We have had a surprisingly large number of responses from Members in answer to our letter that appears on the face of this trial report, almost unanimously suggesting that we go forward with it, that it would be useful to them if this could be updated and distributed regularly, an in many instances there were other suggestions as to content. Now, what I am asking of this committee, Mr. Chairman, is that if we do go forward with this, that it not be construed as a "publication" within the meaning of the prohibition that I mentioned. It is, of course, prepared in multilith form. It is another useful tool for the Members. Mr. STEED. The reason I made reference to this is my administrative assistant told me that he had found this so useful that his need for the other material had been greatly diminished and that the advantage of this was that it was more timely and therefore something that he got more good out of because it was available when he needed it. Mr. JAYSON. The distinction between the Legislative Status Report and the Bill Digest is that the Digest of Public General Bills is encyclopedic; it covers every bill that is pending, whereas this little Legislative Status Report only covers what we believe to be the major bills, the one on which the Members and their staffs get most inquiries, such as, what is the status of this particular bill? Additionally, this one, the Legislative Status Report, lists the bills by category. Now, most of the letters of response from the Members asked us to get it out rather frequently. We hope to put this on automation equipment just as the Bill Digest is already in automation. What we plan to do is to put the content of the Status Report on tape so that as a bill is amended or as somehing happens to the bill we will not have to retype the thing. We will simply run the tape through the machines, that we can rent for this purpose, make insertions into the text which is already on the tape, and in this way we can update the report with a minimum of work and a minimum of typing time. We think that if we do that, it can be done at a very modest expense and we will probably be able to get the report out monthly. I should mention at the same time that when we go forward with our full automation program, the Bill Digest conceivably could be put out on a very frequent interval basis, perhaps weekly or even on a daily basis. This is something for the future. I can explain further if you want. COMPUTERIZING VARIOUS CONGRESSIONAL FUNCTIONS Mr. STEED. There has been some conversation about computerizing the appropriation bills to make accessible at least to the committees and to any other Members who are interested, a more rapid and accurate insight into the budget itself, and the various ways in which it breaks down, the various actions taken on it, so that at any given time we could have access to what it is in total, what it is in part, and what the effects of action already taken is in relationship not only to the individual bills but to the total. I would think that once this has been attempted that it would have to reduce itself to something like what your program here is. Mr. JAYSON. May I make two points? Specifically with regard to appropriation bills and oversight of appropriations, expenditures and the like, the Reorganization Act that we spoke about a little while ago has provisions which would impose some duty of that kind on the Comptroller General. His office would have an ADP setup, as I understand it, which would put into the machines materials or data such as you were talking about. The other point I would like to make is that from the point of view of LRS and of any user for research purposes, one of the most useful things we could have would be to have an automated data bank or access to other data banks. By that I mean it is well known that many executive agencies have extremely useful materials-information, data, statistics-in computers within their own agencies, none of which is classified or even subject to a claim of executive privilege. For example, information concerning the census, unemployment, employment, educational programs, et cetera. If the Congress itself had its own data bank, that is, had the tapes which are available to the various executive agencies or other research institutions which have put their information on tapes, if we had that material available to us, we could dip into it when needed and provide the information very quickly. Many people have spoken about the usefulness of something like that. Mr. STEED. One of the things that I have become impressed with in the hearings, we are constantly asking questions: "All right, here is the increase, what did you do last year? What was it the year before? What was left over?" We have quite a large sum in the pipeline and the Congress does not have a very handy way of knowing where its segments stand. This is information that would be very useful now when we are in this agony of trying to make these very substantial budget cuts in the new obligational authority, the expenditures, and the recision of old appropriations. Presently, the only way this information can be attained is through the old-fashioned, cumbersome way. I think that this whole area is something that we are going to have to find some way to get into because just by sheer magnitude and volume, we are not going to be able to go on interminably being old fashioned because our work will overwhelm us. Mr. JAYSON. Let me give you a little illustration of one small seg ment of its usefulness. For a period of 6 weeks and on a pilot basis, we entered on a tape the titles, authors, and brief annotations of all LRS reports. I am not talking merely about these multilith reports, which represent only a small percentage of our total work, but all LRS reports. Then we took a printout from the computer as to what we had. What I am handing you here is this printout. It is divided into two parts covering a period of 6 weeks. The first part lists the LRS authors; the second part arranges the reports by subject matter. This is a very small sam pling of our work. There you see listed all LRS reports for that 6week period. We could pull out anything we have done on, for in stance, foreign affairs, agriculture, or any breakdown that we may have. This is important not only from our immediate research point of view but from the point of view of a Member who wants to be kept currently aware of any information available to us in his own particular field. A man who is a specialist on the Commerce Committee may be interested in fisheries, for example, and may want to know the latest information about that subject or its related subjects. He could, through our printouts, instantaneously obtain information about any material that we have put into our tapes not only about LRS reports but also about pertinent articles from newspapers and magazines which our staff clips regularly, about Government publications, publications of other organizations, and so forth. Our people who do the clipping and filing also prepare a little notation of what each item is so that our own researchers will be alerted and kept current as to the latest events and writings in their fields. This, translated to a Member as user of our tapes, would give him the same currency, the same awareness of latest writings in his field of interest, and would do it very quickly. I might also add, just to close the subject, that the technology is here, I am told, wherein we could have a terminal in a committee office or in each of the House and Senate buildings, or even in a Member's own office, which would be connected to our computer so that it could be queried in a very simple way, such as by putting the inquiry through a typewriter. Mr. STEED. Thank you. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. STEED. We will turn now to page 122 of the Committee Print, Distribution of Catalog Cards, Salaries and Expenses, and page 159 of the justifications. The request is for $7,338,000, which, including the pending pay supplemental of $120,977, appears to reflect an increase over the current year of $794,223. As I understand it, you plan to absorb all of the pay increases and not require a supplemental in 1968; is that correct? Mr. ROSSITER. That is correct. Dr. MUMFORD. For 1968, yes. Mr. STEED. Then for the sake of the funds needed in 1969, you are really not talking about an increase of $794,000 but an increase of $915,000, in reality, are you not? Mr. ROSSITER. That is right. You asked us to update these figures after we presented those. Mr. STEED. All right. What enabled you to absorb this amount of pay raise? Mr. ROSSITER. Several things. One, we were able to save money from the rent you gave us while we were waiting for additional space to become available. Another, we deferred certain activities under the automation program. We took advantage of the transferability authority, taking money from some appropriations to cover the pay costs for others. Mr. STEED. We will insert pages 159 through 163 of the justifications. (The pages follow:) Funds are requested to cover the cost of within-grade increases and reallocations as follows: Salaries $53, 860 3, 680 $57, 540 +$12, 526 Personnel benefits. Total____ 2. Pay above-stated annual rate__ Fiscal year 1969 requires the payment of salary funds for one day in excess of the stated annual rate, or a total of 261 days. Fiscal 1968 had only 260 days, therefore funds are requested for the additional day in 1969. 3. Annualization of pay increase_ Public Law 90-206 granted pay increases to government employees effective the first day of the first pay period after October 1, 1967. The Library's first pay period began October 9, 1967, and the computation for the supplemental to cover these pay costs was based on this beginning date. This request is necessary to provide for the pay raise for a full year covering 7 pay periods from July 3 through October 8, 1967, inclusive. Salaries Personnel benefits___ +$47, 669 $41,099 6,570 Total_ 4. Postage The Library of Congress reimburses the Post Office Department annually for postage usage. In a recent survey it was determined that the Card Division has increased substantially its postal usage necessitating an increase of $5,000. 5. Printing Printers at the Government Printing Office were granted a 17 cent an hour increase in May 1967, pressmen a 23 cent an hour increase, card reproducers 16 cents an hour and laborers an average of 10 cents an hour in November, 1967. The Government Printing Office estimates that these increases will add approximately $32,000 to the cost of printing. Printing of catalog cards_____. Increases in the number of titles cataloged and in the number of cards printed for each title will require an estimated 17,500,000 more cards in fiscal 1969 than in fiscal 1968. Printing of book catalogs and other publications___. Increased production of cards results in larger book catalogs, which along with increased printing costs will require an estimated $137,000. The National Union Catalog, for example, has increased from 7 to 10 volumes; Books: Subjects from 5 to 7 volumes. 92-655-68- -39 47, 669 +$5,000 +$419, 000 $32,000 $250,000 $137,000 |