Could you give us some examples of the prices you charge for cards, catalogs, and so forth? Mr. COFFIN. Yes, sir; we have a regular price schedule for cards which I should be glad to turn over to the committee. It varies according to the type of order placed, whether it is by card number or merely by author and title, or whether it is by subject, and so on. Taken into account in pricing is the amount of work that our people have to do in printing the card, getting the card stock number, drawing the cards from stock, billing, and shipping them out. Mr. STEED. How often do you set these rates? Is that determined by each order or is it predetermined? Mr. COFFIN. The schedule of rates is changed only occasionally. I think the last one was in 1958. We are required to charge the cost of producing the cards and the cost of distribution plus 10 percent. If we get into a deficit situation or approach a deficit situation, then we change our pricing schedule. At the present time we have a profit, which is over and above the 10 percent, and unless costs increase considerably, we will not change the card prices for some time to come. Of course, if costs decrease considerably, then we should have to make a downward adjustment. Mr. STEED. As I understand it, then, you have a cost control sufficient to insure that you will operate in the black for the year. Mr. COFFIN. Yes, sir. Mr. STEED. Is this the most recent list? Mr. COFFIN. Yes, sir. Mr. STEED. I think for the clarification of the whole thing we will just include this entire list in the record at this point. (The list follows:) PRICES OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Catalog Cards To Subscribers to Library of Congress Cards: AUGUST 1958. Under the legal requirements that prices for printed cards be based on cost plus 10 percent, the policy of the Library of Congress is to review income from card sales and cost of distribution for each fiscal year, which ends on June 30, and to adjust card prices accordingly. For reasons set forth in Cataloging Service Bulletin 46, the prices for cards beginning September 1, 1958, are as follows: CARDS ORDERED BY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS NUMBER Seven cents for the first copy of the card. CARDS ORDERED BY AUTHOR AND TITLE Eleven cents for the first copy of the card if the order is on slips and all the items of information are given on each individual slip. CARDS ORDERED BY SERIES Nine cents for the first copy of a card ordered by series, order to be filled immediately. This rate is also applicable to first cards supplied in continuation of standing orders by series. Eight cents for the first copy of cards ordered by series, provided the order is separate, calls for cards for the entire series (or for at least 50 consecutive issues in the series) and may be filled within 1 month. CARDS ORDERED BY SUBJECT Eight cents for the first copy of a card if the order amounts to 100 cards or less. Seven cents for the first copy of a card if the order calls for from 100 to 5,000 cards. Six cents for the first copy of a card if the order calls for from 5,000 to 10,000 cards. Five cents for the first copy of a card if the order calls for 10,000 or more cards.. Cards sent in continuation of any of the subject orders listed above are charged at the rate of 7 cents each. CHINESE, JAPANESE, AND KOREAN CARDS Eleven cents for the first copy of the card when ordered by author and title. Seven cents for the first copy of the card when ordered by Library of Congress card number. Four cents per card when subscription is placed for all cards produced, or for all cards produced in either the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean series. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE CARDS Two cents per card when subscription is placed for all cards produced. CARDS ORDERED FOR MOTION PICTURES AND FILMSTRIPS Eleven cents for the first copy of the card ordered for specific titles (by title). Six cents for cards for all titles on a specific subject. Eleven cents per set for total output of cards. Three cents for one copy of each title printed. Three cents for 25 or more copies of the same card. CARDS ORDERED FOR PHONORECORDS Eleven cents for the first copy of the card ordered for specific titles (by title). Six cents for cards for all titles on a specific subject, composer, author, or performer. Eleven cents per set for total output of cards. Three cents for one copy of each title printed. Three cents for 25 or more copies of the same card. REVISED AND CROSS REFERENCE CARDS Three cents per card when subscription is placed for the entire annual output. PHOTOCOPIES OF PRINTED CARDS Fifteen cents per copy for cards classified in the NR (not reprint) category. Six cents for the first copy of the card. ANONYMOUS AND PSEUDONYMOUS CARDS Four cents per card. CATALOG REFERENCE CARDS Six cents for the first copy of the card. SECOND CARDS The rate for additional copies of the same card ordered at the same time is 5 cents. This applies to all classes of cards. SAMPLE CARDS The price of sample cards for varying editions sent on request (see pp. 40, 46, and 63 of the 8th edition of the Handbook of Card Distribution) is 7 cents. EXTRA CHARGES There will be an extra charge of 2 cents per title for all orders lacking the required information. The new scale of prices should be inserted at p. 62 of the 8th edition of the Handbook of Card Distribution. Prices do not include postage charges. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, CARD DIVISION. Mr. STEED. Mr. Bow, do you have any questions? Mr. Bow. I just wondered about this. If we get the costs down, why reduce the price of cards? Nobody is objecting to what he is paying now, is he? Is there anything wrong with making a little extra profit for the Treasury? Mr. COFFIN. By law, the cards are considered to be publications, and we are required to make only the Mr. Bow. Then it is up to us to amend the law; is that right? Mr. Bow. Why is this considered a publication rather than a service? Mr. COFFIN. I do not know the history of this, but the card printing and distribution business operations began about 1900, and I think that this goes back to that time in the law. Mr. Bow. But back in the days when we did not break even, nobody contributed to increase the price. Mr. ROGERS. There is one thing deceptive about this, which is that the Library of Congress gets about 5 million cards a year out of this appropriation. Therefore, when we say we are making 110 percent of the appropriation, we are not only making 10 percent profit, but we are getting 5 million cards for the Library of Congress free. Mr. Bow. I think that is good, and I do not think we should apologize for it. Nobody has objected to the prices paid, and we are rendering good service. I hate to see us start reducing prices when people get what they pay for. Mr. ROGERS. It is unlikely that we will be able to reduce prices. Mr. MUMFORD. The curve is not uniform. As costs of production go up, the increased staff and service, we may drop down some, and then if we raise the price of cards, a bit, we collect more than we did before or perhaps more than 100 percent of the appropriation. Mr. Bow. What have you actually collected so far this year? What is your last figure? Mr. ROGERS. Could we give the sales figure? We are a little bit behind in collections. Mr. Bow. Is the latest figure the one you have in your justifications and you cannot give anything more recent than that? These were made up some time ago. Mr. ROGERS. We would expect to sell in 1961, $2,528,000. Mr. MUMFORD. This would be 11.15 percent increase over the previous period. WORKLOAD INCREASE Mr. Bow. You have set forth pretty well the number of employees you want and what they would do, but I do not think you have really justified getting these employees yet. It has been a pretty hazy justification. Mr. MUMFORD. I thought the workload itself, the big increase in orders Mr. Bow. That does not always follow. Many times you can have increases of workload and handle them by employees already on board. For instance, I have not heard anything about being behind in some of your orders. You have here, "to expedite filling of card orders." There is no record about backlogs. "Increase in workload in card sales, to maintain currency of the catalog." ." It seems to me we should have something to show you need these people and cannot handle this increase with your present work force. Mr. MUMFORD. On page 92, second paragraph of the justifications, there is a statement regarding the situation we were in in January, which has been improved some since then. There were over 800,000 order slips on hand. Mr. ROGERS. This represents about 4 million cards. This is one of the worst situations the Library has ever been in with respect to cards. We were running 20 and 30 days behind in a service that should be 3 to 5 days. Mr. Bow. What is your present situation? Mr. ROGERS. We are back now Mr. MUMFORD. With the supplemental that we were granted, we have been able to improve it considerably. Mr. Bow. You now are about 3 to 5 days behind? Mr. ROGERS. Approximately. Mr. MUMFORD. Or 10 or more for certain types of orders. Mr. Bow. Why do you need more employees? Mr. ROGERS. Because this curve is going up. We thought for fiscal 1961 we would not need additional positions, and yet we have an increase of sales that is running about 4 million cards over last year. This things has just kept on going up. Mr. Bow. You are filling them in 3 to 5 days? Mr. ROGERS. Yes, for the most part, but to maintain this in the face of an increasing curve, we know from experience it is going to be fatal if we do not have additional positions. USE OF ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL Also you will note that what we are asking for are the copy flow positions, 20 in number out of 33, in order to reduce inventory and save space and, secondly, the 13 positions that are connected with the growth in the published book catalogs. The positions received in the supplemental are going to help us in the sale of cards, but these other positions are only indirectly related to that. Mr. Bow. What did we give you in the supplemental? Mr. ROGERS. 27 positions, $72,000. Mr. Bow. Where are they distributed? Mr. ROGERS. They were almost all direct workload positions. Mr. MUMFORD. Searching orders, drawing cards, and billing. Mr. Bow. These 20 to expedite billing of card orders by use of copy flow Mr. Bow. Where would you use those 20 GS-3's? Mr. ROGERS. Those would be used to reduce inventory. Mr. MUMFORD. And to supply service on cards that have been out of print that we could not supply otherwise. Mr. Bow. How many people do you have doing that now? Mr. ROGERS. Actually at the moment, none. Mr. MUMFORD. Because we have had to concentrate upon filling orders by the conventional method where stocks were available. Mr. COFFIN. When you say we are within 2 or 3 days of currency, you are speaking, Mr. Rogers, of the so-called regular orders and not about the special orders we get by subject; nor have you taken into account the 250,000 "outs" which we must have reprinted or multilithed or produced through the xerographic process to fill the orders. In this crash program we took care of the orders which were coming in every day and took care of the backlog of orders insofar as we could fill them from existing stocks. Now we have a cleanup task for the special orders, for the "outs," for the proof sheets, and for various other activities of the Card Division which produces publications and cards for subscribing libraries. Mr. Bow. Getting back to the 20, how are you going to use them? Mr. ROGERS. The 20? Mr. Bow. The 20 GS-3's filling the card orders. What will they acutally do? Mr. MUMFORD. They will work on these old series that are either out of print already, where they cannot supply the cards, or directed toward reducing stock for old series for which there are not as frequent orders. Mr. Bow. Will they be operating these machines? Mr. MUMFORD. Operating the cameras. Mr. Bow. Do you have enough of these machines for 20 people to be working on? Mr. MUMFORD. Yes, sir; for the present. Mr. Bow. How many of these machines do you have? Mr. Gooch. At the present time, approximately five machines actually capable of being worked but we have no staff to man them. Mr. Bow. You have five machines and you say you have the staff to operate them or you do not have the staff? Mr. GOOCH. We do not have the staff. Mr. Bow. You do not have the staff to operate them. You have machines there not being operated? Mr. GoоCH. The Photoduplication Service has modified the machines, up to five machines, but the Card Division does not have the people to handle them on the photographic end. Actually, the 20 positions would include those who would man the cameras to photograph the cards from the record catalog. Mr. Bow. How many would that take? Mr. GoоCH. A maximum of 10. Mr. Bow. In other words, you are going to buy more equipment too? |