Plans for the Future

Once the White House Conference is held, substantial time, energy and effort can be expected to be devoted to analyzing its results, and determining how best to address the task of implementing its recommendations. Doubtlessly this will involve extensive interaction with a number of other Federal agencies, as well as those on the local, state and regional levels, and with the many groups and organizations involved in and affected by the Conference as well.

The law calls for presentation of the final Conference report to the President within 120 days of the Conference; developing the report will be the major task left to the White House Conference staff, which is expected to disband shortly thereafter.

The Commission expects to continue its drive for an improved mechanism for national periodicals access, and to continue its support of the very important task force on public/private sector relationships.

A task force on the needs of cultural minorities, and one on international relations are scheduled to be established in the coming year, and another to examine the impact of technology on society's infor mation needs and information service mechanisms, the following year.

Personnel and Administration

National Commission on Libraries and Information Science

The Commission's first Chairman, Dr. Frederick Burkhardt, resigned at the close of the previous fiscal year. Dr. Burkhardt, who had served as Chairman since the Commission's inception in 1971, felt he would not be free to give the time to the Commission that the up'coming White House Conference would inevitably require, since he was in the midst of a major research project as editor of a definitive edition of the letters of Charles Darwin. The Commission noted his resignation with deep regret, and honored his many years of devoted service to both the Commission and the predecessor Advisory Commission by naming him Chairman Emeritus.

The appointment by the President of his successor, Charles Benton, was confirmed by the Senate on October 12, 1978. Mr. Benton, an Illinois business executive and civic activist, is Chairman of the Board of Films, Inc., a leading distributor of 16 millimeter feature films and educational media materials, located in Wilmette, Illinois. A 1953 Yale University graduate, Mr. Benton has been working in the field of educational audiovisual materials since he began his career in 1953 as a producer and distributor with Encyclopaedia Britannica films. He has served as President of Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, Inc. (1964-1966), President of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation (1960-1967), and President of the Funds for Media Research (1967-1969). In 1968 he was named President of both Public Media, Inc. and of Films, Inc. He became Chairman and chief executive officer of the latter firm in 1977. Mr. Benton's civic activities include serving as a trustee for the American Assembly, the American Federation of Arts, the Chicago Educational Television Association, and the University of Chicago. In addition, he is President of the William Benton Foundation and Vice President of Cinema Chicago and serves on the boards of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, the National Citizens Commission for Broadcasting, the Visual Education Center (Toronto) and the Donor's Forum. Mr. Benton was appointed to fill Dr. Burkhardt's unexpired term; the appointment expires July 19, 1980.

Three other appointments to the Commission were announced during FY 1979. Mrs. Bessie Boehm Moore, a member of the Commission from its inception, and a member of the predecessor Advisory Committee as well, was re-appointed for a precedent-setting third term.

Mrs. Moore, who holds honorary degrees from the University of Arizona and the University of Arkansas, has been active in the library sphere since 1926 when she organized the first county library in Arkansas. She has served as Executive Director of the Arkansas State Council on Economic Education since 1962, and as Chairman of the Arkansas Library Commission since 1952. She is an active participant in Arkansas, national and international library and education activities, and has served outstandingly as delegate and speaker to innumerable conferences and meetings throughout the country and around the world. Upon confirmation of her reappointment, Mrs. Moore was promptly re-elected Vice Chairman of the Commission, a position she has held since 1972.

Francis Keppel, currently Director of the Aspen Institute Program in Education for a Changing Society, was appointed to replace former Commissioner Daniel Casey, whose term expired in July of 1978. Mr. Keppel has had a long career in education, government and business, beginning in 1939 when he was appointed as Assistant Dean at Harvard College. He later served as Dean of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education; and in the early to mid-1960's as a U.S. Commissioner of Education and then as Assistant Secretary (for Education) of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. From 1966 to 1974, he was Chairman of the Board of General Learning Corporation, the educational affiliate of General Electric Company and Time, Inc. He has held a variety of other positions, including those of Vice Chairman of Higher Education of the City University of New York and Overseer of Harvard University. At present, he is a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and educational consultant to Time Inc.; Chairman of the Board of the Lincoln Center Institute; and a member of the Boards of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.; the Carnegie Corporation and Bennington College.

Philip Sprague, an Indiana businessman, succeeds Mrs. Julia Li Wu, whose term also expired in July of 1978. Mr. Sprague, who holds a Master's Degree in Business Administration from Harvard University, has just been appointed to the Small Business Administration as Associate Administrator for Management Assistance. He had formerly been Consultant, Director and Member of the Executive Committee of the Milton Roy Company, St. Petersburg, Florida. A member of the Board of Trustees of Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, he has held a variety of civic and community affairs positions in Michigan City, Indiana, and in the State of Indiana. From 1968 to 1972, he served as a Commissioner on the Michigan City Public Housing Authority, and in 1976 was a member of the Indiana Developmental Disabilities Planning and Advisory Board. He has also served variously as Chairman of the Instrument Society of America's National Conference and Exhibit, as the Society's President, as Presi

dent of the Scientific Apparatus Makers Association, and as a delegate to the International Federation of Automatic Control World Congress, Moscow, 1960; Warsaw, 1969; Paris, 1972; Boston, 1976; and Helsinki, 1978.

The terms of all three appointees run until July 19, 1983. The terms of three additional Commissioners expired during this fiscal year: Joseph Becker, Carlos A. Cuadra, and John E. Velde, Jr. Since new appointments had not yet been made by the end of the year, these Commissioners continued to serve in a consulting capacity. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Staff

Changes also occurred on the staff. In February, 1979, Mrs. Ruby O. Woods-Robinson joined the staff in the position of Research Associate. Mrs. Woods-Robinson has had a broad range of experiences in public, state and school libraries in Detroit, the District of Columbia, California and Japan, and in West Africa as Regional Library Consultant for the U.S. Information Agency.

William D. Mathews, Staff Associate for Information Technology since October, 1977, resigned in August of 1979 to take a position as Director for Systems and Planning with a New York firm.

Ruth Liepmann Tighe, who had been serving as Program Coordinator on the White House Conference staff, returned to the Commission staff in the Spring of 1979 to resume her original position as Research Associate.

To assure coordination between the staff responsible for planning the White House Conference and the regular Commission staff, Mary Alice Hedge Reszetar, Associate Director of the Commission, was designated official staff liaison to the White House Conference project.

Former Staff

On April 2, 1979, the Commission received word that Charles H. Stevens, Executive Director of the National Commission from 1971 to 1974, had passed away. The Commission adopted, by unanimous vote, a motion honoring his memory and his years of service.

Administration

During this year, the Commission sought to formalize its structure and operation by developing a governance document spelling out the function and responsibilities of the Chairman, the Commission, its committees, and staff. The document went through several drafts, and was formally adopted on March 9, 1979. Four committees are functioning under the governance document: the Executive, Public Information, Program, and Research Committees. Mission statements, membership definition, functions of each committee, related responsibilities, and the role of the Executive Director vis-a-vis each committee are defined in the governance document.

A full list of Commissioners, Committee memberships and staff is shown on pages 1 and 2.

White House Conference on Library and Information Services
Advisory Committee

Seventeen new members were appointed to the White House Conference on Library and Information Services Advisory Committee during this reporting period, fifteen by President Carter, one by Senator Warren G. Magnuson, President Pro Tempore of the Senate and one by Charles Benton, Chairman of NCLIS. Of the president's choices, 13 were new appointees. Retained by the President were Alice Ihrig, an Illinois library and community activist, and Joseph Shubert, New York State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner for Libraries. The thirteen new Presidential appointees are: C. E. Campbell Beall, Chairman of the West Virginia Library Commission; Rebecca T. Bingham, Director of Media Services for the Jefferson County (Kentucky) Public Schools; Robert Lee Chartrand, Senior Specialist in Information Science for the Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service; Shirley Echelman, Executive Director of the Medical Library Association, Chicago; Robert M. Hayes, Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of California at Los Angeles; Warren Gardiner Hill, Executive Director, Education Commission of the States; Helen Honig Meyer, New York publishing executive and editorial consultant to Doubleday and Company. Also, Nicholas Johnson, lawyer and former Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission; Rose Marie Lopez, a bilingual teacher in the Phoenix (Arizona) Elementary School District; Justin McDevitt, a Rehabilitation Counselor for the Virginia Commission for the Visually Handicapped; Margaret C. McNamara, National Chairman and Founder of Reading is Fundamental; Edward J. Meade, Jr., Deputy to the Vice President of the Ford Foundation's Division of Education and Research; and Carlton James Thaxton, Director of the Library Services Division of the Georgia Department of Education.

Senator Magnuson's appointee is Marian G. Gallagher of Seattle, Washington, Professor of Law and Law Librarian at the University of Washington Law School, who had previously been a Presidential appointee to the White House Conference Advisory Committee. She had also been a member of the National Advisory Commission on Libraries. Philip Sprague was appointed by Charles Benton, Commission Chairman, as the third Commission member of the Advisory Committee. This newly constituted Advisory Committee (the seventeen new appointees, and eleven continuing members) met for the first time in May of 1979.