-9

that such favors by the Library administration upon certain LC employee organizations are improper and also financially damaging to the American taxpayer and must stop immediately.

We must contrast these Library favors toward certain organizations with the fact that the Library administration has sought to destroy the two LC minority employee organizations BELC and EELC and their leadership. BELC-EELC of course ask for no favors of the Boorstin administration.

the EELC-BELC

21. We
note that the GAO indicated that the
Library of Congress employed only 5 people in the Internal Audit
Office. (We also note that it is exiled to the Navy Yard)

We ask that its staff be increased and that it be administratively taken out of the Office of the Librarian and that the Chief Internal Auditor report directly to the Congressional Committees having oversight responsibilities over the Library of Congress.

22. The EELC-BELC ask that the Joint Committee on the Library and the Senate and House Administration Subcommittees on the Library establish regular, quarterly contact meetings with the Librarian and that the Joint Committee and the Senate and House Administration Subcommittees on the Library also establish regular, quarterly contact meetings with the BELC-EELC leadership (and with the leadership of other LC employee organizations) in view of the serious nature of the Library's administrative problems.

23. The EELC-BELC favor the inclusion of a summary of the
Librarian's Annual Report in the bound volume of the Annual
Report and are opposed to the publication of a jazzed-up summary
separately as was done by the image-conscious Dr. Boorstin in
1977 for FY 1977 and in 1978 for FY 1978. These separate booklets
detract from the importance of the Annual Report of the Librarian
of Congress and discourage reading the annual report itself;
a summary in the bound volume would encourage further reading of
the report itself. The BELC-EELC also favor the publication in
the bound volume of the Annual Report of the full text of the
LC Trust Fund Board Annual Report rather than a summary in
Appendix 1.

24. Mr. Chairman, the BELC-EELC congratulate you for your excellent advice to the Librarian of Congress on February 15, 1979 that Dr. Boorstin send to each member of the Joint Committee on the Library a copy of the (soon to be published) Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for Fiscal Year 1978 and ask for a hearing on the Annual Report for FY 1978. We also ask that the BELC-EELC be informed of such a request to Joint Committee Chairman Senator Claiborne Pell who I wish to note has been a member of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress longer than any other present member of the Joint Committee, since FY 1961 in order that the BELC-EELC may testify before such a hearing for the good of the Library. Such oversight hearings by the Joint Committee which must be open and frank - could mark a new era in the development of the Library and in the development of symbiosis among the numerous, diverse components of this national institution which is for that reason a microcosm of American Society (see EELC Constitution).

25. The EELC-BELC ask that the proposal for the preparation and
publication of the Bibliography of Asian Studies by the Library
of Congress be postponed to FY 1981 to allow study of the
implications and problems that may arise in connection with the
assumption of that project by the Library. The EELC-BELC
has some reservations and is now studying this proposal carefully
and will submit to the Subcommittee its findings later this year.
I am hereby submitting as an exhibit a Statement, prepared by some
Library of Congress employees, in opposition to the preparation
of the Bibliography of Asian Studies by the Library of Congress
at this time, that is in FY 1980; the authors of this statement -
exhibit wish to remain anonymous at this time, but we can vouch as
to their reliability and expertise.

26. The EELC-BELC share Chairman Benjamin's concern about the
high cost of the terminals, their short technological life

and the fact that they are not utilized 24 hours a day.

by LC.

The EELC-BELC are studying this problem. I hereby submit as an exhibit a Statement by Mr. David R. Andrews, a former LC employee (1966-1975) concerning underutilization. misuse and mismanagement of computer time 27. We note that the EELC-BELC testified last year before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and before the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service in favor of including the Library of Congress in the Civil Service Reform Act and we note also that the Library of Congress is the only Legislative Agency that was included in the Civil Service Reform Act. We agree with you, however, Mr. Chairman, that the Library administration does not need any more lawyers - indeed, we ask for an investigation by the Subcommittee of the Library's Office of the General Counsel as to how they spend their time. The LC administration, of course, has the assistance of U.S. Attorneys in the trials of Library of Congress employees.

28. We ask the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative to examine closely and to cut the budgets of the Office of the Librarian of Congress including the Associate Librarian of Congress (especially the Equal Employment Opportunity and Special Programs Office riddled with mismanagement and violation of the law) and the Deputy Librarian of Congress,. the Office of the Associate Librarian for Management (especially the Personnel and Labor Relations Office) and the Office of the Associate Librarian for National Programs (especially the Exhibits Office, the Information Office, and the Publishing Office), 29. The BELC-EELC are opposed to granting new permanent positions to the Copyright Office to handle the same numerical volume_of claims. With proper training the present staff could handle Increased complexity. Also, the increase in correspondence appears to be a temporary one due to the change of the law and it is logical to assume that as the new law becomes better known the correspondence will decrease.

30. The EELC-BELC ask that Congress consider passing legislation to limit the term of the Librarian of Congress to a fixed number of years - no more than an eight-year term in the interest of fresh,

pure management.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee for offering the BELC and the EELC the opportunity to appear before you.

35-533 O 79 69 (Pt. 2)

RELEVANCE OF EXHIBITS TO BE CONSIDERED

Mr. BENJAMIN. Depending on the relevance of the exhibits to the appropriation bill, we will accept those that are relevant. Those that may have jurisdiction in other areas of the Congress or in the executive branch, we will refer those on.

Mr. PERRY. Fine.

Mr. BENJAMIN. So they will not sit idly in our office.

Mr. PERRY. I have no problem, Mr. Chairman, with whatever you decide to do.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Thank you, Mr. Perry.

Mr. PERRY. I would like then to ask, is it okay with you that I itemize the exhibits that I would like with your kind permission to be included.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Please do.

EXHIBITS ITEMIZED

Mr. PERRY. My letter to you as chairman of the subcommittee, dated January 2, 1979; your response to me of February 12, 1979; my letter to you of February 21, 1979, my letter to former Congressman Steers concerning the appearance of BELC and EELC before your subcommittee, dated February 17, 1979. He is well familiar with problems of the Library of Congress. He is a humanitarian of the first order, and that may have helped in his defeat. I have two letters of invitation to the Government Accountability Project to appear in defense of the legal defense fund for the Library of Congress, as ordered by Judge Oberdorfer on April 4. 1978, for the benefit of Library employees with discrimination grievances. These letters are dated February 13 and February 22, 1979, and I informed you, sir, in my letter to you of February 21, 1979, that I am inviting the Government Accountability Project to submit this statement.

Incidentally, that case that Judge Oberdorfer decided was in the name of someone that nobody wants to mention, but the Government Accountability Project did, and I am mentioning, Joslyn N Williams, a person that has suffered in the Library, but whose background they checked too hard.

In my first point in my statement, we refer to the need for an ombudsman for the Library of Congress. When I talk about "we," I want it clearly understood that I am not talking about the roval "we" that we have often been accused of doing, while we have not ever. I am talking about the BELC and the EELC organizations which Mr. Cook and I represent and have represented for several years, at the request of the employees.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Mr. Perry, have you identified those exhibits that you wanted us to accept?

Mr. PERRY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Have you completed your identification of those Mr. PERRY. I am proceeding to lead to asking you that the amended complaint in the Cook and Perry case become part of this hearing.

Mr. BENJAMIN. We will conditionally accept those, but at this time I will not rule on whether they will become a part of the hearing, depending on its relevance to the hearing.

Mr. PERRY. That is fine, sir. It is completely up to the Congress. As I told Mr. Lombard yesterday, he asked me what am I supposed to do with this material, and I replied we have a duty to submit these materials to Congress for Congress's action or inaction. This is your responsiblity. Our responsibility is to submit these documents to you, sir, and if you feel they are irrelevant, that is fine and dandy with BELC and EELC.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Would you turn those over to the reporter now? We will conditionally accept those as to the permanent inclusion in the record; later a subsequent determination will be made. [The following exhibit was submitted by Mr. Perry:]

[Other materials supplied by Mr. Perry have been referred to the appropriate committees or organizations.]

March 1, 1979

STATEMENT IN OPPOSITION TO FUNDING BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS OF A
BIBLICGRAPHIC PROJECT OF ONE OF THE PRIVATE ASIAN ORGANIZATIONS TO
THE EXCLUSION OF SUCH PROJECTS OF OTHER ASIAN, ISLAMIC AND AFRICAN
PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS.

The Library of Congress is asking an annual appropriation of a sizeable figure (which runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars) to finance the annual publication of the bibliography of a private organization, Association For Asian Studies. This would hardly seem the proper time for proposals of such nature, in that Congress currently is seeking the means of decreasing, rather than increasing expenditures; and this particular proposal surely will lead to an increase of sizeable proportions.

Only recently, President Carter expressed the hope that Congress avoid the allocation of public funds for the promotion of "pet" bureaucratic projects of less than national importance. The proposed bibliography falls into that category.

Another President, Abraham Lincoln, set forth the governmental maxim: "In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere."

Operating on that basis, we would do well to leave the publication of this organization to its membership, as other projects of similar organizations are left to the membership of those organizations. If we are to take up this kind of work in the interest of this single Asian organization, would it be fair to deny the same service to any other Asian, Islamic or African organization? The initial expenditure here proposed is in itself disturbingly large.

There is in this proposal the suggestion that some ambitious bureaucrat is seeking, an administrative coup a giant increase in the size of his staff and his administrative responsibilities, at a great expense to the government and with little benefit (not more benefit than from similar projects of other such organizations) to the people of the United States.

What is so special about this particular bibliography that it requires a whole new section to oversee its publication - a section including several high paying positions, with salaries in excess of those generally paid to college presidents or senior professors. The compilation of bibliographies is a standard part of the job of the professional staff of each existing section of the Asian Division. Why is it necessary, for the publication of this particular bibliography, to hire a wholly new staff? What is the matter with the existing staff of more than thirty employees which includes at least fifteen professional librarians in the Asian Division? If this bibliography had attracted universal praise, in the times past, there might be a glimmering of an argument in favor of producing it at the government's expense. It has not attracted universal praise, however. Indeed, it has frequently been criticized as incomplete and unreliable.

But there are even greater reasons for rejecting this proposal. At the moment, promotions are being withheld for many professional librarians in the Asian Division, on the basis of an alleged shortage of funds. Yet here is a move to expend thousands, in the face of that alleged shortage, to the disadvantage of the many who have been waiting for promotion, and to the advantage of whom? Once again it would appear as a plan designed to benefit only the administrator preselected to serve in charge of the requested bibliographic project.