THE ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION

The Librarian's committee, which went through the Library very carefully, came to the conclusion that the Library would never function properly until the administrative apparatus was overhauled, because it was a tremendous plant to control, because there were 37 heterogeneous units reporting directly to the Librarian, and because of the lack of necessary administrative apparatus at the top. We have handled that, first of all, by taking administrative officers and putting them where they were most needed, even at some sacrifice to the fields where they had been operating. For example, the Chief Assistant Librarian, who formerly was general assistant librarian and helped the Librarian in all matters, has now been made director of one department-the Reference Department. That means a certain loss in the Librarian's office, but a tremendous gain administratively.

The Administrative Assistant to the Librarian has been made Director of the Administrative Department and has also been made budget officer and, if our estimates this year reflect a better control of our budgetary plans, it is because we have a budget officer and I think a very good one. But the means at our disposal have been limited; that is, we have not been able to invent people, but have had to use what we had, and there are real difficulties in filling out the general administrative structure.

CENTRAL ACCOUNTS OFFICE

A few other things have been done administratively. We have set up a central accounts office. The Library now has an accounts office, which has the supervision of all accounts; for example, the accounts of the Copyright Office, the Card Division, and all units handling money; and that accounts office is able to tell me, in answer to a telephone call, what constitutes the balance of any allotment of any appropriation at any time-a situation which did not previously exist.

CENTRAL DISBURSING AND PERSONNEL OFFICES

Also, we have a centralized disbursing office which disburses all funds.

We have taken all of the personnel activities and put them in one office, and have adopted a new system of filling vacancies. We post all vacancies with notice of the duties and qualifications prescribed, so that all applicants know what they are applying for and what they must have in the way of qualifications.

Also, we have taken our appropriation for increase of the Librarythat is, for the purchase of new books for the Library-and divided that into allotments by subject fields, and have made persons who have particular competence in those fields responsible for making recommendations for purchase.

Now, this year's estimates, are shaped to meet the situation I have just described.

NEW POSITIONS REQUESTED

We are asking no new positions for the processing operations for next year, although we received last year considerably fewer new positions than we thought necessary in our estimates. We are asking no new positions there at all. We are asking for a few new positions.

to enable us to make our general administrative apparatus work, and we are asking for new positions beyond that in the service divisions -the divisions which last year were not materially aided. Some of them, of course, had aid; but, broadly speaking, their needs were deferred.

Wherever possible, we have reduced our estimates below last year and these justifications will indicate that the total reduction in the estimates below last year is considerable.

That, Mr. Chairman, concludes the preliminary statement I should like to make.

Mr. O'NEAL. If you have a further statement, we would be glad to hear you on that-if you want to amplify the statement you have in your justifications here. Is there anything in there that you would like particularly to comment on?

Mr. MACLEISH. I do not believe so. I think I have underlined the points there that seemed to be most important.

Mr. O'NEAL. Mr. MacLeish, we will include in the hearings the statement which you file as a part of the justifications.

Mr. MACLEISH. Thank you, sir.

(The matter above referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE ESTIMATES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1942

I have the honor to submit herewith an analysis of the estimates of the Library of Congress for the fiscal year 1942 together with statements in justification. These statements are of two kinds: First, a general statement concerning the estimates as a whole and indicating the broad Library policy upon which they are based and, second, a series of particular statements dealing with the estimates item by item.

GENERAL STATEMENT

The esimates of the Library of Congress for fiscal 1942 are directly related to the estimates for fiscal 1941 and to the action taken upon those estimates by the committees and the Congress. The Library's estimates for fiscal 1941 in turn reflected the situation created by two developments: The completion of the Library annex and the appointment of a new librarian.

The effect of these two developments was to permit the Library, for the first time in almost 10 years, to present a full and detailed picture of its needs and to enable Congress, for the first time in this same period, to act upon those needs. Down to fiscal 1939 there had been no room in the Library_building to house additional personnel, however urgently required, and the then Librarian had been unwilling, therefore, to present to Congress the repeated requests of his chiefs of division. In fiscal 1940, although the annex had been completed, and the then Librarian felt himself free to present requests for 181 additional positions, the committee considered that the pending appointment of a new Librarian made it desirable to defer consideration of the accumulated needs of the Library until the following year.

Com

The estimates for fiscal 1941 were prepared with this situation in mind. mittees of members of the staff and of outside experts were invited to examine the Library's services, and a statement of the Librarian of Congress in support of the supplementary estimates of appropriation for the fiscal year 1941 was drafted upon the basis of their findings. This statement, and the estimates to which it referred, presented the needs of the Library under six principal heads: First, the general personnel and salary situation; second, the situation in the technical services the so-called processing divisions; third, the situation in the scholarly services-reference, book-selection, reading rooms, etc; fourth, the situation with reference to purchases; fifth, the situation in the fiscal and clerical services; and finally the situation in the Law Library, the Copyright Office, and various other special divisions of the Library. A total increase of $1,081,521 was estimated as necessary to the efficient operation of these various services and functions of the Library.

The action taken by the committees and the Congress with reference to this presentation of the Library's needs is, of course, familiar. The committees of the House and Senate felt that the needs of the Library's processing divisions were more urgent than those of other divisions and recommended that they be dealt with first, allowing an increase of $395,171 largely for this purpose. The other items of the estimates were not however rejected. The House Committee, in its report, said: "In making these reductions in personnel [i. e., reductions below the estimate] the committee does not discourage the proposal of the type of service suggested. It does believe, however, that the processing and handling of material and making it available promptly, are more important this year ***** That this decision was wisely made no one familiar with the Library will doubt. The processing divisions of the Library were falling behind a year ago at the rate of 30,000 volumes a year, the total arrearage of unprocessed volumes was close to a million and a half, and almost a quarter of a million volumes were in need of immediate repair if they were to be preserved from irreparable deterioration. The action of the Congress has permitted the Library to attack this most critical problem in a manner which, it is hoped, will lead to its effective solution. A brief account of steps thus far taken may be in order.

Following the passage of the appropriation act the Carnegie Corporation of New York generously acceded to my request that it make funds available for a detailed study of the processing operations of the Library. A committee of outside librarians, whose recommendations would enable us to make the most efficient use of the increased appropriation in this field, was therefore invited to undertake the work. Members of the committee, who gave up their own work_to_devote themselves to a study of the Library of Congress, were Dr. Carleton B. Joeckel, professor of library science at the University of Chicago, chairman; Mr. Paul North Rice, chief, reference department, New York Public Library, and Mr. Andrew D. Osborn, chief, serial division, Harvard College Library. They were assisted by Mr. L. Quincy Mumford, executive assistant, the New York Public Library, Mr. Keyes D. Metcalf, director of the libraries of Harvard University; and Mr. Francis R. St. John, assistant librarian, Enoch Pratt Free Library, BaltiThe committee met daily in the Library from the middle of April to the end of May and submitted in the middle of June a carefully considered, confidential report of 303 pages in which its findings and recommendations are recorded. Copies of the report are of course available to members of the Appropriations Committee should they wish to consult it.

Following receipt of the report Mr. L. Quincy Mumford, of the New York Public Library, who had sat with the committee, was invited to set up the new Processing Department envisaged by the report, and his services were made available for the period of 1 year by Mr. H. M. Lydenberg, director of the New York Public Library. Mr. Mumford was able to report for duty on September 1 and shortly thereafter the reorganization of the Library's processing operations, and the selection of the 50 (actually 54) new employees of the processing divisions provided for by the act, began.

Reorganization of the processing operations has been accomplished in the following manner: The former Cataloging and Classification Divisions have been broken down into three new divisions: Descriptive Cataloging, Subject Cataloging, and Catalog Preparation and Maintenance. The Card Division has been stripped of its cataloging, etc., functions and reorganized as a sales and distributing agency for Library cards. The Accessions Division has retained its former functions as the purchasing and receiving agency for books, etc., but has been reorganized internally to provide more efficient operation and a closer control over records.

The effect of these changes is to organize the work of the various processing units on a functional basis. Thus the Descriptive Cataloging Division performs all work done in the determination of author and title entries, imprint, collation, and bibliographical notes. The Subject Cataloging Division classifies books and assigns subject headings to them. The Catalog Preparation and Maintenance Division performs the clerical and subprofessional work involved in the cataloging process, thus relieving the professional workers of former clerical duties. (A very large part of the additional appropriation for processing work has been used for the employment of additional subprofessional workers.) In addition a complete physical rearrangement of work and personnel has been made. Material now proceeds in a logical fashion from the point of receipt through the various cataloging processes to the point of distribution to the shelves. Elimination of lost motion in this respect will contribute greatly to the efficiency of the organization. Procedures, routines, and records are undergoing a thorough overhauling. Old practices are being questioned, and, in many cases, eliminated. Simpler

methods are being instituted wherever possible. Every effort is being made to avoid unnecessary work.

It is believed that these changes will greatly increase the efficiency and therefore the output of the Processing Divisions with a consequent reduction in the unit cost of cataloging. It is interesting to note in this connection that the former level of production was maintained throughout the process of reorganization and that, at the present time, with reorganization still not complete, the level of production is rising.

The needs of the Processing Divisions, however, though clearly entitled to priority, are only part of the total needs of the Library. On other fronts for which additional appropriations were not made available by the Appropriation Act of 1941, the Library took such action as the means available permitted. Thus the general administrative structure of the Library has been reorganized to provide a more efficient control of Library operations. As will appear from the chart on page XI the previous administrative structure of the Library placed the Librarian in direct administrative control of 37 divisions, services or units of the most diverse character. The failure of many of these units to function properly was directly attributable to this excessive span of control. A new organization, charted on page XII, was therefore substituted. The various divisions and services, exclusive of the Law Library and the Copyright Office, are now grouped in three departments, the Chief Assistant Librarian being director of the largest of these departmentsthe Reference Department, the Administrative Assistant to the Librarian being director of the Administrative Department, and the Coordinator of the Processing Divisions, provided for in the appropriation act for fiscal year 1941, being director of the Processing Department.

Other changes were made in the organization of the Library's fiscal services. At my request the General Accounting Office made a thorough inquiry into fiscal organization and procedure an inquiry in which the Bureau of the Budget cooperated. As a result of the recommendations of the representatives of these offices the fiscal services have been wholly reorganized. A central Accounts Office has been established to exercise a unified accounting control; the handling of moneys has been systematized and responsibility centered in the Disbursing Office; a new accounting system has been installed, under the supervision of the General Accounting Office, which makes it possible to secure precise and prompt information on all fiscal matters; the fiscal operations of the Accessions Division, Card Division, and Copyright Office have been systematized; and procedures are in process of development by which the Processing Department will be able for the first time in the Library's history to ascertain the costs of its various and complicated operations. Meantime all personnel records and controls have been centralized in the Personnel Office and a system of appointments and promotions has been established under which vacancies are posted in advance, so that employees of the Library may apply, and all applications, whether from within the Library or from without, are competitively submitted to the Chief of the Division in question for his selection subject to review by the Director of his Department, the Personnel Office and the Librarian.

But though the Library has made progress in certain directions outside the processing divisions it has not been able to deal effectively with the greater part of its difficulties in this area. Its appropriation for increase of the Library proper still stands at $118,000 (plus a 1-year appropriation of $30,000 for the purchase of Orientalia). Its selection of books is still hampered by the lack of an adequate corps of specialists in the various fields. Its reference service to readers in general and to Members of Congress in particular suffers from the same defect. And the various divisions making up the Reference Department continue to lack additional personnel frequently requested of the Librarian in the past.

The Library has done what it could to meet these difficulties with the means at its disposal. It has secured again through the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a small group of fellows of the Library of Congress (five in all) to aid in the analysis of the collections in their fields, in the recommendation of books for purchase and in reference work. It has invited members of its staff, interested in the various fields, to assist in book selections as associate fellows without extra pay. But even so there are still fields in which the Library lacks expert knowledge, with the result that the foremost of American libraries is put at a disadvantage in contrast with any college or university library which can call upon its college or university faculty for advice.

In the same way the Library has attempted, by allotting its $118,000 to the various subject fields, to make the amount available go as far as possible. But the effect has been merely to emphasize the inadequacy of the total. Over $50,000 of the entire sum is every year engaged ahead for continuations-periodicals, serials and the like. Nine thousand dollars is required for freight, postage,

telegrams, travel, etc. The balance of less than $60,000-divided among the 27 divisions and subject fields-provides sums running from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. For example, $3,000 is this year available for all purchases of manuscripts in American history (a type of material never secured by deposit for copyright), $4,000 is available for political science including collected documents, $500 is available for education, $750 for American languages and literature, etc. It should be noted in this connection that in 1939 and 1940 deposits for copyright constituted 28 percent and 26 percent, respectively, of the annual accessions while purchases provided 17 percent and 30 percent, respectively. But though somewhat less important quantitatively, purchases are qualitatively of greater importance than copyright deposits, since the latter are nonselective, and since the former provide the principal means of filling lacks and repairing deficiencies in the collections as they now stand.

These various efforts to make funds go farther have therefore had a limited effect. Administrative reorganization cannot take the place of needed man-power and additional man-power in the reference services has long been urgently required. The present estimates are drafted to present this situation. The needs they outline are needs which last year's appropriations did not meet and which reorganization alone cannot satisfy. Existing positions-for example, the positions of Chief Assistant Librarian and Administrative Assistant to the Librarian-have been used to supply directors for the two departments not provided for last year, but existing positions could not be transferred from the operating divisions to provide the executive personnel required for the new departmental offices. And no rearrangement of existing positions could supply the increased man-power for which the operating divisions have themselves been asking over many years. The justifications which follow will explain the situation in greater detail.

COMPARISON OF OLD AND NEW ORGANIZATIONAL SCHEMES

If I may, in passing, I should like to draw the attention of the committee to two charts at the end of the introductory remarks which perhaps the committee would care to look at later on. They attempt to show, as well as we can do it graphically, the changes we have made. The first represents the organization as of October 1, 1939. Here we had 37 units all reporting directly to the Librarian, running all the way from "Books for the Adult Blind" to the sections for "Chinese" and "Japanese" books; then the subject divisions from "Music Division" to "Legislative Reference."

The second chart indicates the present form of organization, with a very simple, not at all complicated, set-up. There are now five principal units reporting to the Librarian. All of those are operating departments but two-the Copyright Office and the Law Library of Congress. The other three are the Processing Department headed by the Coordinator of Processing as its director; the Reference Department with the Chief Assistant Librarian as director, and the Administrative Department with the Administrative Assistant as director.

The effect here is to put like things together. The Administrative Assistant has jurisdiction over all of the housekeeping apparatusaccounts, disbursing, publications, buildings and grounds, and so forth. The Coordinator of Processing oversees all of the processing operations; and the Chief Assistant Librarian, as Director of the Reference Department, has supervision of the various specialized subject fields.

COMPARISON OF ESTIMATES WITH 1940 AND 1941 APPROPRIATIONS

Mr. O'NEAL. As I understand it, there was appropriated in 1940 for the Library of Congress $3,107,707; for 1941, $3,560,298, and you are asking, for 1942, $4,007,507-or an increase over the 1941 appropriation of $447,209.