ple over age 18 who use our collections in our reading rooms in Washington, D.C., to a model of serving people electronically everywhere, regardless of age and contributing directly to K-12 education with the American Memory/National Digital Library program.

The Bicentennial of the Library in fiscal year 2000 will be a decisive time for developing integrated automated systems and for initiating staff succession programs to sustain and enhance the Library's critical role as a trusted knowledge navigator for the Congress and the nation. The Library's proposed fiscal year 2000 budget supports the Library's mission and strategic plan, which charts our course into an increasingly electronic future. Libraries are a link in the human chain that connects what happened yesterday with what might take place tomorrow; they are the base camps for new discovery in the Information Age; they must include and integrate both traditional and digitized materials.

The Library's budget request totals $383.7 million in net appropriations and $33.1 million in authority to use receipts—a net increase of 5.5 percent ($20 million) over fiscal 1999. Most of this increase ($16.6 million) is needed simply to fund mandatory pay raises (driven largely by the January 2000 pay raise of 4.4 percent) and unavoidable price-level increases; $3.4 million (of the $20 million total increase) is needed to meet critical growing workload increases (net of program decreases). Growing workload decreases total $8.25 million, including a $4.8 million decrease resulting from higher copyright fee receipts, a $2.25 million decrease resulting from two no-year projects (i.e., Meeting of the Frontiers and Lewis and Clark Bicentennial) that were funded in fiscal 1999, and a $1.2 million decrease resulting from a planned reduction in the Integrated Library System project costs.

Growing workload increases totaling $11.6 million are offset by the decreases of $8.25 million which result in a net increase of $3.4 million. Major increases include: $4.8 million for automation building blocks; $1.6 million for a staff succession program; $1.4 million for improved collections security; $.7 million for the Copyright registration process (funded by receipts); $.7 million for the Law Library; $1.5 million for a multi-year James Madison building workstation modernization project; and $.3 million for operational funding of the National Audio-visual Conservation Center.

EARLY HISTORY

The Library of Congress is a living monument to the remarkable wisdom of the Founding Fathers who saw access to an ever-expanding body of knowledge as essential to a dynamic democracy. The Library's three buildings are named for Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. With the support of these Presidents, the Congress established the Library in 1800 as soon as it moved to the new capital city of Washington and established the Joint Committee on the Library as the first Joint Committee of the Congress in 1802.

Jefferson, in particular, took a keen interest in the new institution. After the British burned the Capitol and the Library during the War of 1812, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer to "recommence” the Library and purchase his multi-lingual 6,487volume collection (then the finest in America) at a price of $23,950. It contained volumes in many languages on everything from architecture to geography and the sciences. Anticipating the argument that his collection might seem too wide-ranging for Congress, Jefferson said that there was "no subject to which a Member of Congress might not have occasion to refer."

Jefferson's ideals of a "universal" collection and of sharing knowledge as widely as possible still guide the Library. With Congressional blessing and support, the Library has grown to serve the Congress and the nation more broadly in ways that no other library has ever done largely as a result of four milestone laws: (1) the copyright law of 1870, which stipulated that two copies of every book, pamphlet, map, print, photograph, and piece of music registered for copyright in the United States be deposited in the Library; (2) the 1886 authorization of the first separate Library of Congress building that contained openly accessible reading rooms and exhibition space for the general public; (3) the 1902 law that authorized the Library to sell its cataloging records inexpensively to the nation's libraries and thus massively help to subsidize the entire American library system; and (4) the law in 1931 that established the program in the Library to create and supply free library materials to blind and physically handicapped readers throughout the country. Congress thus established the basis both for the continued growth of the collections and for the extension of the Library's services to citizens everywhere.

In 1914, Congress created the Legislative Reference Service (LRS) as a separate entity within the Library of Congress to provide specialized services to "Congress and committees and Members thereof." In 1946, the Congress granted LRS further

statutory status within the Library and directed it to employ specialists to cover broad subject areas. Congress renamed the LRS the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 1970 and enhanced its analytical capabilities by defining its policy role for the Congress and emphasizing research support to the committees of Congress.

More recently, a series of Congressional statutes have created within the Library of Congress the American Folklife Center (1976), the American Television and Radio Archives (1976), the National Center for the Book (1977), the National Film Preservation Board (1988), and the National Film Preservation Foundation (1996)-further extending the Library of Congress' national role.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TODAY

The core of the Library is its incomparable collections-and the specialists who interpret and share them. The Library's 115 million items cover more than 530 miles of shelf space and include almost all media through which knowledge and creativity are preserved and communicated.

The Library has more than 27 million volumes, including 5,700 volumes printed before the year 1500; 12 million photographs; 4 million maps, old and new; 2 million audio recordings; 800,000 motion pictures, including the earliest movies ever made; 4 million pieces of music; 50 million pages of personal papers and manuscripts, including those of 23 Presidents of the United States as well as hundreds of thousands of scientific and government documents.

New treasures are added each year. Recent acquisitions, to name a few, include: papers of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg covering her career before appointment to the Court; an addition of 2,000 items to the papers of Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan; a collection of 500,000 items of Pamela Harriman, diplomat and political figure; the Martha Graham Archives, documenting the contribution of this pioneer in American dance; 32,000 papers of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay; additional organizational papers to collections already at the Library of the National Urban League and NAACP National and Washington Bureau; a large addition to the papers of architect I.M. Pei; sixty drawings of Pat Oliphant, the political cartoonist; text, images, and audio files representing a full "snapshot" of the public World Wide Web (some 500,000 Websites) donated by Brewster Kahle, President and Founder of Alexa Internet; three rare portraits of Georgia O'Keeffe by master photographer Alfred Stieglitz; and a Map of Philadelphia from 1752 with the first illustration of Independence Hall.

Every workday the Library's staff adds approximately 10,000 new items to the collections, after organizing and cataloging them, and finds ways to share them with the Congress and the nation-through on-line access across the nation, through inperson access in the Library's reading rooms, and through cultural programs that feature the Library's collections and reach across the country.

Major annual services include delivering more than 530,000 congressional research responses and services, processing more than 640,000 copyright claims, cataloging nearly 300,000 books and serials, and circulating more than 22 million audio and braille books and magazines to blind and physically handicapped individuals all across America. The Library also provides free on-line access, via the Internet, to its automated information files, which contain more than 75 million records-to Congressional offices, Federal agencies, libraries, and the public. The Library of Congress programs and activities are funded by four salaries and expenses (S&E) appropriations, which support congressional services, national library services, copyright administration, library services to blind and physically handicapped people, and management support. A separate appropriation funds furniture and furnishings.

AUTOMATION BUILDING BLOCKS

The Library is putting in place automation building blocks that will ensure a solid foundation for continuing into the next century its historic leadership role of delivering information services to the Congress and the Nation, setting bibliographic standards (saving libraries hundreds of millions of dollars by supplying them with bibliographic data), and providing free electronic access to knowledge and information for life-long learners everywhere.

Key automation building blocks for the future include:

Integrated Library System (ILS).-The ILS is scheduled to be operational at the beginning of fiscal year 2000 and will change the work patterns for more than half the Library's staff. The fiscal year 2000 budget incorporates a planned decrease of $1,197,000 (from $3,544,000 to $2,347,000), which is $270,000 less of a decrease than projected two years ago in the original budget because of higher software maintenance costs. The ILS will coordinate and make more efficient all the Library's

basic functions, such as acquisitions, cataloging, and research and loan services but will require a major redirection of resources to implement. As a result, the Library projects a slight short-term increase in its arrearage during fiscal years 1999 and 2000. The Library expects that any major savings from the ILS would begin to accrue at the end of fiscal year 2000 and begin appearing in the Library's fiscal year 2001 budget.

Electronic Resources Information Project.-An important phase of the transition to an increasingly electronic future is the development of an approach to handling digital materials. The Library is requesting a fiscal 2000 increase of $964,764 for an initiative that consists of two parts: (1) a three-year project, at $520,836 per year, to develop and implement policies and procedures and the access management system necessary for incorporating into its collections and services the electronic products the Library acquires from others via copyright deposit, gift and purchase; and (2) a permanent base increase of $443,928 to fund the technical staff necessary to support the handling of electronic services in the custodial divisions. Just as the National Digital Library Program provided national leadership for the transition to a digital environment through conversion of archival materials delivered on the Internet, the Electronic Resources Information Project will provide leadership in the integration of material in electronic form into our traditional operations with books and other hard copy materials. This effort is a necessary initial step and a key part of the comprehensive plan for integrating all digital collections.

Global Legal Information Network (GLIN).-GLIN is a cooperative international network in which nations are contributing electronically the full, authentic text of statutes and regulations to a database hosted by the Law Library of Congress. GLIN is the digital future of the Law Library, and an increase of $396,000 is requested to support GLIN's expanding from 12 to approximately 30 countries by the year 2004: an addition of three to four countries per year. The Library plans to use receipts provided by participants and sponsors of GLIN to help support GLIN development, but these receipts will not be sufficient to ensure success until a critical mass of countries is achieved.

Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation and Deposit System (CORDS).—CORDS is the electronic future of the Copyright Office and provides the public with an electronic means to submit copyright claims and documents which streamline internal processing. Development, as well as testing, will continue through successive phases with an increasing number of electronic_registrations over the Internet. In the year 2004, the Library expects to receive at least 100,000 works (out of a total of more than 700,000 works) in digital form-such as census data, films, music, encyclopedias, scientific papers, and legal documents. An increase of $143,988 (funded by receipts) is requested to expand the CORDS system into new formats, provide on-line customer support, support increasing digital storage needs, and enhance technical capabilities.

Automation Infrastructure Support.-An increase of $3,250,000 is requested to fund automation infrastructure support items: (1) $1.9 million to upgrade the Library's digital voice switch, which has been in operation for more than a decade and will not be able to support the Library's growing telecommunications requirements in the 21st century; (2) $600,000 to increase computer server storage and capacity, which is necessary to meet the growing demand of the millions of transactions processed daily; (3) $500,000 to fund additional security and disaster recovery measures, which are becoming increasingly critical with the growth of on-line systems; and (4) $250,000 to support the first phase of a central financial management system replacement project.

The Library is undertaking an institution-wide planning effort to coordinate these building blocks and other digital initiatives in order to provide the most effective information services for the 21st century. The Library is also seeking advice and counsel from the National Academy of Sciences as part of our planning process. The overall transition to modern electronic services Library-wide will be a multi-phase, multi-year process (see attachment #2). Re-engineering traditional functions and adding digital content are critical elements of the planning (see attachment #3). Fiscal year 2000 marks the end of the initial five-year National Digital Library (NDL) program, and the Library will present, in next year's budget, its plans for the future of our digital programs. The highly successful NDL program serves as a catalyst for institutional change, in addition to making possible access by millions of Americans to the Library's vast holdings. A recent PC Magazine review of the Top 100 Websites stated: "We've raved about The Library of Congress for years, and it just keeps getting better." We plan to build on our successful five-year NDL program to ensure public availability of additional high-quality content.

With regard to the Library's Year 2000 (Y2K) readiness for automated operations, the Library has identified 99 mission critical systems and is on-schedule for making

these systems Y2K compliant by September 30, 1999 (see attachment #4). The General Accounting Office conducts regular reviews of our progress in reaching Y2K compliant automated operations and reports quarterly to the Congress on our progress.

SUCCESSION PROGRAM

The Library's ability to serve Congress and the nation depends in large part on its expert staff, particularly those who have intimate familiarity with the special collections or fluency in foreign languages. In 1996, Library Services undertook an analysis of its vulnerability to retirements and determined that by fiscal year 2004 50 percent (1,077) of its staff would be eligible for retirement. An additional concern is the need to provide upward mobility opportunities for motivated technicians who have demonstrated their ability to move into professional positions. To respond simultaneously to both of these needs, the Library requests $1,010,016 to initiate a cost-effective Library Services Career Enhancement and Succession Plan that will give existing staff opportunities to advance to critical professional positions while also enabling the Library to recruit a new corps of junior technicians. Without the additional funding for technician positions, our newly promoted (and higher paid) curators will be forced to devote time to technician-level assignments, which would not be a cost-effective use of resources.

The Congressional Research Service faces a similar challenge. One-half of CRS' staff of analysts, attorneys and reference librarians will be eligible to retire by the year 2006. To address this challenge, CRS began a research capacity risk assessment process in 1996 and identified the specific subject areas where staff were likely to retire in the next few years. CRS foresees reduced analytic capacity in a significant number of subject areas as early as the year 2000; these losses will accelerate and affect almost every area of legislative support to the Congress by 2004. Rebuilding this capacity requires a multi-year learning period during which new staff develop the breadth and depth of knowledge of the specific issues as well as of the legislative process. To meet these challenges, CRS has developed a multi-year plan to begin hiring replacement staff. In fiscal 1999, the Congress provided $435,858 to begin this hiring process, using the Graduate Recruit Program and the Law Recruit Program. The fiscal 2000 request seeks $559,052 to continue to hire staff to ensure the continuity of services to the Congress, while remaining within the full-time equivalent level provided in the fiscal 1999 budget.

SECURITY OF LIBRARY STAFF, COLLECTIONS AND FACILITIES

During 1998, the Library's House and Senate oversight committees approved our comprehensive Security Plan, and the Congress approved supplemental appropriations totaling $16,975,000 for the Library's physical security. These two Congressional actions provide a framework for the security of the Library's collections, facilities, staff, visitors and other assets. As a result, additional security measures will be put in place during fiscal years 1999 and 2000: the recruitment of additional police, the installation of entry screening equipment at all public entrances, the design and installation of additional perimeter security enhancements, and the design and development of an improved intrusion detection system. The Library is working with the Capitol Police and the Architect of the Capitol to complete a memorandum of understanding, which will ensure proper coordination of all security efforts.

The supplemental appropriations in fiscal 1999 did not provide additional funds for collections physical security initiatives. Thus, for the fiscal year 2000 budget, the Library is requesting an increase of $1,352,201 to support three key collections security enhancements.

Reader Registration.-The Library's Security Plan specifies, as a minimum standard, the identification of all patrons requesting material from the collections. The Library is requesting an increase of $466,791 to implement this minimum standard in all reading rooms.

Marking and Tagging Library Materials.-The Library's Security Plan specifies, as a minimum standard, the marking and tagging of most material. The Congress approved and funded the marking and tagging of materials received via copyright deposit starting in fiscal 1999, and the Library requests $476,378 to expand marking and tagging to other sources of acquisitions (i.e., gifts, exchanges, purchases). Contract Security Monitors.-The Library is requesting an increase of $370,188 to improve the enforcement of security standards by placing security monitors in five additional reading rooms where unique materials often of great value are usedLaw, Geography and Map, Music, Prints and Photographs, and Rare Book and Special Collections. Contract security monitors are now used in the Manuscript and Main reading rooms to ensure that each patron is registered, enforce personal be

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longings restrictions, monitor the activities of visitors, and examine materials being removed. The Library asks that this successful program be expanded to these five additional important reading rooms.

LAW LIBRARY

The Law Library of Congress maintains the largest collection of legal materials in the world and also houses a unique body of foreign-trained lawyers to supply legal research and analysis, primarily for the Congress, on the laws of other nations, international law, and comparative law. More than 200 jurisdictions are covered by Law Library specialists, some 80 percent of the sovereign entities of the world that issue laws and regulations. The Law Library utilizes this talent to maintain and develop the breadth and depth of a demanding collection, as well as to provide reference services whenever either chamber is in session (as mandated by the Congress). These are daunting responsibilities. The U.S. Courts, the executive branch, and the legal community also depend heavily on the Law Library's collections.

The Law Library has been creative in attempting to meet its responsibilities, particularly with the development of its Global Legal Information Network, but funding for 8.5 FTE's ($548,852) is crucially required. The funding would ensure adequate staffing for research and reference services, improve the security of the rare book room collections, and improve book retrieval services. The Law Library is also requesting $188,250 for contractual services to maintain the filing of looseleaf inserts. The integrity and currency of legal publications which contain laws, administrative rules and regulations, and legal interpretations-must be maintained to be of continuing value to the Congress.

COPYRIGHT OFFICE

The Library's Copyright Office promotes creativity and effective copyright protection-annually processing more than 650,000 claims (representing more than 850,000 copies of works transferred to the Library) of which 550,000 claims are registered for copyright. The Copyright Office also responds annually to more than 395,000 requests for information.

On July 1, 1999, the Copyright Office plans to increase its filing fees and other statutory fee services. The new schedule of proposed fees was presented to the Congress for consideration at the beginning of February. The basic filing fee for registering a claim will increase from $20 to $30, and other statutory fees, such as those for filing renewals or recording a document, will also increase. These increases, coupled with the fee changes for special services which went into effect July 1, 1998, represent increases in some cases of as much as 225 percent. We expect fee increases to boost the Office's receipts by $4.8 million in fiscal year 2000. The new fee structure should provide 70 percent cost recovery for registration, recordation and related services. The Register's statement provides a more detailed explanation of the proposed increase.

The ability of the Copyright Office to serve the nation effectively requires restructuring and streamlining operations. The Library requests approval to use part of the additional receipts ($694,212) to redesign the workflow and to bolster its core staff of examiners, which will ensure the timely processing of claims for registration. To improve public service, efficiency, security, cash management, and contain costs, the Copyright Office must redesign its workflow and hire additional examiners.

The Library also requests authority to use part of the additional receipts to fund further growth of the CORDS effort ($143,988, see automation building blocks) and to fund newly imposed storage costs ($268,204) levied by the National Archives and Records Administration.

NATIONAL LIBRARY SERVICE FOR THE BLIND AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED

The Library administers a 67-year-old cooperative effort with state and local agencies and the United States Postal Service to provide free braille and recorded materials for blind and physically handicapped persons. The Library selects and produces full-length books and magazines in braille and on recorded disc and cassette and provides special playback equipment. We distribute reading materials and playback machines to a network of cooperating regional and subregional (local) libraries, who circulate those materials to eligible borrowers and returned to libraries by postagefree mail.

The fiscal year 2000 budget maintains program services by funding mandatory pay and price level increases totaling $1,209,000. The budget also supports the exploration of alternative digital technological possibilities that would provide a less costly, more efficient, internationally acceptable, user-friendly delivery system.