has been accomplished by the careful use of seed money in the form of project grants to demonstrate new methods of library service, to allow libraries to work cooperatively across jurisdictional boundaries, and to improve service to the disadvantaged or previously unserved.

LSCA also serves to effectively supplement and complement other Federal programs. An example is library service to the blind, spearheaded by the Library of Congress. When the "Act to Provide Books for the Adult Blind" was passed in 1931, and 18 institutions were designated as regional libraries to serve the blind of the nation, the libraries were to be locally supported, with their talking book machines and a major portion of their talking books and braille books coming from the Library of Congress.

This program continues today, with the Library of Congress providing the materials to designated regional libraries at the state level, and to subregional libraries at the local level. The state and local libraries use their own funds and some assistance from LSCA to house the materials and provide support services and staff to make them available to the blind and physically handicapped. There are now 54 regional libraries at the state level, and about 150 subregional libraries, usually municipal public libraries. It is an effective program and an excellent model of local, state, and federal sharing.

Title I priorities, in addition to service to the disadvantaged, the bilingual, the elderly, the handicapped, and others who have no access to library service, include aiding metropolitan libraries and strengthening State Library Agencies. Urban libraries have special problems today arising out of the massive problems of large cities-the problems of diversity of population, of taxation and funding, of urban crowding—as well as increased demands on their resources and services by users outside their boundaries. LSCA funds have helped to strengthen the capacity of metropolitan libraries to make their resources more accessible on a national or regional basis, and have aided special projects to implement national priorities in such areas as Right to Read, career and vocational education, drug abuse and environmental education.

The stimulation of federal funds has also helped to develop statewide library programs, operated by the State Library Agencies, the governmental units responsible for providing leadership in library development throughout the state. Projects initiated include statewide and multi-county regional system development, statewide and regional film circuits and books-by-mail service, interlibrary cooperation and centralized processing centers, and in-service training programs. In Vermont, for instance, the Department of Libraries' Reference Services Unit, with its Access Office branch at the University of Vermont, serves as a referral center for questions which cannot be answered at the local level. The Unit also operates as a switching center for the Vermont Library Teletype Network, providing rapid response to requests for locations of materials listed in the Vermont Union Catalog. This results in much improved, cost effective sharing of library materials by all libraries and library users.

Extension of authorization for Title I of LSCA is urgently needed to help libraries respond to those groups outside the mainstream of society who are articulating their needs as never before, to meet the people's need for accurate and timely information in a complex society, and to enable libraries to pool resources as the only way of ensuring that larger numbers of people have access to the growing number of publications in a time of rising costs and limited funding. Library construction (LSCA title II)

As you know, title II of the LSCA was last funded in fiscal year 1973, and the entire $15 million appropriation was impounded by the Administration until the middle of fiscal year 1974 when it was released pursuant to court action brought by the States. These funds were rapidly obligated, and because further title II

appropriations were not made, a backlog of public library construction and remodeling projects has developed.

Last Spring the ALA surveyed the states to learn how many public library construction projects would be ready to go—that is, with the necessary matching funds available—if title II were funded in 1975. We were told that at least 743 library construction projects could be carried out, one-third ready to begin by July 1, another third by January 1, 1976, and the remainder by July 1, 1976. Attached to this statement is a state-by-state list of public library projects on which construction could begin if Federal matching funds were forthcoming.

In addition to projects for which matching funds are available, states have identified another 766 public library construction projects that are badly needed but are in communities that cannot generate the local matching funds required for participation in a program like title II.

The need for public library construction is spread throughout the country, as the attached list shows, and the employment effects of meeting those needs would consequently be felt throughout the economy. I want to point out also that many of these projects are not for wholly new construction but proposed remodeling or modernization of existing structures. Many libraries are trying to provide services through smaller neighborhood branches. Many libraries need to alter their facilities to permit their use by the physically handicapped. Requirements of the occupational safety-health standards must be taken into consideration. In some places, libraries are faced with a need to convert their heating equipment in an effort to comply with local limitations on sources of energy and to hold down their operating costs.

We are convinced from the data we have collected, that this libary construction program is badly needed and must be continued.

Interlibrary cooperation (LSCA title III)

Title III is a highly significant federal program that encourages cooperation among all types of libraries irrespective of jurisdictional lines.

We find it difficult to understand how the Administration could recommend termination of this program which provides incentive for the states to develop projects that link all types of libraries together enabling them to coordinate their resources and services, when the same Administration at the same time proposes a Library Partnership Act for interlibrary cooperation. The Administration would substitute a dubious unknown quantity for a program that has won acclaim from all states.

LSCA title III has been a popular and successful program, although severely underfunded from the start. Notwithstanding the relatively small amount of title III funds allotted to each state and the uncertainty that has attended provision of the funds in recent years, the states are making significant improvements and economies in their services through the title III program.

In Pennsylvania, for example, materials are exchanged through a van delivery system that connects 150 libraries across the state. The academic and public libraries list each book they purchase in a central computer file so that any cooperating library can instantly determine which other libraries own a specific book requested by a reader. A catalog of the holdings of over 100 Pennsylvania libraries is being placed on microfilm, and copies will be placed at several locations throughout the state so that these books may be borrowed on an interlibrary loan basis.

Kansas has used Title III funds to start and operate an interlibrary loan system that includes college, junior college, high school and public libraries. Any patron of any of these libraries has access to the materials in any other library in the system. This has given libraries the opportunity to enlarge their collections since they do not have to purchase seldom-requested esoteric titles which are available at participating libraries. Cooperative endeavors such as this would not have been possible without the availability of Title III funds to encourage and assist development of the new system.

California has used a Title III grant to set up a Cooperative Information Network with the purpose of responding as totally as possible to the informational needs of individuals, government units, and businesses located within Santa Clara County. Participants in the network from the beginning included the libraries of three universities (Stanford, Santa Clara, and San Jose State), eight sizable public libraries, five burgeoning community colleges, scores of school and media libraries, plus the vast scientific collections of special libraries. More libraries joined later.

The participating libraries are linked together by teletype equipment for rapid interlibrary communication. This enables the library parton to have access to the resources of the entire network, just by visiting his own local library. LSCA Title III has been instrumental in stimulating state and regional network development in all parts of the country.

Increasingly, libraries are interconnected through teletype equipment such as the TWX service provided by Western Union. In addition to the library network in Santa Clara County just described, another example is KENCLIP, the Kentucky Cooperative Library Information Project. Recent rate increases proposed by Western Union last summer and subsequently approved by the Federal Communications Commission have raised KENCLIP's costs by about $2,704 annually. In California alone, there were about 400 TWX machines installed in libraries in 1972. The Mountain Valley Library System is perhaps typical. Four TWX installations constitute the system-one in Sacramento, one at the California State University in Sacramento, one at the University of California at Davis and one at the Mono County Library. The previous monthly charge was $334 and the new monthly charge is $431.

Rate increases such as these jeopardize network development, particularly in rural areas, for the new rate structure for TWX places additional costs on rural communities by means of remote extension charge. In Vermont, for example, the State Librarian has informed us that the increased cost of TWX beginning September 1, 1975 results in an addition of about $1,500 to the annual TWX bill for five library installations located throughout the state. More than half of this amount, or $900, represents the new remote extension charge for areas outside designated cities, the remainder being increased access costs.

The New Mexico State Library with assistance from LSCA Title III has developed a network of resource sharing among 12 public libraries and 17 academic libraries located throughout the state and interconnected by means of TWX. "This communications network has been especially meaningful in a state such as New Mexico which is hindered by long distances and limited information resources," the State Librarian reports. It provides a primary source of information for citizens in rural areas. With the recent inauguration by Western Union of the new remote extension charge, the State Librarian estimates an additional cost to New Mexico libraries of some $4,674 annually.

Under Title III, LSCA money is used to foster interlibrary cooperation, even across state lines. In southeast Louisiana, not far from my home, five public libraries, eight academic libraries and three special libraries have formed a cooperative library network for the New Orleans area. A farmer in a rural area 30 miles from New Orleans was having trouble with his cattle. They were afflicted with anaplasmosis. He did not know what to do. Through the cooperative library network he was able to get technical journals at his local library from the Louisiana State University Medical School library. His cattle pulled through.

The State Librarian of Ohio has told us that, thanks to Title III funds, patrons of the library in McArthur, an Appalachian community of less than 10,000, were able to borrow books from the Ohio State University Library, from the Akron Public Library and even from the Library of Harvard University. Here is a local public library with an annual budget of $12,660 giving service of this kind to its patrons, and this is made possible by Title III.

We are sometimes asked why federal funds should be provided for the interlibrary projects supported under Title III. There are several reasons. Many of these networks of cooperating libraries reach across state boundaries as, for example, in metropolitan areas located in more than one state. The federal funds also stimulate and support the less-advanced library systems in their efforts to provide better service. Often Title III projects demonstrate the benefits of public library service, and the local people subsequently vote to tax themselves for its continuation. We have seen this happen many times, in state after state.

LSCA Title III is an important federal program, encouraging cooperative efforts across jurisdictional lines. As library networks are developed, duplication of effort can be reduced and the use of all libraries expanded. It is essential that this Title be extended, and that it be more adequately funded in the future, to help states meet the increased costs of networking.

Evaluation of LSCA

The evaluative studies arranged by the Office of Education pursuant to the mandate of Congress confirm the essential stimulus and support for public library services that have been provided through the LSCA. The report of the Systems Development Corporation in 1973, for one, stated :

LSCA funds have been a critical factor in projects for special clienteles, and they have provided the bulk of the funds used for innovative projects: without LSCA (or a real substitute) there would be little or no innovation-in short, a rather static, even moribund public library in the U.S.

Another report by the same contractor reported to the Office of Education in 1974 that:

The Federal Government has played a role in recent years of helping the public library to organize into systems and to provide services to segments of the population who were previously unserved. While there are indications that Federal programs suffered from insufficient coordination, insufficient evaluation, and inadequate funding, there is much evidence to demonstrate that a strong impetus toward system organization and the availability of services to special clienteles was provided by federal intervention.

These finding are confirmed by the reports reaching us from State and local library officials and organizations. Consequently we strongly disagree with the conclusions reached by the Administration that LSCA has outlived its usefulness and should be terminated.

Authorization

II. AMENDMENTS TO LSCA RECOMMENDED BY ALA

The American Library Association urges an extension of the Library Services and Construction Act, to allow time for the findings of the White House Conference to be collected and analyzed before major revision of federal library legislation is considered. We recommend a five-year extension, with specific authorization for the first three years, and for the remaining two, such sums as necessary depending upon the findings of the state and national conferences on library and information services.

While we recommend that authorizations for Title I and II be continued at existing levels, we strongly urge the Committee to raise the authorization level for LSCA Title III so that over a three-year period it reaches at least $50 million. The states have laid the groundwork for highly successful interlibrary cooperative projects with assistance from Title III, but the program must be more adequately funded in future years, so that interlibrary cooperation and network development utilizing and expanding the use of school, public, academic, and special library resources will truly achieve its potential of greatly improved library service to all.

We anticipate that by 1978 the states will have concluded their conferences in advance of the White House Conference on Library and Information Services. Then, the states will have a more timely and accurate assessment of their needs for library services and of the resources available to meet those needs. Accordingly, we urge a specific authorization for three years and open-ended sums as necessary for the next two.

Incentives for State support of libraries

We believe LSCA to be sound legislation. It has stimulated state and local library support while providing for innovation and attention to national concerns. Every federal dollar spent for LSCA Titles I and II is matched by the states or localities. "Thanks to the federal library services and construction program," says a recent report to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, "the states, without exception, now have the organizational structure-and in many instances the leadership-to guide the development of library services."

And yet, the same report also points out that a significant increase in library funding must come from the states. "Just as there is geographic interstate diversity in the ability to finance public services, there are inter-regional diversities within states this is as applicable to library services as it is to the financing of schools. These intrastate service inequalities can be handled much more readily when the funding is done on an area wide rather than on a local basis. When the state picks up a substantial portion-say 50 percent of the funding, it has an opportunity to equalize the resources among local library systems."

2

2 "Alternatives for Financing the Public Library," a study prepared for the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, U.S. Government Printing Office. May 1974.