INCREASE FOR SPACE RENTAL Mr. STEED. On the matter of the $3,000 increase under item 4 for space, what is the situation now relative to this? That has been superseded by the statement? Mr. MUMFORD. That is correct; that is no longer applicable. The sheet we have submitted replaces that. NEW POSITIONS REQUESTED Mr. STEED. Under the item of $193,100 for your requested new positions, all told how many new positions did you get under this item last year and, if it is available, for the year prior to that? Mr. MUMFORD. Twenty-five last year, Mr. Chairman, for this appropriation. Mr. STEED. To conserve time, would you take up these several items under No. 5 and give us additional information as to why these extra personnel are needed. POSITIONS FOR FILING CARD CATALOGS Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The first item is concerned with maintaining currency in filing in the card catalogs. We are asking for four positions there. I think it is self-evident that the utilization of the Library's collection rests largely upon the catalogs. In other words, the catalogs are the key to the collections. We have had no increase in this filing staff for many years. We have quite an accumulation of cards waiting to be filed, which means that the books which they represent are not available to people. There are 200,000 cards awaiting filing in the three main catalogs of the Library. As the catalogs become larger, a filer can file fewer because it is spread out to such an extent it takes him longer to find the place in the catalog where the cards go, and so the process becomes slower, and with the same staff we simply have not been able to keep up with the production of the cards for the currents books that are coming in. This is badly needed in order to have the key to make this material readily available. Mr. ROGERS. This affects not only members of the public who come in to use the catalog but affects our staff in the Legislative Reference Service who want new books and have reason to believe they are in the Library but cannot find them in the catalogs; so it is a serious impairment of service. Mr. MUMFORD. Here again, if pages 15 and 16 were placed in the record, I think it tells the complete story, Mr. Chairman. Mr. STEED. We will do that. (The pages follow:) Catalog maintenance division, 4 positions Filing Section: 2 GS-4 filers, at $4,056------ Total (4)------- $8, 112 7,530 15, 642 Utilization of the collections of the Library rests in large measure on information found in the card catalogs. Consequently, not only must the cataloging process be as rapid as possible, but also the subsequent steps involving the preparation and filing of the catalog cards must be performed expeditiously. The : contents of the card catalogs have increased by approximately 9 million cards in the past 10 years with no increase in personnel during that time to offset the accompanying decrease in filing rate due to the physical expansion of the files or to offset the increasing number of cards to be prepared and filed. At present there are 10 assistants involved almost exclusively in filing into the 3 main catalogs of the Library. Their filing capacity as a group is approximately 1 million cards a year, or 100,000 per year per individual; however, in fiscal 1960, 1,221,860 cards needed filing in these 3 catalogs. As a result, about 200,000 remained unfiled at the end of the fiscal year. Two GS-4 filer positions are requested to maintain the catalogs on a current basis. Arrangers preparing cards for filing have faced a similar situation involving not only increasing numbers of cards to be prepared for the general catalogs but increasing responsibilities connected with the preparation and distribution of cards to other catalogs. Two GS-3 arranger positions are requested to keep current the work of preparing cards for filing. To maintain currency in the recording and control of serials: Mr. MUMFORD. The next item is concerned with maintaining currency and recording and control of serials. Serial publications comprise the most current and in many fields the most significant contribution to the Library's collections, and the serial record is concerned with recording these as they come in and providing a key to the fact that the Library has a particular serial publication. Here again we have had increases in the volume of material received due to additional publications from around the world as well as in this country. We have a backlog of material there of some 115,000 pieces waiting to be checked into this serial record. The current staff is not adequate to handle this workload. The Library must place certain labels and marks on books. These include the putting of a label with the classification and the call number on the book and a bookplate in the book. In recent years we have been able to get more binding work done than previously by having some of it done through commercial binders, and we have a large accumulation of books that are waiting for labeling, without which they are totally unavailable for the use of the Government and users generally. There are some 60,000 at the present time out of service for this reason. We exercised special efforts last year, which did result in the labeling of more volumes by diverting time from other activities, but there is still a very large workload there which we cannot handle with the present staff of labelers. Mr. STEED. Based on the trend over the last few years, do you believe that these 10 new positions in your processing department will bring you current and enable you to keep up with the flow that is anticipated at this time? Mr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, it is very difficult to make predictions about the need for help in the Library. As more demands are being made upon the Library because of interest in different areas of the world, especially the Orient, the Soviet Union, the satellite countries, to acquire more materials from those areas, it means more processing of the materials and services in regard to them. I would hesitate very much to make predictions. As I have said before, it 1S inevitable that a large research library, such as the Library of Congress must grow if it is to continue to fulfill its mission. But the granting of these positions would help us get on an even keel at least for the time being in the filing of the cards and in the labeling of the books and in the checking in of the serials in the serial record. Mr. STEED. Will you give us a little additional information on the extra positions asked for under the Reference Department. POSITIONS FOR REFERENCE AND CIRCULATION SERVICES Mr. MUMFORD. The first group of positions here is to maintain adequate reference and circulation service and to meet increasing demands in the Orientalia, Slavic, General Reference and Bibliography, and Stack and Reader Divisions. We are asking for one GS-7, three GS-5's, and one GS-3. To run through these, position by position, one of them is that of reference librarian in the Japanese Section. This is requested to cope with the current heavy workload in reference, circulation, and translation services. There is presently a staff of four in this section, and they are not able to keep up to date in reader and reference service and translation of vernacular materials for Members of Congress and the processing of materials and acquisition work. This section has custody of 439,000 volumes and pamphlets and over 250 bound newspaper volumes. More than 22,500 items were added to the collection in the fiscal year 1960. If I may request that page 29 go into the record, this shows the workload and the increase that took place in 1959 and 1960. Mr. STEED. Without objection, we will insert page 29. (The page follows:) Orientalia Division-one position One new position of reference librarian, GS-7, in the Japanese Section is requested to help cope with the current heavy workolad, in reference, circulation, and translation services. The present staff of four, plus the section head, are unable to keep up to date in reader and reference service, translation of vernacular materials for Members of Congress, processing of materials, and acquisition work. The Japanese Section has some 439,000 volumes and pamphlets in its custody and over 250 bound newspaper volumes. More than 22,500 items were added to the collection in fiscal year 1960 compared to about 4,000 the year before. Increases in workload are shown below: Although one additional reference librarian position will not enable the Japanese Section to keep current in its work, it will improve the reference and transiations services. Mr. Bow. Will the chairman yield for a question on this subject? Mr. STEED. Yes. Mr. Bow. The last sentence on page 29 says, "Although one additional reference librarian position will not enable the Japanese Section to keep current in its work, it will improve the reference and translations services." What would you need to get current? Mr. BASLER. I would not want to estimate off the cuff, but I think we need about six more positions in the Orientalia Division. The increase in the past 12 months in the Orientalia Division-which includes Japan, China, southeast Asia, and south Asia-has been very heavy, and we are going to have to ask for some more positions in our next year's budget. We will ask the Librarian. I do not know what he will be willing to ask of this committee. Mr. Bow. When we talk about not keeping current with the work, what is not being kept current? What type of thing are we talking about? Mr. BASLER. We are talking about, for one thing, giving answers and reference service to requests made for information based on materials in this collection. We are talking about keeping up with the checking and filing of materials received. For instance, there is our union catalog of oriental materials. We are talking about the work all across the board, including the handling of translation requests, which sometimes we simply cannot handle we do get them from Members of Congress because we do not have enough people available to do all the work we have to do. Mr. Bow. Prepare and submit for the record the number of requests you have had from Members of Congress for translations of Japanese materials, please. Mr. BASLER. We can get that. (The information follows:) There were 63 individual requests covering 130 items amounting to 214 pages of translation. Mr. Bow. That is all. POSITIONS FOR SLAVIC AND CENTRAL EUROPEAN DIVISIONS Mr. MUMFORD. The next request in this group of maintaining adequate reference and circulation service and to meet increasing demands is for two positions in the Slavic and Central European Divisions. One GS-5 searcher and reference assistant is requested to perform acquisition and searching in the Library's catalogs and in other reference and bibliographic tools for the nine recommending officers of the Division, to determine whether the items searched are in the collection. Some 20,000 items must be searched each year. The position will also locate materials for the area specialists to assist them in performance of their reference and bibliographic assignments. There is no lower level position in the Division at the present time for this work, and as a consequence, it has to be done by higher level staff, who have to take time from their other professional duties. Here again, Mr. Chairman, we are feeling the impact of more and more requests for information. This thread runs through all of these requests for strengthening resources of these divisions, the additional requests and demands that are made upon the Library for information from these areas. The second position there is for a GS-5 circulation and reference assistant to receive, identify, and arrange some 3,000 publications received weekly in the Slavic Room and to record them in a visible file which now consists of some 2,700 entries for current serial titles (primarily Russian, East European, and Baltic publications in both the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets). Other duties will include the distribution of service copies of Slavic and Central European serials to other areas of the Library and to the stacks, arranging and shelving the publications retained in the Slavic Room for ready reference. I would like to request here that page 31, which shows workload, be included in the record. Mr. STEED. Without objection, we will insert page 31 at this point. (The page follows:) One GS-5 circulation and reference assistant is required to receive, identify, and arrange some 3,000 publications reecived weekly in the Slavic Room, and to record them in a visible file which now consists of some 2,700 entries for current serial titles (primarily Russian, East European, and Baltic publications in both the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets). Other duties will include the distribution of service copies of Slavic and Central European serials to other areas of the Library and to the stacks; and arranging and shelving the publications retained in the Slavic Room for ready reference. Statistics showing related workloads are given below: Mr. MUMFORD. The next position in this category is that in the General Reference and Bibliography Division, one GS-5 library assistant for the Public Reference Section is requested to provide searching service and assistance to the Section head and the 14 reference librarians. Searching is performed in the several catalogs and shelf lists to determine the availability of items which should be assigned to numerous reference collections in the Library or to decide whether items must be ordered. Special searches are made at the direction of the reference librarians to locate material needed by readers. Some 18,400 searches were made in 1960, compared with 13,020 in 1959, an increase of 42 percent. Again, there is no position at this level there at the present time, and the addition of the position would free the GS-7 and GS-9 and GS-11 reference librarians from subprofessional duties to provide reference services. Mr. STEED. Are any of these additional positions, if granted, to be dropped later on when this work has been caught up or is this permanent? Mr. MUMFORD. I think this is likely to be a continuing workload, Mr. Chairman. I know of no reason to assume that it would be reduced in the future. |