APPROPRIATION:

SALARIES AND EXPENSES, DISTRIBUTION OF CATALOG CARDS (CONTINUED)

Printing of book catalogs and other publications

53,000

The Library's catalog cards are also published and sold in book form.
The large increase in the number of books cataloged in the Library
has resulted in larger book catalogs, which also has caused an esti-
mated increase of $53,000 in printing costs for these book catalogs.
Mechanization Project

Phase II will eventually eliminate the major source of increased costs and
delays in the card distribution service; the lack of space to store sufficient
card stock to fill orders, and the regular necessity for reprinting those
catalog cards most in demand.

$700,000

5. Phase II

One time cost of installation of electrical facilities and air conditioning

5,000

236,000

......

10,000

MANDATORY INCREASE

Senator MONTOYA. Please explain what this large increase is for. Mr. WELSH. We categorize the first four items as mandatory increases; in-grade increases, annualization of pay and retirement increases, postage, and printing.

The fifth item, as the Librarian touched on briefly this morning, is for the second phase of the mechanization project. That is the largest item, $700,000.

In addition, we are asking for 11 new positions. They are all in the lower grades-two GS-5's and nine GS-3's, a total of $61,000. Those six items amount to $1 million.

Senator MONTOYA. Did you arrive at the $1 million first and then start breaking it down or did you go into the million dollars item by item?

Mr. WELSH. Item by item, sir. It was rounded off.

Senator MONTOYA. Why do you use postage?

Mr. WELSH. For the distribution of the catalog cards and technical publications.

Senator MONTOYA. You pay this to the Post Office Department? Mr. WELSH. Yes, sir. That money, of course, is returned to the Treasury as is most of the appropriation.

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

Senator MONTOYA. You have here an item, pay increase for the Government Printing Office. What employees do you have at the Government Printing Office?

Mr. WELSH. The Government Printing Office has a branch in the Navy Yard Annex where the Card Division is located. They do our printing for us. This pay increase to their employees is simply passed on to us through increased printing costs.

Senator MONTOYA. How does that compare with printing costs outside of the Government?

Mr. WELSH. I don't think there is a comparison. This is a very unique operation, sir. They are very highly skilled people doing a very complex task.

Dr. MUMFORD. They do the typesetting of these cards that we showed you.

Senator MONTOYA. In respect to the table on page 182, which I will place in the record, you show a decrease in cards sold and returns to the Treasury for fiscal year 1969.

(The table follows:)

COMMERCIAL CATALOGING SERVICE

Senator MONTOYA. On the following pages of your justification you give an explanation. Would you please detail for the committee the effect commercial firms have on the sale of your cards and explain what you mean by the sentence at the bottom of the page, page 185, and continuing over, which states: "However, in terms of financial support for the division which supplies LC cataloging copy to commercial as well as to Library users, the emergence of the commercial services makes necessary a reevaluation of the philosophy of financial support for the card distribution service."

Mr. WELSH. Yes, sir. May I elaborate a bit and give the reasons? There are five reasons that we see for the decline in business, one of which is the impact of commercial cataloging services. If I may just quickly run through these reasons, to put this in context: In the first instance, the increasingly acute space shortages have made the procedures more inefficient. Whereas the number of titles cataloged has increased by 82 percent from fiscal 1966 to fiscal 1969, stock for these new cards must be squeezed into an area which has not increased since 1965. A major consequence of this stricture is that 50 percent of the orders received the cards requested are found to be out of stock. For these out-of-stock titles it is then necessary to initiate costly and time-consuming reprinting processes.

Second, installation and operation of the first part of the automated system in parallel with the manual system during the conversion periods has temporarily increased cost.

Third, the number of orders received has declined by approximately 11 percent. This has resulted because libraries have had fewer Federal dollars to spend on books and, consequently, have needed fewer catalog cards and because of the rapid growth in the number of commercial processing firms. A number of years ago, there were but 14 commercial cataloging firms. There are now 44. Some of them simply reproduce our catalog cards and sell them to libraries. Most of them do more than that. They supply catalog cards plus book jackets, book pockets and labels. They are providing a packet so that the receiving library is able to quickly complete the processing using clerical staff.

Senator MONTOYA. Aren't the private firms running you out of business?

Mr. WELSH. They have certainly had an impact.

Senator MONTOYA. Don't you have a copyright facility at the Library of Congress?

Mr. WELSH. We have, sir. We consider our catalog cards to be in the public domain. Commercial processing firms have caused a decrease in our business. But on the other hand, they are providing a useful service to the libraries.

CARD DIVISION RETURNS

Senator MONTOYA. It was never a paying proposition anyway, was it?

Mr. WELSH. The Card Division was, yes, sir.

Dr. MUMFORD. It was self-supporting. It wasn't intended to raise

revenue.