connection with increasing costs of education and medical services.

Since the principal reason for the steady increase in the cost of library services, as of other social services, is the rising affluence of the country, the means exist to meet these costs. It is inescapable, however, that these should be met from sources of public income that rise hand-in-hand with increases in the gross national product. Public libraries and school libraries are now financed primarily from local real estate taxes, which are inelastic and respond very slowly to increases in national income; many college and university libraries are heavily dependent on endowment income and student fees, which are also capable of only limited increase. The role of State support for many of these types of libraries has been substantially enlarged and should be further increased as a partial response to the inflexibility of other sources of support. Even State income, however, based as it is largely on low income taxes and sales taxes, responds relatively slowly to rises in the general level of productivity and is critically low in just those states especially in need of large-scale expansion of library services.

For all these reasons, the Commission believes that over the coming decade very large increases in Federal support of libraries will be necessary and, indeed, inescapable. Even if this necessity did not exist, however, there would be ample justification for an increase in the Federal component of library support. The problem of research libraries is peculiarly a national one: we need to develop national centers of research collections, national backstopping facilities to improve access to research materials, national plans for coordination, national catalogs and bibliographies, and other apparatus that will improve the accessibility of relevant information. The employment of the newer information technology in libraries--including research to develop its applications, the formulation of uniform or compatible information storage and retrieval systems, and the creation of library networks--are also inescapably national problems whose solutions require national participation and support.

Even on the level of local school and public libraries, there is a great and distinct national interest. Especially with a population so mobile as that of the United States, the whole nation must have a concern for the level of educational and informational services throughout the country. Illiteracy, ignorance, limited education, and lack of vocational skills, and other poverty-engendering deprivations, wherever originating, spread their impact by migration and otherwise throughout

the country. Library development is an essential element in such national objectives as the elimination of poverty and the achievement of rapid social and economic development, and it requires and deserves national support. ·

As for the effective utilization of funds already available for the construction and support of libraries and library services, it should be pointed out that, during the life of the Commission, the Federal contribution to libraries had just been greatly expanded under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the Higher Education Act of 1965 (P. L. 89-329, P. L. 90-35, P. L. 90-82), and appropriate procedures and staffing were still being worked out. There was some inevitable confusion, and it is too early to reach dependable judgments about the efficiency of the Federal program. In general, however, the Commission hopes that the administration of these acts may be moving toward the quite high level of efficiency already achieved in the administration of the Library Services and Construction Act (P. L. 88-269, P. L. 89-511, P. L. 90-154) and the library components (Titles III and XI) of the National Defense Education Act (P. L. 88-665).

There are, however, some fundamental weaknesses in the present pattern of Federal library support:

a.

b.

C.

It is given under a large number of different acts
in addition to the four mentioned above. Some
such diffusion is inevitable, and even to some de-
gree desirable since it would be unwise to pull library
components out of many different Federal pro-
grams and put them into one act, thus separating
library support from the objectives it is intended
to serve. But there is substantial overlapping
and lack of coordination among these different acts
at present, and they have not been planned as part
of a comprehensive whole.

There is no program of Federal support for re-
search libraries as such.

There is no central program for the development
of the newer information technology and its appli-
cation to libraries.

d.

e

Although manpower is a most critical library
problem, Federal support has been almost
wholly given to buildings and materials, with
limited support for training and almost none
for salaries.

Effective employment of Federal funds within
the States, especially for school and public
libraries, and effective State support both de-
pend on strong State library planning and

administrative services, which do not always

exist.

The National Advisory Commission on Libraries has stated in this Report a number of conclusions and recommendations to strengthen these aspects of Federal support. Particularly relevant in this respect are the permanent National Commission on Libraries and Information Science to undertake broad central planning toward coordination; a central Federal Institute of Library and Information Science for research and development; aid to research libraries as well as other libraries; improved manpower recruitment, training, and utilization; and strengthening of State libraries. The Commission believes the adoption of these approaches would substantially improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of library funding and the use of Federal funds.

The Criterion of Social Value

In retrospect, examining the objectives and recommendations presented in this Report in relation to the original charge, the National Advisory Commission on Libraries believes that questions now unanswered will yield to the diverse approaches and interlinked continuing bodies recommended. There clearly already are, and will continue to be, many challenging problems for the scrutiny of the continuing National Commission on Libraries and Information Science--the very fact that the present Commission, in only the few months since completion of its preliminary Report, has developed additional conclusions and recommendations for the present Report is encouraging evidence of the validity of the commission function in overall planning and advising.

One theme emerges throughout all the activities of the National Advisory Commission on Libraries since its first meeting in November 1966. This is a strong social-benefit awareness, a service

orientation that pervades every existing and conceivable library and information function. Perhaps it is not too soon to propose the criterion of social value as the most important in decision-making--whether for broad central planning, more specific planning, or immediate problemsolving. We should look at the value to our people and our culture that accrues from the activities of the user whose functions are to be enhanced by improved availability of library and information services. A library can be understood only as it enhances a socially valuable function, one of which--and one that all libraries can enhance--is the personal intellectual and ethical development of every individual in our society. The variety of the other socially valuable functions determines the need for variety in kinds of libraries.

In this spirit of social awareness, the National Advisory Commission on Libraries developed its recommendations for a National Library Policy, presented in the following chapter.

Chapter 2

A NATIONAL LIBRARY POLICY

RECOMMENDATION: That it be declared National
Policy, enunciated by the President and enacted into
law by the Congress, that the American people should
be provided with library and informational services
adequate to their needs, and that the Federal Govern-
ment, in collaboration with State and local governments
and private agencies, should exercise leadership in
assuring the provision of such services.

Increasingly over the years the need for a national library policy has become apparent a policy which could permit plans that take

into consideration the needs for library service of the American people as a whole. Recent developments which have profoundly affected not only the supply and the use of informational materials, but also the way in which information is used, have made the recognition of this need inescapable.

As long ago as circa 1730, when Benjamin Franklin and his youthful colleagues were establishing what was perhaps the first communal library in the American colonies, he gave expression to the basic principle of modern library service. By "clubbing our books to a common library," he wrote, each member had "the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole." Today, some Americans share the use of collections of millions of volumes, while others still lack access even to meager and deficient library facilities.

By the end of the 19th century the country possessed many thousands of academic, public, and other libraries, all based on Benjamin Franklin's principle of clubbing. These libraries were all more or less self-sufficient institutions, necessarily limited by their local resources, but providing important services to local communities of users. But the need for more broadly based services was already recognized and growing, and interlibrary lending, union catalogs, and other products of interlibrary cooperation were responding to this need.