Dr. BILLINGTON. It is, moreover, we believe the minimal level of funding necessary to ensure the continuation of critical services to the Congress and the Nation while addressing fundamental changes now taking place in the information and copyright industries. As this committee well knows, the Library of Congress by charter and tradition has a dual role: first, of service to the Congress; second, of service to the Nation. Both of these roles will be at risk without this minimum increase.

SEVEN-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN

At this time last year, I briefed the committee on the Library's seven-year strategic plan and stressed our intention to strengthen core services to the Congress and the Nation by overcoming the backlog of uncataloged materials, improving collections security, human resources and financial management, securing space off Capitol Hill and preparing for the electronic dissemination of collections through new networks and joint ventures.

And I am pleased to report that, even with the recent budget cuts, the Library has made major progress in the last year:

Dramatically exceeding our ambitious arrearage reduction goals; With this committee's help, acquiring a secondary storage site at Fort Meade;

Improving collection's security;

Making the Library's huge databases available on-line free via the Internet;

Make freely available on-line the spectacular Vatican Library treasures and Dead Sea scrolls exhibits, the first institution in the world to do this kind of thing;

Improving financial and human resources management including opening the Library's day care facility and creating major new affirmative action opportunities in the Library.

SERVICES TO THE NATION/LINKS TO THE WORLD

We have updated two charts from last year's hearing to show the scope of the Library's services to the Nation and the links it provides the Nation with the world. A number of these may have to be cut back or cut out altogether-if the Library has to absorb once again mandatory pay and price level increases.

[The Services to the Nation and Links to the world maps follow:]

Research Libraries Cooperative Cataloging
Sites for the National Library Service for

the Blind and Physically Handicapped (Regional)
Sites for the National Library Service for the
Blind and Physically Handicapped (subregional
also includes Guam)

Sites for Traveling Exhibits

State Centers for the Book

American Memory

LC Chamber Music Broadcast Series

Internet Access

Reference Correspondence Agreements

Academic Research Public Libraries: Exchange of Cataloging
Information

X Interlibrary Loans (also includes Guam)

Surplus Books Donations (also includes Guam) Foreign Acquisitions Program Participants

Cataloging Services to the Nation's Libraries Savings of $336 million

Feb. 2,1994

Mr. FAZIO. We should leave this, Mr. Moran_suggests, in the Speaker's lobby when we bring our bill to the Floor so that the Members can view what benefits they derive.

Mr. YOUNG. That is how all the defense companies do it.

Dr. BILLINGTON. That is a very good idea. And, of course, the chart is in your packet here.

The first chart gives you the amount of change and the amount of service we have been doing with fewer people. This indicates the range and variety of the Library's national services.

ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION

And that leads, naturally, to the question of dramatic changes in the telecommunications industry and the rapid increase in computer power that have accelerated an electronic revolution that significantly changes the way libraries access, manage and deliver information. It is an exciting development on the whole, we think.

The Library of Congress must move into this digital age to meet its most basic responsibilities to gather, organize, catalog, preserve and use its collections for Congress and the Nation.

The Library is already using a rapidly developing early version of the information super highway-the so-called Internet-both to receive and to provide information. Our staff's access to Internet is already helping the Library provide answers to congressional inquiries and in cataloging books, and the Library is providing dramatic new services for the public through Internet.

Since the spring of 1993, almost a year ago, we have opened up the Library's rich resources for use throughout the Nation at no cost to Internet users in a move that has been widely acclaimed. We have made freely available to the public via Internet more than 35 million electronic records and have provided free on-line access to the Library of Congress's cataloging information, copyright registrations and status of Federal legislation, documents and images from our recent exhibits and information about the Library's services.

All of that is freely available throughout the Nation. It is the first wave of this electronic library of the future.

Jane Griffith, who is head of the Library's Digital Library Coordinating Committee, will show you some highlights of how we are better serving Congress and the Nation through this technology. [The information follows:]

OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION ON LC/INTERNET TO APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEES

(2/2/94)

SCRIPT NOTES

We'd like to highlight some of the ways we are using CAPNET--the
our local Legislative Branch network in connection with the
Internet--an international network of networks, and LC MARVEL--a
new system we have developed at the Library for accessing these
networks--as tools to improve support to Congress and the Nation.
Internet is an electronic information infrastructure that connects
more than 18,000 computer networks around the world

Today, there are an estimated 20 million users and that number
continues to grow dramatically

Once the province of computer scientists, the Internet constitutes
one of the basic elements of the Information Superhighway

It is used to transmit electronic mail and to access information and data from around the world for research and other purposes