but it does mean the level of positions has risen to the point where in 1959 the lapse factor accounted for 10 positions-in other words, the difference between the amount of money appropriated and the number of positions allowed was 10 positions-and it is now 38 positions.

We have been losing ground badly in that respect. This is no fault of the Library. We are simply following civil service standards in the allocation of positions. I think it is significant to note, however, that the average grade of position in the Library at the present time is 6.6, and this is well below that of some other agencies with comparable staff to that of the Library of Congress.

Mr. STEED. While this same situation exists in all your activities, these figures you have just quoted from page 63 relate only to this part for reallocations under the general heading "Salaries and Expenses;" is that correct?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes.

Mr. STEED. Do you ever get any offsets in downward revisions? I suspect practically all of them are upward, but do you have any downward revisions?

Mr. MUMFORD. Not very often. There have been a few instances where civil service audits have recommended or required a downward revision, but very, very few.

Mr. STEED. How much of this whole activity is within your power and how much of it is what you would term mandatory?

Mr. MUMFORD. As indicated in the preliminary statement, I carefully review the allocation as determined by the classification officer and his staff. If the classification is not satisfactory to the individual, he may appeal to the Civil Service Commission for a review of it. However, while I am not an expert at classification, I do study very closely the work of the classification staff and it is my function to approve or disapprove or raise questions regarding the grades suggested or recommended.

Mr. ROGERS. Although the Librarian has the power to classify, he must do so within the Classification Act, and so we are bound to observe these regulations and standards, and the Civil Service Commission watches over our shoulder. Therefore we must do it right. We cannot go far out of line either up or down or they will criticize us and make us conform.

Mr. STEED. These repeated requests for these ingrade promotions that you make, are they the so-called Ramspeck promotions?

Mr. ROSSITER. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEED. What turnover of personnel do you have? Is there very much turnover?

Mr. MUMFORD. For the clerical staff and the lower grade staff, deck attendants and so on, it is rather high, I would say 30 or 35 percent. For the professional staff it is relatively low.

Mr. STEED. The reason I asked that is this: Let us assume a person who has been with you a long time has a certain number of promotions and then for some reason he leaves your service and you start out with a replacement. Does that replacement start at the bottom of the ladder and work up?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes.

Mr. STEED. What benefit, budgetwise, do you get from that sort of a situation?

Mr. ROSSITER. We gain, of course, but we are generally faced with a terminal leave payment; so the terminal leave payment just about offsets the gain we make.

Mr. ROGERS. For example, in 1959 and 1960 the total increase because of reallocations was $131,000. What we asked for in those 2 years was $52,000 for this particular purpose, and that has left a gap of over $78,000. Although we make up a little bit through staff turnover, I think the Library is just typical of the whole Government in that there is an upward revision of positions and upgrading of standards.

Mr. MUMFORD. And it means we have had to leave positions unfilled in order to close that gap. We could not keep all the appropriated and budgeted positions filled until we had closed that gap.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Mr. STEED. Dr. Mumford, on page 4 of your statement you make reference to "information retrieval." Just what does that mean? Mr. MUMFORD. It refers to the use of mechanization in activities of processing and the possible storing of information through electronic means and being able to retrieve it through machines. As you no doubt know, there is a great deal of study and activity going on in this field today. The Library has had an internal committee for about 3 years studying the problem and trying to keep abreast of it, but because of the responsibilities of their regular duties it is not possible for members of the committee to give the intensive attention to this area that should be given.

There are some who believe that the time will come when you can push a button and get all the information you want on a particular subject. This is being done in some fields today, and we feel that it is necessary for the Library to stay abreast of these developments in mechanization not only for ordinary business operations-we have mechanized a number of these over the years-but to be aware of the possibilities not only of machinery that might be available today but that may be developed and be applied to a large research library. This could have a great impact on the future of the Library.

Mr. STEED. Would this be a field of mechanization entirely new and different from the mechanization you have been able to adopt? Mr. MUMFORD. Well, we have used mechanization in such things as card billing for card distribution and for overdue notices.

One thing that has been brought out in the preliminary studies made by companies coming in at their own expense and taking a look at our operations is that it is not possible to do the thing piecemeal, and that a good deal more study is needed. It would consist of more attention to the routine operations and also attention to the possibility of storing the content of a book or magazine article and of being able to retrieve it mechanically.

Mr. STEED. Have any of these companies gotten far enough along to make a prediction as to how soon something practical along this line might be available?

Mr. MUMFORD. I do not think we have any close predictions as to when it might be, but mechanization is being used for specialized purposes in some areas and it may be that some of it will be applicable to the Library.

MICROFILMING PROGRAMS

Mr. STEED. How extensive is the microfilming that is carried on at the Library?

Mr. MUMFORD. We have set aside a certain portion of our book funds each year, with the approval of this committee, for microfilming deteriorating materials and for acquiring materials, particularly periodicals and newspapers. These two allotments total $64,500 which is not large in view of the fact that we have some 100,000 volumes of newspapers that are in a rapidly deteriorating condition that should be converted to microfilm.

Mr. STEED. What space saving are you getting and expect to get through microfilming?

Mr. MUMFORD. As we have indicated in the text, the microfilm occupies about 8 percent of the space that the conventional newspaper volumes do.

Mr. STEED. How do microfilms hold up? How long do they last? Mr. MUMFORD. Under proper conditions of humidity and temperature they should last indefinitely. The Bureau of Standards has made intensive tests of microfilms and under certain conditions they last indefinitely.

Mr. STEED. Do you have air-controlled storage for your microfilms? Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, sir.

ADDITIONAL POSITIONS REQUESTED

Mr. STEED. In the overall budget request, Doctor, how many additional positions are contained in this budget request?

Mr. MUMFORD. For all the appropriations?

Mr. STEED. Yes.

Mr. MUMFORD. I was going to ask Mr. Chairman, that you insert page 4, which shows this. There is a total of 78 positions.

Mr. STEED. Page 4 has already been inserted in the record.
What is the total figure we allowed you last year?

Mr. MUMFORD. Is your question directed to positions or money, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. STEED. Positions.

Mr. MUMFORD. Eighty-two.

Mr. STEED. And this 78 this year is an additional increase on top of that?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes. As I pointed out in the preliminary statement, quite a large proportion of these positions are in a self-supporting activity, the Card Distribution Service.

Mr. STEED. As I remember, last year a substantial amount of the increase we allowed you was in the Legislative Reference Service. Is that Service pretty well under control now?

Mr. MUMFORD. I would be glad to have the Director of the Legislative Reference Service, who is outside, speak to that. It has helped enormously, and while the number of inquiries handled per staff member will be higher, we thought we could get by next year without additional staff, and we are not asking for additional staff for the Legislative Reference Service.

STACKING IN ANNEX BUILDING

Mr. STEED. Is the annex fully stacked for materials now? Mr. MUMFORD. Not completely. We have been in the process the past 2 years of trying to remove certain operations that had been placed in areas that were originally intended for stacks, and part of the rental space we discussed earlier is for that purpose so that we can complete the equipment of the areas in the annex that were intended for stacks.

RENEWING AIR CONDITIONING AND HEATING-MAIN BUILDING

Mr. STEED. In the Architect's budget they are requesting funds to replace your air-conditioning and heating plant. Would you care to make any comment on that at this point?

Mr. MUMFORD. I do not have the Architect's statement, and he can speak in much more detail about it, but, in short, the heating system is very antiquated and something has to be done about replacement of the heating system, and for some additional cost there can be ventilating and air conditioning at the same time. Perhaps Mr. Gooch can elaborate on that.

Mr. GOOCH. The question came up primarily with reference to the replacement of the heating plant in the old building, which in part is 60-some-years old. The ducts are enclosed in masonry walls and some of the heating coils in those walls cannot be replaced. During at least a part of the past winter only 7 of the original 12 steam heaters were in operation. We had difficulty in the Law Library in the north wing of the building. We attempted to put electric heaters there, and placed sheets of plastic foil over the windows to give some relief from excessive cold.

Mr. ROGERS. There were times, were there not, when the temperature in the Law Library was below 60°, a terrible condition for staff offices.

Mr. DWYER. That is right.

Mr. MUMFORD. It was reported to us by the Architect that this heating system might break down completely at almost any time.

Mr. STEED. We were interested in your comments on that in considering the request in the Architect's budget for replacement of your air-conditioning and heating plant.

CLEANING OF LIBRARY BUILDING

As

Doctor, a lot of construction has been done on Capitol Hill in recent times, including the cleaning of some of our buildings. these other structures up here in this area become cleaner and shinier and more attractive, your building becomes even more noticeable as to its lack of being cleaned than ever before. Have you given any thought to having it cleaned?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes. We have had conversations with the Architect of the Capitol, and I think it is part of his program to request money to proceed with that.

Mr. STEED. We have not yet examined his budget. Have you had any estimate as to what it would cost?

Mr. MUMFORD. I think the estimate is $95,000. I have not had a chance to go over in detail the Architect's figures in the last few days. But we would certainly welcome the cleaning of it, and we think it would be a great improvement to the looks of the buildings ou Capitol Hill to have the Library cleaned.

STUDY ROOMS

Mr. STEED. In recent years we have had some discussions with you in regard to the assignment of study rooms in the Library. A year ago I think it was cleared up. What is the situation with regard to room assignments now?

Mr. MUMFORD. We have had to use some of the space that was formerly used for study room purposes for regular staff activities, and we have had some complaints from scholars in that respect. You may have noted some publicity in the newspapers about it. However, I think most of the scholars and other research people understand the space situation we are in and our difficulties in that regard.

As far as long-term occupancy is concerned, the resolution of the Joint Committee on the Library to the effect that a room when assigned to a member not be used by someone else unless he is on the staff of the member has worked out very well.

Mr. STEED. The study room regulations are still in force?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes; the general regulations we had prior to this resolution of the joint committee, plus the resolution of the joint committee. The Members of Congress have cooperated very well in respect to that.

GAO AUDITS

Mr. STEED. Has the GAO ever audited your accounts, as they do for other agencies generally?

Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROSSITER. They come quarterly and make an onsite audit of our payrolls. They made a complete audit the last time, I think, in 1940.

Mr. STEED. Dr. Mumford, I appreciate this fine, comprehensive statement and want to say again that I am sure the committee feels, as I do, that you have done a very outstanding job. We appreciate the fine effort you have been making and the good progress you have been showing in this whole activity.

Mr. MUMFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. STEED. Dr. Alford, do you have any questions?

Mr. ALFORD. Mr. Chairman, I have no questions, but I would like. to express myself and my opinion in favor of the program as outlined by the Librarian relative to the services that the Library can afford with money that we have overseas in other currency. I think this would be of great value to scholars in this country. I have special interest in scientific materials and know of its value. I believe this was cut from your request the last time. I should hope that that would be retained this time.

Mr. MUMFORD. The request we are making today is a greatly modified request; you might call it a pilot project. It is limited to India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Republic. As we would like to elaborate upon later, the purpose is to get important materials from these