APPROPRIATION BILL, 1942

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SEVENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

EDWARD T. TAYLOR, Colorado, Chairman

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATION BILL, 1942

HEARINGS CONDUCTED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE, EMMET O'NEAL (CHAIRMAN), CHARLES H. LEAVY, BUTLER B. HARE, D. LANE POWERS, AND NOBLE J. JOHNSON, OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IN CHARGE OF THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATION BILL, 1941, ON THE DAYS FOLLOWING, NAMELY:

THURSDAY APRIL 24, 1941.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

STATEMENTS OF ARCHIBALD MACLEISH, THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS; DR. LUTHER H. EVANS, CHIEF ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN; JOHN T. VANCE, LAW LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS; L. QUINCY MUMFORD, DIRECTOR OF THE PROCESSING DEPARTMENT; VERNER W. CLAPP, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO THE LIBRARIAN; DR. ERNEST S. GRIFFITH, CHIEF OF THE LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE; DR. LEWIS HANKE, CHIEF OF THE HISPANIC FOUNDATION; DR. LEICESTER B. HOLLAND, CHIEF OF THE FINE ARTS DIVISION; DAVID C. MEARNS, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE READING ROOMS; GEORGE A. SCHWEGMANN, JR., CHIEF OF THE UNION CATALOG, AND DR. HAROLD SPIVACKE, CHIEF OF THE MUSIC DIVISION

Mr. O'NEAL. Mr. MacLeish, we are very glad to have you before us, sir, and will be very glad to have you proceed in any way you would like to proceed, whether by making a statement without interruption and then submitting yourself to questions, if that meets with your wishes in the matter, or in any other way which you desire.

Mr. MACLEISH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should like to follow that procedure. We realize the limitations of time under which the committee operates and we have attempted to prepare ourselves to present this in a way to conserve time.

Mr. O'NEAL. Have you a prepared statement which you could furnish the committee members so they can follow you?

Mr. MACLEISH. We have a prepared statement which I believe is in the hands of all of the committee members-this justification of the estimates-and the introductory section presents the general picture; but, if I may, I should like to say a brief word simply to summarize what is there.

Mr. O'NEAL. If you care to read it, we will be very glad to have you read it-whatever your wishes are.

Mr. MACLEISH. I would like to speak briefly, if I might, about it, and then submit it for the record.

GENERAL STATEMENT

The point I should like to make is that the estimates this year are directly and organically related to last year's estimates and to the appropriation made upon last year's estimates and to our experience in applying those appropriations. Last year's estimates, in turn, reflected the situation resulting from two events. The first was the completion and opening of the annex of the Library in 1938, and the other was the appointment of a new Librarian in 1939. And the significance of those events was this: Prior to the completion of the annex and for some 10 years back, limitations of space in the old building had made it impossible for the Librarian of Congress to pass on to the committee estimates of needs as submitted to him by his chiefs. When, in 1938, the annex was completed and when the Librarian did feel free to submit estimates of 181 new positions the committee felt it was desirable to postpone consideration until the appointment of the new Librarian, since that was in the offing. Therefore the hearings for the fiscal year 1941 were the first hearings in about 10 years' time in which it was possible to consider the problem of the Library as a whole.

EFFECT OF INCREASES GRANTED FOR 1941

Now the action of the committee and the Congress on those estimates enabled the Library to attack the most pressing part of the problem, namely, the processing of books, which was falling behind and with respect to which the Library was in a rather serious situation. Other problems were postponed or deferred. Those were, first, the general administrative organization of the Library; and secondly, the staffing of the service divisions, as distinguished from the divisions which process books and prepare them for the shelves. Now, acting under this Appropriation Act for 1941, the Library Administration did the following things: First, we reorganized our processing operations and increased the processing staff as the appropriation permitted us to do; secondly, we went as far as we could with existing means to set up an efficient administrative organization; thirdly, we attempted, by a reorganization within the servicing divisions, to make the staffs of those divisions work as well as they could.

THE PROCESSING DEPARTMENT

I would like, briefly, to go into a little more detail as to what we did, particularly in the processing department, where the appropriation act last year enabled us to set up 54 new positions.

What we did, first of all, was to secure a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, of New York, which enabled us to bring in three of the most distinguished librarians the country has, to advise us as to the setting up of the whole highly technical operation. We got, I think, the three best men available. They worked on the thing very hard for 6 weeks and they made a report which I have here, which is published as a confidential document, but which, of course, is at the disposal of the committee if they wish to examine it.

Next, we looked for a director to put these findings in operation, in the position of Coordinator of the Processing Divisions, under the ppropriation, and we were fortunate enough to be able to secure, for

1 year, from the New York Public Library, Mr. Mumford, who was released for that time. Mr. Mumford is an expert in that field and had sat in with the Librarian's Committee and, therefore, knew the situation. However, he was unable to come until last September and it was not until September that we began appointing our people and making actual changes.

What we have done as a first step, therefore, is to reorganize the processing operation, both as regards its subdivisions and as regards the actual physical flow of the work. We have changed the relation of the various units to each other on the floor, so that work flows naturally.

WORK INCLUDED IN "PROCESSING"

Mr. O'NEAL. Would you just make a statement as to how inclusive the word "processing" is, so that we know what it covers?

Mr. MACLEISH. Yes. The word "processing" is a word which applies to all of the various functions of the Library by which books are brought to the shelves-the ordering of the books, their accessioning, their cataloging providing proper author and subject entries, and so forth, for each item-their classification within the Library scheme of classification, and the shelf listing and final preparation for the shelves-in other words, everything that is done from the time the book is ordered until the book is properly numbered and listed and placed on the shelves.

Mr. O'NEAL. Does that take into account the rehabilitation of books, papers, and magazines in the Library?

Mr. MACLEISH. Binding, and so forth?

Mr. O'NEAL. Suppose some of your old documents, old papers, needed to be preserved-would that be considered part of the processing operation?

Mr. MACLEISH. Well, sir, that is a very difficult question to answer, because we are now wrestling with the question of whether the binding operation ought to be considered as part of the processing, or whether the binding operation ought to be considered as part of the preservation of the collections, once they are on the shelves. That is, you have two problems in binding; one the binding of new material which comes in unbound; the other is repairing materials which are decayed on the shelves, and you could put the operation either under the care of the keeper of collections, or on the processing

side.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS UNDER NEW ORGANIZATION

Now, the changes which I have described were made organizationally and new positions were set up, and the following effects can be reported. First of all, I should say again that these appointments have been made only over the last few months and, since the new Processing Department is only just now fully staffed, we cannot look for very much change as yet in production. However, it is fair to say that, even through this period of internal reorganization, production has held up and shows some increase, and we expect to show much more increase shortly.

In the Accessions Division, which is part of the processing operation, we have paid off $70,000 in back bills which have been there, some of them, for a long period of time. We have set up new statistical controls which enable us to follow accurately the operations of