a large part of northern Africa, from which it has been very difficult to get materials in the past.

There is no organized book trade in most of the area, and there are no satisfactory bibliographies or book lists published in those countries that we can examine and make selections from.

Senator YOUNG. Are you able to get some real old documents from Tunisia, for example?

Mr. WELSH. The problem of acquiring current material has been so immense that we have not attempted to acquire older materials. There are older materials available in all of these countries, how

ever.

PUBLIC LAW 480 PROGRAMS IN OPERATION

Mr. MUMFORD. I don't know whether you have had an opportunity to examine the justification on this program in the back of the book, Senator, but we have been operating programs for some time in India, Pakistan, the United Arab Republic, Indonesia, Israel, and in Nepal, and we now have a program going in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. We expect to begin a program in Poland very shortly.

PROGRAM IN POLAND

Senator YOUNG. The question might be raised about what information you are getting from Poland, and the necessity for it. Could you give us some information on that?

Mr. MUMFORD. There is a great deal of important publishing in Poland, and we are not able to get all of these publications at the present time.

Even if we do obtain some materials we have to pay hard dollars for them. The advantage of using the Public Law 480 money, which these countries owe the United States, is to be able to bring over here a limited number of copies, perhaps 12, to pay for them in Polish money, and to place them in U.S. research centers that are carrying on studies pertaining to the Slavic world.

Senator YOUNG. Thank you.

Senator BARTLETT. Senator Yarborough.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I have no questions at this time.

FOREIGN CURRENCY AVAILABILITY

Senator HAYDEN. Are you having difficulty in obtaining foreign currency?

Mr. MUMFORD. No, sir; once the Bureau of the Budget announces that there are excess foreign currencies available in a country, then there has been no problem in obtaining use of the foreign currencies through the Treasury Department. Congress, of course, has to provide appropriations to the Library for these programs.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I do have a question or two, Senator.

MICRO-IMAGE PRINTING REDUCTION PROCESS

Dr. Mumford, a few weeks ago the president of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" gave me a copy of the Holy Bible, some 1,400 pages, King James version, Old and New Testaments, with the title page, reproduced on a small square of film.

I put it under a high school microscope and I could read a page at a time under that. There is a dot for each page. At the time he gave it to me, he said he just had it 2 weeks before that, and it is one of the first copies.

He said you could carry off the Library of Congress in a few suitcases reduced like this. There is a machine which costs less than $500, and you punch a dot on each side to get a page and throw it on the screen and take a photostat of it.

How long in the future do you think it would be before we have this type of reduction of this instrument? This is one thin sheet of what looks like plastic, about 111⁄2 inches by 11/2 inches.

It is one thin square here that is transparent.

MASTER COPY COST

Mrs. HAMER. Yes, sir, we have seen that microimage. We have been told that it costs $250 to make the master for that, Senator.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Just to make the master copy, and then they can run them over?

Mrs. HAMER. You then can run off copies at a cheaper cost; I believe a copy is expected to sell for about $15.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I was thinking it was a few cents a copy.

Mr. MUMFORD. We have been watching very closely, Senator. These and similar developments in microphotography hold out hope that in the future libraries will be able to conserve some space by using these techniques.

UNECONOMICAL AND IMPRACTICAL ASPECTS

But for the time being, as Mrs. Hamer suggests, I don't think it is economically sound to start reducing the material we have to this form. You then have the problem of bringing it back, either through a reading machine, or some other device. Also, a person may want a hard copy of the item. These are the practical aspects at the present time.

Senator YARBOROUGH. It seems to me its main use would be in schools.

Mr. MUMFORD. This might be.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Maybe with a circulating library of schools with machines. They call them microimages.

Mr. MUMFORD. It is a very interesting development.

LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE

Senator YARBOROUGH. I just happened to have that in my pocket not anticipating this hearing.

I have no further questions except I am very much interested in this item of Legislative Reference Service. I remember last year the appeal

you made, and the tremendous growth in that demand on the Library of Congress, and I am hopeful that won't be reduced.

Mr. MUMFORD. Shall we proceed to discuss that, Mr. Chairman. Senator BARTLETT. Surely.

Mr. MUMFORD. I referred to it in my preliminary statement but I would be very glad to have, with your permission, Mr. Jayson, Director of the Legislative Reference Service, elaborate upon the situation.

TWO-YEAR STAFFING PROGRAM

Mr. JAYSON. The Legislative Reference Service has requested 46 new positions. This is based on a 2-year program that we outlined to the committee last year, which is designed to bring our staff up to the point where we could meet our current workload and at the same time improve quality and timeliness of responses.

I would like to tell you what the basis for the 2-year program was. The Service, as you know, was established as a permanent department within the Library of Congress under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. Since that time, there has been a continuous and steady rise in our workload.

ANNUAL RESEARCH INQUIRIES INCREASES

In fact, in 18 of the 20 years that followed our being established, the number of research inquiries exceeded that of the prior year.

Then during calendar 1965, there was an extraordinarily sharp increase. The figures jumped from something like 93,000 inquiries that we had in 1964, to 113,000 inquiries handled in calendar 1965, which was an increase of 22 percent in 1 year.

This coming on top of the steady increase that we had over the years just about overwhelmed us, and the impact on our service to the Congress was very serious.

NEED TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF RESEARCH

I think the Librarian has already mentioned some of the adverse effects in his opening statements. He talked about the decline in the quality of some of our research reports. He mentioned the fact that when reports in depth were requested by a member, we often had to substitute raw materials, or books with markers in them, or copies of articles. Backlogs developed in every division and with all researchers.

INTENSIVE SELF-APPRAISAL

The day-to-day operations were, and still are, very frantic and very hectic. At the same time-I am talking about 1965-we were undertaking an intensive self-appraisal brought on by the examination of our organization by the Joint Comimttee on the Organization of the Congress of which Senator Monroney was cochairman.

We reported to the joint committee that we were in a critical situation. We pointed out that throughout the 20 years of our existence, the gap between the increased workload and the increased staff was becoming wider and wider.

I think this is indicated on table 4 which appears at page 150 of our justification book, which shows the percentage increase in the workload compared to the percentage increase in our staff over the years.

BROADER SPECIALIZATION Staffing and PERSONNEL INCREASE REQUISITES

We noted, as the Librarian mentioned in his statement to you, that our problems are compounded by the ever widening and more complex range of subject matter that the Congress is becoming interested in, requiring us to staff on a broader specialization basis; by the changes in the nature of the service demanded from us, inquiries requiring more personalized types of responses, inquiries requiring rush and tight deadline work, and inquiries requiring assistance in connection with Member's work on behalf of their constituents. In response to questions put by the joint committee, we indicated that if we were going to continue to provide as broad a service as we are now providing, and if we were going to do it with some degree of decent quality, we would need a staff of at least 300 budgeted positions.

WORKLOAD INCREASES

This figure was based on the 1965 workload. Last year, I am talking about the calendar year, the workload did not decrease, in fact it went up a little bit over 1965.

1967 INCREMENT

All present evidence suggests that 1967 is going to be even worse than 1966 in terms of workload, as I will show on this chart that I brought with me. Last year we came to you and explained our situation and asked your approval to undertake a 2-year program to bring our staff up from the then 223 budgeted positions to at least 300 budgeted positions, which we thought was the figure that would let us do an adequate job based upon the 1965 workload.

The appropriations committees gave us 35 people as the first part of the program and this has helped a good deal. With these new employees we have turned back the decline of quality, I think, and we have set up a new division which is going to concentrate primarily on constituent inquiries so these won't bog down the researchers handling legislative requests.

ANTICIPATED

RESPONSIBILITIES PURSUANT TO PENDING REORGANIZATION
LEGISLATION

Under the proposed Legislative Reorganization Act, which the Senate passed a few weeks ago and which is now pending in the House, the Legislative Reference Services will be required to undertake a whole variety of new responsibilities.

This budget request we are making today does not touch on, does not contemplate funds for any expanded services that we will have to provide under the new act. All that we are asking for today, and what we are hoping for, is that we will have sufficient resources on hand to meet the current workload before these new responsibilities come into existence.

7-YEAR WORKLOAD CHART

Now if I may, I would like to spend 2 or 3 minutes on this chart that I brought. This is not an entirely accurate chart of our workload as it does not include all of the inquiries we receive. It is a working tool which we use, to show the inquiries which have been received and recorded each week in our front office. We have been keeping this record for the last 7 years.

It makes three points clearly. The first is that there is an almost identical pattern of volume of intake of inquiries that occurs year after year, month by month. You can see that the highest volume, the peak workload, occurs during February, March, and April, of each year and then it comes down.

You will notice that there is an exact pattern of peaks and valleys ranging over the 7-year period.

Senator BARTLETT. Do you have any explanation for that at all? Mr. JAYSON. It would be a guess, but at the beginning of the session everybody is concerned about new bills, the impact of new or proposed programs, their initial analysis and the like. Additionally, the constituent inquiries get pretty heavy at this time. Then as the season proceeds, the peaks decline and the workload levels off in the summer. It picks up again very sharply in the fall.

That is when schools are reopening and this suggests that constituent inquiries are rising again. We find that there is a pretty level volume throughout the year for member inquiries. The first point I wanted to make is the identical pattern of workload during the last seven years which is the period that we have been keeping this chart.

The second point is that the peak gets higher and higher each year. Here it is in 1960, and higher in 1961, and higher in 1962, and 1963, and 1964, and 1965, and here we are almost off the top of the chart in 1967.

The last point I want to make is that the peak periods stay up longer each year. In 1961 the peak period spreads over a short duration, but by 1967 the peak stays up for a very much longer period, which indicates the constant hectic activity that faces us today.

Senator HAYDEN. These inquiries are from Members of Congress?

MEMBER AND CONSTITUENT INQUIRIES

Mr. JAYSON. These are from Members and constituents, Members of the House and the Senate and their committees. This is substantially our total intake. The total has been running roughly 52 or 53 percent constituent inquiries as compared to those from Members and committees.

Senator BARTLETT. Would you say that again, please?

Mr. JAYSON. It has been running about 52 percent constitutent inquiries, as against 48 percent Member and committee inquiries.

Mr. MUMFORD. It should be understood that the constituent inquiries all come from Members of the Congress.

Mr. JAYSON. We only serve Members. When a constituent writes to a Member seeking certain information about medicare or some new bill, the Member can turn it over to us, and we will respond for him.