A demand for such special services that would not have been encompassed in putting out this whole volume. At the present time we could recover none of our costs other than the actual printing and paper for such service, and that would go to GPO.

Mr. DADDARIO. What would you do if there were not sufficient demand to recover the cost but it was still extremely important to one individual or company?

Dr. HOLLOMON. This is a problem I tried to explain earlier. I was responding first to Dr. Astin's example where there is a demand for a special service that we did not intend to provide at all. The second question you now ask is what would you do where there were a few people in the country known to need the data, but where the cost of compilation is very high.

Mr. DADDARIO. I feel this would fall within this provision of the code; don't you?

Dr. HOLLOMON. Yes, sir; I do.

Mr. WAGGONNER. Dr. Hollomon or Dr. Astin, you make the statement that this proposed Standard Reference Data Act would allow you to recover a significant, but not a large, fraction of the total cost of the publication of some particular operation, for example, such as the compilation of mathematical tables. What do you call "significant"? Are you talking about 50 percent or are you talking about 25 or 30 percent? We can't define "significant," but can you estimate the percent generally?

Dr. HOLLOMON. I think it might be different, as I said, depending on the degree of effort that would have to go into it. We have evaluated various publications, and I would say that the range would be something between, say, 20 and 60 percent on any given volume but no more on the average across the board than something on the order of 20 or 25 percent.

Mr. WAGGONNER. The compilation of the mathematical tables to which you just alluded. How many of these did you distribute? Dr. HOLLOMON. 50,000 at $6.50.

Mr. WAGGONNER. Did I not understand you to say that 50,000 of these maybe should have been sold for $15?

This

Dr. HOLLOMON. That I think would be fairly reasonable. would be a third, or something of the order, or half of what they would have been sold

Mr. WAGGONNER. That is $750,000. You said it cost you $50,000 to produce it, and you only wanted to regain 50 percent.

Dr. HOLLOMON. I said it cost us $500,000. There were additional charges which the GPO had which I don't know.

Mr. WAGGONNER. We have exceeded the total cost and have probably charged the people who provided the information in the first place for producing it back for them.

Dr. HOLLOMON. We do not, under this act, intend to recover more than the costs which are specifically authorized. In no case do we intend to recover more than the costs.

Mr. WAGGONNER. If we allowed you to charge for your editorial comments, as you say you would in this particular instance

Dr. HOLLOMON. Not more than our total cost. To the extent practical and appropriate, such prices may reflect the costs of collection,

compilation, and evaluation, but no more than that. We are not suggesting that we make a profit on this business.

Mr. WAGGONNER. 50,000 copies times $15 is $750,000.

Dr. ASTIN. The $6.50 of that is the GPO's part. The only part that we could recover would be the part brought in in excess.

Mr. WAGGONNER. That leaves you $8.50.

Dr. ASTIN. This particular handbook I am sure is a special case. Mr. WAGGONNER. How many special cases will we have?

Dr. ASTIN. First of all, this is a mathematical handbook rather than a numerical data handbook, and costs associated with the preparation of this are relatively less than with the numerical data handbook.

Dr. HOLLOMON. That is, the amount of critical evaluation that is done is here insignificant. What you have here is esssentially the compilation of tables.

Dr. ASTIN. Here is a numerical data compilation, the Selected Values of Thermodynamics. The cost of preparing this was about the same as the math handbook and it sold only 7,000 copies. It is a much more limited item. In general we will find that the number of customers for our numerical data compilations will be less than 10,000. Mr. WAGGONNER. Mr. Chairman, since we are on this last section of Dr. Astin's statement, do you want to pursue it further or do you want to reach another starting point?

Mr. DADDARIO. Why don't we continue on this question of costs for a moment. I am sure Mr. Conable has a question. Mr. Conable.

Mr. CONABLE. In view of the fact that you have elected to charge some part of the intellectual costs involved in some of these things, don't you anticipate a serious problem of enforcement of 7(b)? Couldn't modest editorial charges be made in compilations that were made up and thus create a question of enforcibility that is going to be very difficult?

Dr. HOLLOMON. I had not anticipated that. The general purpose of being able to apply a mark was to give some assurance to the user that this data that had been critically evaluated was in fact a part of the National System and had met certain minimum standards with respect to it. That is the purpose of that particular section.

Now I think the question here is one of intent and interpretation. The purpose is to provide a mechanism so that compilations which meet certain minimum standards having to do with critical evaluation and so forth, whether done by NBS or someone else, can use a mark which identifies that evaluation.

Mr. CONABLE. The mark relates to 7 (a).

Dr. HOLLOMON. Yes. The mark relates to 7 (a).

Mr. CONABLE. 7(b) makes it illegal to copy any data compilation bearing the mark.

Dr. HOLLOMON. Yes. My view of that is the word "copy" might be clarified. I would suggest that you change it to "reproduce for sale." We do not intend to prevent the fair use of this material. That is not the purpose of the act. I think the question here is the word "copy," I would suggest that it be changed to "reproduce for sale."

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Hornig came to somewhat the same conclusions yesterday.

Dr. HOLLOMON. We do not intend to prevent anybody from copying by Xerox or some other means so that he may use the data at his desk.

Mr. CONABLE. Don't you anticipate there may be some commercial outfits that will want to provide, let's say, a portion of a major compilation?

Dr. HOLLOMON. Absolutely.

Mr. CONABLE. On a commerical basis?

Dr. HOLLOMON. This bill would permit them to do so, and the Secretary would grant them permission to use the mark so long as the compilations met the standards. I think this would permit private organizations, for example, to publish so long as they met the standards.

Mr. CONABLE. You would expect the Secretary then not to be at all sticky about giving written authorization?

Dr. HOLLOMON. Not at all. The whole point here is one of insuring that the scientific and engineering community understands that compilations of this sort have met the minimum standards of the National Bureau of Standards. It is not unlike the National Bureau of Standards giving a certificate with respect to a calibration service, saying that this calibration has been made and meets certain minimum standards of the National Bureau of Standards.

I would like to be sure it is in the record that the intent here is not at all to limit the degree to which private or public bodies may disseminate such information. In fact, we would intend to use the private publishing community to the degree to which this could effectively carry out the purposes of the act.

The thing we don't want to have happen, however, is for somebody in the backyard to put out a compilation and say that it is Standard Reference Data System material implying it has met the standards which we are all interested in, and sell it for that purpose. That is the intent of the legislation.

Mr. CONABLE. I simply wanted to be sure that the Government, in this case, wouldn't be getting a proprietary interest in a set of facts. Dr. HOLLOMON. Absolutely not. The whole intent here is to try to provide a better mechanism of dissemination. It is not to restrict. It is to provide a mechanism so that we don't have a number of people providing compilations which imply or infer, or which can be deduced to be part of the System.

Mr. CONABLE. You referred to the selected values of thermodynamic properties. Have any private or any commercial treatises bearing on the subject been put out? You say that 7,000 copies of the book were sold.

Dr. HOLLOMON. Let me give you an example. This is what in a sense we are replacing, and I would like to make it clear so that the committee understands the problem. Replacing is a generic word because here we didn't have tapes and other things that we now have, and computers. The International Critical Tables were published by McGraw-Hill in 1929, and as I remember, having used it, I believe there are seven volumes.

Now this was a set of critical tables which would correspond to 400 volumes, or something of that order, if we had to reproduce it to

day incorporating the kind of data that are now available. This was published privately, and there are similar kinds of publications today that exist that are privately published. They may or may not meet the standards which would have them included in the Standard Reference Data System. Now it is not our intention to restrict this. It is our intent to say, if these meet the standards that are set up and if they are appropriately evaluated as part of the system, they can still be published privately.

Mr. CONABLE. Do you anticipate that there would continue to be substantial private publishing?

Dr. ASTIN. Yes, I am sure there will be. We would hope to encourage the appearance of compilations produced by private means. The Manufacturing Chemist Association is supporting work in this area now, also the American Petroleum Institute. These we would encourage. We would cooperate with them, and to the extent that they are covering certain areas of science, we would not have to see that these areas are covered.

We would like to bring all these things together in an integrated system conforming to the same standards of quality so that we can facilitate the bringing together of a single national file where any data, any property can be located.

Mr. CONABLE. In other words, the establishment of your user charges is not intended to have any effect on possible competitive aspects of the private publishing?

Dr. HOLLOMON. No, just the converse. We would like to use this as a means of encouraging private publication where possible.

Mr. MOSHER. But, as a matter of fact, when you are publishing in an area and charging a user charge, it would pay the private publisher to compete with you?

Dr. HOLLOMON. We would try not to compete with private parties. Mr. MOSHER. When you had a category that you wanted to publish, would you be asking for bids from private publishers?

Dr. HOLLOMON. I see no reason why not.

Mr. CONABLE. Mr. Chairman, one last question I would like to ask Mr. Farrar who is the legal adviser for NBS.

Mr. DADDARIO. May the record show that Mr. Allen J. Farrar is accompanying Dr. Hollomon and Dr. Astin.

Mr. CONABLE. Do you see any problem of Government liability, since we are in effect saying these figures are reliable? It is demonstrable through the history of science that the reliability of figures deteriorates as we advance our knowledge. We are going to have to be constantly updating anything we do in this line.

Mr. FARRAR. I think, if I may, Mr. Conable, your question also implies in effect the Government guaranteeing to the user of the Standard Reference Data which is put out through this program as being accurate and, therefore, may be relied upon, and if in error the Government would be liable because of its having sponsored a program. Mr. CONABLE. Yes.

Mr. FARRAR. I would have to say this. The only thing that the Government in a sense "guarantees" is the fact that the data has been critically evaluated, that it has gone through certain procedures, and certain standards were applied with regard to the analysis of the data

before it is permitted to have attached to it the symbol or mark which is provided for by the act.

Therefore, to that extent it may be considered as being reliable. But no scientific data, to my knowledge, can be said to be that reliable, that guaranteed, that pure, that a person may consider that it is not subject to question, that there may not be some updating or later knowledge which indicates that the information can be improved upon.

I don't think that the Government could be sued. I certainly don't think it comes under the Federal Tort Claims Act. I also don't believe it would come in the court of claims under the Tucker Act as a breach of contract. I don't know how

Mr. CONABLE. In the compilations put out, will there be a specific exculpation to the Government or will this be simply an implied exculpation based upon the knowledge of scientific realities?

Mr. FARRAR. I think that the user of scientific data, Mr. Conable-I presume the question is still directed to me-recognizes the fact that scientific information and scientific data are always subject to question, and to that extent I don't think that he would require an exculpation clause. These are not Government contracts in the true sense.

Dr. HOLLOMON. I see no objection, however.

Mr. FARRAR. No; we would not be opposed to the inclusion of an exculpation clause in the publication.

Mr. CONABLE. Do you think it conceivable that people could bring action against the Government here on the grounds that the data was negligently prepared?

Mr. FARRAR. I think this would be an unconsented suit against the Government. It would not in my judgment fall under the Tort Claims Act unless the Tort Claims Act is subsequently amended to allow this type of thing. You can only maintain a tort action against the Government regarding certain specific activities, and I don't think this is one of them, sir.

Mr. WAGGONNER. I doubt if anyone would ever live long enough to see a case like that through the judicial process.

Mr. MOSHER. Just to get back to the basic philosophy of this bill for a minute and let me express some of those vague fears I mentioned yesterday, the very phrase "critically evaluated" implies an act of judgment on somebody's part. It is a judgment, in this case, between two figures or two sets of figures.

Dr. HOLLOMON. Or more.

Mr. MOSHER. Your testimony says that only a specialist in the field can tell which is most likely to be correct. That "most likely" seems very loose. How can you make this judgment without actually going into the laboratory and rechecking these figures? How am I to say that this scientist's figures are better than that scientist's figures?

Dr. HOLLOMON. That is one of the difficulties. Neither you nor I are very good at that. Let me try to describe what is normally done. Normally you get a group of qualified people to examine the data that are available, and the procedures that were used in the investigations that produced the data. The likelihood of errors of measurement develop as a consequence of having used inappropriate techniques in the past. In many instances, new techniques have been developed. What is usually done is the specification of a value with