Mr. STEED. The next item we will take up is the distribution of catalog cards which appears on page 85 of the justifications and 99 of the committee print. We shall insert pages 85, 86 and 88 showing workload growth and income at this point in the record. (The justification follows:) 1961 regular bill... Supplemental for pay increases and other as contained in Third Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1961– 1961 adusted_ 1962 estimates---- Net increase_ $2,012, 700 160, 000 2, 172, 700 2,387, 300 +214, 600 1. Ingrade increases ANALYSIS OF INCREASES +$18,827 Of this amount it is expected that 65 percent will be needed for ingrade increases and 25 percent for reallocations. 2. Printing-pay increases at Government Printing Office_ Pressmen at the Government Printing Office were granted a 12-cent-per-hour pay increase effective in August 1960. Laborers were granted a 6-cent-per-hour pay increase in September 1960. Printers have been offered a 14cent-per-hour increase. The GPO estimates the annual cost of these pay increases at $8,500 as a minimum figure which will be passed on to the Library of Congress in the form of increased bills for card printing. 3. New positions requested__ To meet increase in workload due to substantial increase in +8,500 +187,273 ANALYSIS OF INCREASES-Continued 3. New positions requested-Continued To expedite filling of card orders by use of Copy flo (electrostatic process): 20 GS-3-- Contribution to retirement fund__ Contribution to health insurance___ $75, 300 5, 172 1, 113 $81, 852 Volume of business. In the past 10 years, an average of over 25 million cards has been sold annually to over 11,000 subscribers throughout the 50 States and several foreign countries. The net receipts from the sale of cards and other publications covered into the Treasury, as indicated below, have exceeded a million dollars annually since 1953; they exceeded the million and a half mark in 1958 and went above the 2 million mark in 1960. Mr. STEED. The 1961 regular bill was for $2,012,700, with a supplemental of $160,000, making the 1961 adjusted total $2,172,700. The estimates for 1962 are $2,387,300, reflecting a net increase of $214,600. We would like to have your comment on the reasons for the increase. SELF-SUPPORTING SERVICE Mr. MUMFORD. Mr. Chairman, I would like to emphasize first of all that this is a self-supporting operation. This appropriation provides for the printing of the Library's catalog cards, its catalogs in book form and certain technical publications, and for their sale to Government agencies, libraries, and other institutions throughout the world. This service is of nationwide importance because it permits other libraries to benefit from the Library's work in cataloging, classification, and eliminates costly duplication of effort. These tools at the same time facilitate research of all who use libraries, and part of our appropriation is used to finance the Library's own needs, such as the printing of cards for its official and special catalogs, and the printing of technical publications for its own use. The bulk of the appropriation, however, supports services to other libraries and institutions and brings in revenue which is covered into miscellaneous receipts of the Treasury. The net cash receipts amounted to 110 percent of the appropriation in fiscal year 1960. In the previous year receipts covered into the Treasury amounted to 103 percent of the appropriation. For 1961 the net cash receipts are also expected to exceed the amount of the appropriation, and all increases. that are requested in this appropriation will in due course revert to the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts. We have had a very great increase in the sale of these cards. We think that it is due to the establishment of new libraries-school libraries and small public libraries and no doubt the Library Services Act has had some bearing or influence upon this, but for the last several months we have had really a tremendous increase. It started building up early last fall and we have had to use every emergency measure possible to try to fill these orders. It is of very great importance that the orders are filled promptly, because it affects the work of the libraries at the other end that do not have cataloging cards for their use. So, the situation became so acute that we asked for a supplemental for the rest of this fiscal year to try to help us get abreast of the orders that were coming in. We badly need these positions to be continued into the next year. NEW POSITIONS REQUESTED Mr. STEED. I believe under the supplemental there were 27 new positions? Mr. MUMFORD. That is correct. Mr. STEED. And you are asking for 33 additional here in addition to that? Mr. MUMFORD. Yes. There are really three categories of work here. One is the sale and distribution of cards from stock that is already printed. The other we are asking for is 20 positions to supply cards that are out of stock or where we can reduce the stock and save some space by not reprinting the stock by the Copyflo process, and we will be glad to go into more detail about that. Third is that of our book publications, which are also self-supporting the National Union Catalog, New Serial Titles, and other publications that are sold by subscription to libraries throughout the country. OTHER INCREASES REQUESTED On the first green sheet are the figures for the ingrade increases covering the whole appropriation and an increase in the printing because of pay increases at the Government Printing Office and, then, item No. 3, to meet increase in workload due to substantial increase in catalog card sales, of 27 positions. Are there questions, Mr. Chairman, regarding that aspect--that is, the sale of cards themselves? We will be glad to explain this Copyflo process in more detail, if you would like. COPYFLO PROCESS Mr. STEED. I think it would be good for the record if we did have a little more detail on how that is working out, and if you could give us some comparative costs as between this method and the old printing method that you used. Mr. ROGERS. These are cards showing the original letterpress work at the top and a card reproduced by Copyflo at the bottom. Mr. Gooch can show you how this is done through electrostatic methods. Mr. GOOCH. The cards, which are out of stock, except for a copy in the record catalog, are photographed on microfilm by a camera which can automatically take up to 20 shots per card. As many copies of a card can be reproduced as are required for the filling of an order. This [indicating] is the microfilm of the cards that you have in the samples before you. After developing the microfilm, the photo duplication service laboratory processes the film through the Xerox Copyflo machine. This [indicating] is a sample of the reproduced cards. Mr. STEED. How does that change? Mr. ROGERS. You determine the number of cards that are needed by the number of added entries shown down at the bottom. Some call for additional cards for subjects and some for coauthors; therefore, in some cases you need more copies of the cards in a purchasing library and in other cases you need fewer copies. This roll of card stock is cut up by an automatic cutting machine. This [indicating] is an electric eye which actuates the machine to cut at just the precise place. When the process is finished, you have a card that is exactly 3 inches wide, and when you file it into a catalog you will have a uniform set of cards all the way through. Mr. GooсH. The automatic cutting device was developed at the Library itself. Mr. STEED. Have you had an opportunity to work out an accurate comparison between your reproduction cost by this method and the old method? Mr. GoоCH. Reproductions by this method run approximately 1 cent a card. Mr. Coffin probably has the figures for costs by printings, but that, of course, turns out large numbers of cards as they are printed from current cataloging. Mr. MUMFORD. This is somewhat more expensive, but libraries have shown a great willingness to pay an additional cost in order to get cards which are out of print. Mr. ROGERS. The actual photographic process of reproducing cards is not so much more expensive. However, it is more expensive in manpower to take the card and put it under the camera and then get the cards back and sorted and sent out to ordering libraries. This is more difficult than going to a card stock and just lifting out the number of cards that you need. Mr. STEED. As I understand it, through this process, when you originate a card, it might be a guess as to what you produce and originally you might underproduce or overproduce, but under this method you produce only what you have a demand for; is that right? Mr. GOOCH. Yes. By reproducing only the number of cards ordered from a single card, which is kept in a record file by serial number, a considerable floor area is saved by not having to keep on hand a large stock. Mr. ROGERS. For the most recent titles, where you have a tremendous demand, say the last 10 years or so, it would be much better to have the stock because you need so many cards. But we are hopeful that, working much further back, it would be possible to substitute this method for the sizable inventory of cards. Mr. STEED. What percent of your total production does this process involve? Mr. ROGERS. We have not yet determined how much of it it can supplant. We hope to work on it on a pragmatic basis and cut back as far as we can. We now have stock that extends prior to 1900, and the idea would be to work forward on the stock, depending on what can be done. In approximately 8 months' time we did some 906,000 individual cards, representing 94,000 titles, so that we have a pretty good basis of experiment on which to proceed. Mr. COFFIN. Present inventory of card stock is around 150 million cards, and these are in series, the 1898 series right up through to the current 1961 series. We hope that eventually we can cut back gradually, as Mr. Rogers has said, maybe ten series at a time, maybe more than that, until we get within possibly a dozen years of currency, filling with the xerographic process rather than having to send these orders to the printer or to run them off on the multilith, as we do in some instances. He has mentioned that for popular books we may have to print large numbers of cards. I think the largest number we print of a single card ordinarily is about 10,000 copies. We may have to go back to reprinting on some of these more popular books, but it is more economical to print 10,000 and go back for another 5,000 or 10,000 for the current series than to take a chance on having a printer's error on an original printing of 40,000 copies of the card. RECEIPTS, COSTS, AND VOLUME, 1950-61 Mr. STEED. On page 170 of the hearings last year we had a tabulation showing your receipts from sale of cards and other data. I wonder if you could bring that up to date and include it again this 1 Includes $160,000 provided in 3d Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1961. PRICES CHARGED Mr. STEED. It would seem to me that since these questions sooner or later revolve so much around this information, you might well put it in the justifications next year. |