Mr. HORAN. Do I understand the cellar will give you about 13,500 feet? Mr. GOOCH. Yes, sir. Mr. MUMFORD. We need to recover a sizable amount of space, and the card distribution service is included among the units we want to move. That could be operated elsewhere. Mr. HORAN. I think we have considerable space being created around the Capitol here, and I suggest in your discussions with the Architect, which undoubtedly you are having almost daily Mr. MUMFORD. Frequently; yes, sir. Mr. HORAN. That some consideration be given to every possibility, because, as you say, it will be at least 5 years before you can get an additional annex, and perhaps something practical could be worked out meantime. Mr. MUMFORD. If the committee is interested, Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to detail further the units we have proposed to move to rental space pending the construction of a building for a longrange program. Mr. NORRELL. Make the statement as reasonably short as possible. Mr. HORAN. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MUMFORD. We had planned to move the Card Division, the Catalog Maintenance Division, the Government Printing Office's branches for binding and printing, which do work exclusively for the Library, part of our Exchange and Gift Division, the Division for the Blind, the Map Division, part of our Prints and Photographs Division, and some of our administrative facilities, and to utilize part of the space for storage of books and certain other types of material which could be moved. This would give us some room for the expanding collections, for which we are getting new shelving, as well as workspace that is needed for the remaining activities. WORK BACKLOG SITUATION Mr. NORRELL. I would like to ask you about the backlog situation. I know you have had the problem all along. What is the situation at this time? Mr. MUMFORD. With the funds the committee has given us in recent years, we have made considerable progress in relation to the accumulation of materials to be processed and organized. We have sizable amounts of material in different stages of processing. Some of this material never will be fully processed. It will not need to be. Most of it can be found and is under some kind of control, so the matter of arrearages is a relative one. We are presently undertaking to identify each segment of what we might designate as an arrearage and make a determination as to whether it needs to be fully cataloged, whether to have only an author entry, or subject indexing, and so on. That is about the picture, Mr. Chairman. We will need some additional help over the years to clear up all of these problems but we have made considerable progress, and most importantly Mr. NORRELL. Do you see any time when the backlog situation might be cleared up? Mr. MUMFORD. I think so. We can make a determination that would not be justified in fully processing some of these materials a no longer call it an arrearage as long as it can be used. The most important thing is this: With the additions the commit has given us in recent years we have been able to stay abreast of incoming material, or close to it, which was not true before. We w always losing ground and getting further behind all the time. Mr. NORRELL. You can see where the backlog situation mi eventually be overcome and you would have no problem? Mr. MUMFORD. I think so. Perhaps Mr. Cronin, who is Dire of the processing department, would like to elaborate upon that. Mr. CRONIN. As far as current material is concerned, I think we under pretty good control at the present time. I think Mr. Mumford has explained the other situation q satisfactorily. GROWTH OF LIBRARY Mr. NORRELL. Do you have anything further that you would to say regarding the growth? We discussed that already, I know Mr. MUMFORD. No more than this, Mr. Chairman. As I pointed out to the committee before, growth is inevitable in a l research library. As I said in my preliminary statement, we to restrain the rate of growth as much as we can by exercising sele acquisition policies but we feel that it is our responsibility-tha would be remiss if we did not undertake to get the important terials that are being published in this country and throughou world. Mr. NORRELL. Doctor, it is true, is it not, that that situation exist a hundred years from now if we continue to grow as we Mr. MUMFORD, Yes, sir; unless some very dramatic technol developments come about, which could change the handling or o ization of materials in libraries. I do not anticipate that in the few years, but we are following this picture very closely. We a committee on storage and retrieval of information that is const conferring with people in the scientific field to see if there are ma aids which are applicable to library procedures and something develop in the next few years that could reduce the holding st a library. I doubt that it would be microfilm alone, but son velopment may come that would stop the eternal growth of a research library. Mr. NORRELL. In the foreseeable future, you do not see it time? Mr. MUMFORD. No, sir. STUDY ROOMS Mr. NORRELL. One other general question. What about the old question of occupancy of study rooms you have anything to say about that? Mr. MUMFORD. I made a statement yesterday afternoon o I can only repeat what I said then, and that is that we do e a rigid control over the assignment of these rooms; that for indi they are limited to a maximum period of 6 months and most o use less than that period, and for Members of the Congre request them for official use, once a year we inquire if they have any further need for the room and some relinquish them and some request that they be reassigned. There is one aspect about the study rooms and that is that with our critical space situation, we are having to use them more and more for official use of the library and may have to go even further on that so that individual scholars or research people or Government agencies that are using some of them would have to be removed. Mr. NORRELL. Any questions on this? Mr. HORAN. Mr. Chairman, I know Mr. Bow wanted to ask some questions on this, but he is in a markup meeting right now. Meanwhile, I imagine that some of our other members have some interest in this, too. Mr. MUMFORD. One other thing: I have here a tabulation, Mr. Chairman, of the study rooms, broken down into the groups of users if you would wish to insert this into the record. Mr. NORRELL. All right, we will do so. (The tabulation referred to follows:) Mr. STEED. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask this question: Overall, what is the situation about the demand for these rooms? Do you have a waiting list? What is the amount of time the usual applicant has to wait to get a room? Dr. MUMFORD. It varies. Sometimes he may not have to wait at all, and sometimes he may have to wait days or weeks for one. We do have some study desks in addition to the rooms and for the serious research scholar we can usually accommodate him at a study desk, which does not serve the complete purpose of a study room but is better than having to call for his books in the reading room. I couldn't give you an average figure on that, Mr. Steed. Mr. STEED. Has the picture about the demand for this space changed materially in the last 2 or 3 years? Is it getting heavier? Dr. MUMFORD. These rooms are under the supervision of Dr. Basler's department. Perhaps he would like to speak to that. Dr. BASLER. I could say that we have to tell private researchers that we do not have a study room for them and they cannot expect to get one, but we can assign them a study desk. In other words, the matter of the waiting period is almost out of the question; we just have to tell them, "We do not have and we do not anticipate having a room for you, but we will assign you a desk. This is all we have, all we expect to have." If they stay for a period of 4 or 5 months, maybe a room will become free, and we have them in a waiting list in order, but most of them finish their work and get away from the Library before a room ever becomes available for them because we do not have the rooms. We have had to assign recently 28, I believe it is, study rooms to official use of the Library to take care of the staff and had to remove them from the use of private researchers because we do not have the office space to take care of our own operation. Mr. NORRELL. Are there further questions? STUDY ROOM OCCUPANCY BY LANGDON P. MARVIN Mr. HORAN. Last year Mr. Bow requested that you bring up to date the rooms assigned under various sponsors through the years for Mr. Langdon P. Marvin. The record shows last year that he was assigned rooms 139 and 140 but we received a post card from Mr. Marvin all printed out in which we were supposed to send him copies of hearings of the Treasury and Post Office and send it over to study room 141, Library. Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the table on page 44 of the 1957 hearings brought up to date. Do you have it? Mr. ROSSITER. Yes, sir. 139-142 Not assigned. Negotiations in progress to remove Mr. Senator Estes Kefauver. Not assigned. Negotiations in progress to remove Mr. Mr. Marvin's files removed.. Representatives Arthur G. Klein and Morgan M. Representative Charles O. Porter.. Nov. 6 to 12, 1947. Nov. 13 to Dec. 2, 1947. Dec. 3, 1947, to Mar. 12, 1955. July 9, 1952, to Dec. 20, 1955. Jan. 25 to July 22, 1956. Aug. 10 to Oct. 9, 1956. Oct. 19, 1956. November to Dec. 31, 1956. Jan. 3, 1957, to Apr. 7, 1958. Representatives Charles O. Porter and John D. Dingell. Apr. 8, 1958, to present. Mr. HORAN. How many rooms does he have now? Mr. Goocн. Four rooms, sir. Mr. HORAN. He is doing all right. Dr. MUMFORD. 139, 140, 141, and 142. Mr. Gooch. Four rooms. By removal of two partitions they have been made into two double rooms but there are four original study rooms. Mr. HORAN. How many people are occupying these rooms? Dr. MUMFORD. There are 16 people authorized to use these rooms. Mr. HORAN. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. HORAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to go back on the record and indicate what has been done by an authorized committee of the Congress under the chairmanship of our colleague, Mr. Omar Burleson. On May 8, 1957, the House Administration Committee adopted the following Dr. MUMFORD. The Senate, also. Mr. HORAN. I would like to read this into the record. They met on May 8, 1957, and adopted the following: The LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DEAR MR. MUMFORD: The Committee on House Administration, in executive Bession on Wednesday, May 8, 1957, adopted the following: "The committee is aware that the study rooms in the Library of Congress provide useful facilities for extended research. In order to prevent abuse, the rules of the Library do not permit occupancy of these rooms by private individuals for more than 6 months at a time. The possibilities of abuse are sufficiently real that the Librarian should not be required to make exceptions in this matter through the assignments of rooms to Members of Congress. Accordingly, it is the sense of this committee that occupancy of rooms assigned to Members should not be delegated to others than members of their own office staffs, and that Members should not request assignments of rooms for themselves merely for the purpose of sponsoring the work of private individuals and nongovernmental groups." Yours truly, OMAR BURLESON, Chairman. I In one of the cases that we have been discussing, a Member has 16 persons on his staff authorized to use these double study rooms. assume he has two of those adjoining rooms. Mr. MUMFORD. Yes. Mr. HORAN. I go back to the resolution: And that Members should not request assignment of rooms for themselves merely for the purpose of sponsoring the work of private individuals and nongovernmental groups. I have a similar resolution before me from the other body, expressing about the same sentiment regarding this. Can we put the Senate resolution in the record? Mr. MUMFORD. We have conveyed these to the Members concerned. Mr. HORAN. I would like to have that inserted. (The resolution is as follows:) U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION, September 4, 1957. DEAR SENATOR: For your information and guidance, there is reproduced below the text of a resolution adopted by the Committee on Rules and Administration at its regular meeting, on August 21, 1957: "SPONSORSHIP OF STUDY ROOM OCCUPANCY IN THE LIBRARY of ConGRESS "The committee is aware that the study rooms in the Library of Congress provide useful facilities for extended research. In order to prevent abuse, the rules of the Library do not permit occupancy of these rooms by private individuals for more than 6 months at a time. The possibilities of abuse are sufficiently real that the Librarian should not be required to make exceptions in this matter through the assignments of rooms to Senators. Accordingly, it is the sense of this committee that occupancy of these rooms assigned to Senators should not be delegated to others than members of their own office or committee staffs, and that Senators should not request assignments of rooms for themselves merely for the purpose of Sponsoring the work of private individuals and nongovernmental groups." Yours sincerely, Thomas C. HENNINGS, Jr., Chairman. |