**LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Update**

**American Library Association Midwinter Meeting**

**LC Booth**

The Library's exhibit booth is no. 2827. The LC exhibit booth
coordinator is Robert Handloff.

[In-booth theater presentations (30 minutes unless otherwise
noted):]{.underline}

*Cataloger's Desktop on the Web:* Bruce Johnson (Saturday and Sunday,
12:00 noon-1:00 both days); Jan Herd (Monday, 11:30 am-12:00 noon)

*Classification Web Now with LC/Dewey Correlations:* Cheryl Cook
(Saturday and Sunday, 1:30-2:00 pm both days; Monday, 12:00 noon-12:30
pm)

*Digital Preservation at LC:* Guy Lamolinara (Saturday, 10:30 am;
Sunday, 10:00 am; Monday, 10:00 am)

*Educator's Tour of the Library's Website:* Cheryl Lederle-Ensign
(Sunday, 2:00 pm)

*Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress:* John Y. Cole (Saturday, 1:00
pm; Sunday, 1:00 pm)

*Library of Congress Website from Your Point of View:* Vickie Fortuno
(Saturday, 2:00 pm; Sunday, 11:30 am; Monday, 11:00 am)

*National Digital Newspaper Program:* Deborah Thomas (Saturday, 11:00)

*Oral History: Gathering Your Communities= Stories:* Cheryl
Lederle-Ensign (Saturday, 10:00 am; Monday, 10:30 am)

*Portals to the World:* Everette Larson (Sunday, 10:30-11:30 am)

*The Veterans History Project:* Rachel Mears/Monica Mohindra (Saturday,
2:30 pm)

*Workforce Diversity at LC:* Eric Eldritch (Saturday, 11:30 am; Sunday,
2:30 pm)

[Incentive items to be given away at the exhibit booth
include:]{.underline}

From the Cataloging Distribution Service: Class Web keyboard brushes;
Desktop on the Web magnetic memo boards; copies of "What Is FRBR?",
"Understanding MARC Bibliographic" and "Understanding MARC Authority
Records"; LC Classification Poster and Pocket Guide; new CDS Catalog of
Bibliographic Products and Services. The new *LC Classification*
Schedule KB: Religious Law will be on display at the booth.

From the Center for the Book: 100 Center for the Book *Wings* posters,
100 National Book Festival (2004) posters, 200 pencils, 100 CFB
bookmarks, 100 National Book Festival bookmarks, 50 CFB brochures.

From the Office of Strategic Initiatives: poster *Library of Congress .
. .Making History Come to Life*; brochures *America\'s Online
Educational Library* and *America\'s Online Educational Library, 2004
Update;* bookmarks.

From the Veterans History Project: 300 copies of the brochure *Veterans
History Project: How to Participate: "Serve, Preserve, Honor";* 150
Project Field Kits, 50 Memoir Kits.

**UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT OFFICE**

[Legislation]{.underline}

Copyright legislation passed at the end of the 108^th^ Congress included
two bills that affected the copyright statutory licenses. The Copyright
Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004 replaced the existing
Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panels with three Copyright Royalty Judges
who will determine rates and terms of statutory licenses as well as
distribution of royalties collected under the Audio Home Recording Act
and the satellite and cable television statutory licenses. The Satellite
Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act of 2004 extended the
satellite television license in section 119 until the end of 2009.

Other copyright-related legislation included the Intellectual Property
Protection and Courts Amendments Act of 2004, which enacted new criminal
prohibitions against trafficking in counterfeit labels, illicit labels
or counterfeit documentation and packaging, and the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, legislation primarily
relating to special education services for children with disabilities.
One provision in the legislation amends section 121 of the copyright law
to permit publishers of print instructional materials for use in
elementary or secondary schools to create and distribute to the National
Instructional Materials Access Center copies electronic versions of
those print instructional materials, and to expand the definition of
Aspecialized formats that authorized entities may reproduce and
distribute to blind and other persons with disabilities, to include
large print formats of elementary and secondary school print
instructional materials.

A number of other copyright-related bills were not enacted. Two bills of
particular interest, both of which are likely to surface in the 109^th^
Congress, were the Preservation of Orphan Works Act and the Inducing
Infringement of Copyrights Act. The Preservation of Orphan Works Act
would correct a problem in section 108 of the copyright law, which
permits libraries and archives to reproduce and distribute copies of a
work during the last 20 years of the newly-extended copyright term when
the work is not subject to normal commercial exploitation or when copies
or phonorecords of the work cannot be obtained at a reasonable price.
That provision currently does not extend to musical works, pictorial,
graphic or sculptural works, or motion pictures or other audiovisual
works (other than audiovisual works dealing with new). The proposed
legislation would expand the exemption to include such works. The
Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act would address secondary
liability for copyright infringement, recognizing that one who
intentionally induces infringement of a copyrighted work can be liable
for that infringement. This legislation was introduced by Senators
Hatch, Frist, Daschle and Leahy in response to problems created by
peer-to-peer "file-sharing."

[Orphan Works]{.underline}

For some time the Copyright Office has been interested in the issue of
"orphan works", that is, copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or
even impossible to locate. Concerns have been raised that the
uncertainty surrounding ownership of such works might needlessly
discourage subsequent creators and users from incorporating such works
in new creative efforts or making such works available to the public.
Senators Hatch and Leahy and Congressmen Smith and Berman have also been
interested in this issue. They have asked the Office to examine the
issue and to provide recommended solutions that could effectively
address the concerns without conflicting with the legitimate interests
of authors and rights holders.

The Office will begin this process by publishing a notice of inquiry
regarding orphan works in the *Federal Register.* The notice will set
out the issue and ask for comment on specific questions. Commenters are
also invited to frame additional questions or to reframe the questions
asked. Hopefully, this notice will be published in the near future, and
comments will be received in March. The Office hopes to have
recommendations ready for Congress by the end of 2005.

[OSI (in cooperation with the Copyright Office) Working Group on
Re-examination of Section 108 of the Copyright Law]{.underline}

A Working Group is being convened to address concerns arising from use
of copyrighted works by libraries and archives in a digital environment.
As you know, digital technologies are radically and rapidly transforming
how copyrighted works are created and disseminated, and also how
libraries and archives preserve and make these works available to their
constituencies.

The Working Group will begin its tasks in March, 2005. A balanced
approach that weighs the concerns of rights holders in conjunction with
the concerns of libraries and archives is essential for copyright out
this endeavor. The Library is fortunate to have assembled a small number
of eminent representatives from the copyright owner and library/user
communities who have agreed to serve. The goals are to investigate
issues, document findings, suggest solutions and prepare recommendations
for legislative change.

**OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN**

**OFFICE OF SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS**

In addition to building the Emergency Preparedness Program, the OSEP
continued strengthening the Library's collections security program. The
OSEP has coordinated preparation of the 2005 Strategic Collections
Security Plan (SCSP), which is in the final stages of review. The SCSP
will supersede the 1997 Library of Congress Security Plan, which focuses
on physical security controls. The new SCSP integrates physical
security, preservation, and inventory management controls protecting the
Library's priceless collections. Of the many on-going initiatives
coordinated by the OSEP with the Collections Security Oversight
Committee (CSOC), the Site Assistance Visit (SAV) program continues to
significantly improve security practices of the Library'' staff members.
Led by an OSEP staff expert joined by a senior librarian/collections
management specialist, the SAVs utilize a 16 point checklist. In
September 2004, the OSEP/CSOC completed the first round of visits to the
Library's more than 90 divisions, and started a second round of visits
in October 2004. In addition, the CSOC's Website for patrons has
attracted more than 350,000 hits. Feedback indicates that complaints
have declined, as new patrons now arrive at the Library aware of
personal belongings restrictions, entry/exit controls, and other
security controls in place.

The OSEP continued coordinating major security enhancements at the
Library's three main buildings on Capitol Hill under the Library's 1999
Security Enhancement Plan. To date, most of the perimeter security
improvements have been completed at the Madison and Jefferson buildings,
and such improvements are under way at the Adams Building, with
completion expected by mid-2005. All improvements under the Security
Enhancement Plan are expected to be substantially completed in 2005. The
AOC has experienced funding issues for perimeter security, hence the
delay in the completion of these projects.

**LIBRARY SERVICES**

**SERVICE UNIT REALIGNMENT**

On July 2, 2004, Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum
announced new reporting lines for the top levels of management in
Library Services. The purpose of the realignment was to emphasize the
collections; streamline processes of acquisitions and cataloging; and
recognize electronic resources as an increasingly important component of
the collections. Most of the fifty-three Library Services divisions are
now grouped into five directorates: Acquisitions and Bibliographic
Access (ABA); Collections and Services; Partnerships and Outreach
Programs; Preservation; and Technology Policy.

The new ABA Directorate merges acquisitions and cataloging functions,
recognizing that both functions serve the goal of building the Library's
collections and providing access to information and knowledge. The
Instructional Design and Training Division (IDTD, formerly the Technical
Processing and Automation Instruction Office) also became part of ABA,
but will design and deliver training for all of Library Services.

The new Collections and Services Directorate brought together all
divisions with reading rooms or collections management responsibilities.
The Partnerships and Outreach Directorate included the Business
Enterprises and Retail Marketing units, the Center for the Book, Federal
Library and Information Center Committee, Interpretive Programs Office,
National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Office of
Scholarly Programs, Publishing Office, Veterans History Project, and
Visitor Services Office.

The Technology Policy Directorate consisted of the Automation Planning
and Liaison Office, the Integrated Library System (ILS) Program Office,
and the Network Development and MARC Standards Office. The Preservation
Directorate encompassed the Binding and Collections Care, Conservation,
Preservation Reformatting, and Preservation Research and Testing
divisions; the Mass Deacidification Program; and the National Digital
Newspaper/United States Newspaper Program.

The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and the American Folklife
Center reported directly to the Associate Librarian. The new
organizational structure also included a Deputy Associate Librarian and
an administrative services office. The realignment positioned all
divisions to work toward greater resource sharing and more efficient
work processes to improve service to Congress and other Library users.

**KISLAK COLLECTION**

The Library acquired the1516 *Carta Marina* map by Martin Waldseemüller
and three rare globe gores by Johan SchonerBpart of the Jay I. Kislak
Collection. In all, the Jay I. Kislak Foundation gave the Library
several thousand rare books, manuscripts, documents, maps and
masterworks of pre-Columbian culture and colonial art from North and
South America, spanning three millennia of Native American and European
cultures, emphasizing the early contact period of 1500 in the Caribbean
basin through the 1820s in Florida and the southern part of the United
States as well as an endowment to support research in these areas.

**NATIONAL AUDIO-VISUAL CONSERVATION CENTER**

[NAVCC in Culpeper.]{.underline} Construction on the Library's National
Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) continued on schedule
throughout 2004. The NAVCC, located in Culpeper, Virginia, is a
state-of-the-art complex that will consolidate the activities of the
Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) in one
central facility, while also greatly increasing preservation
efficiencies and throughput. The 45-acre NAVCC campus is being built
with extraordinary private-sector support from the Packard Humanities
Institute, and is comprised of four building components totaling 420,000
square feet of space. The first phase of the Center will be completed
this May, at which time the Library will begin moving its sound and
moving image holdings into the 140,000 square foot Collections storage
building. The second phase will be completed one year later, in May
2006, at which time the Library will move the MBRS Division staff and
preservation laboratories into the newly constructed Conservation
building, and relocate its nitrate film holdings into 124 dedicated
nitrate storage vaults.

[Preservation of Audio-Visual Collections: Analog and
Digital.]{.underline} The MBRS Recording Laboratory in Washington
completed the transition to digital audio preservation in 2004. The
Laboratory\'s audio preservation projects are now reformatted to digital
audio files only; ten-inch analog tapes and digital audiotape reference
copies are no longer produced. The Recording Lab's preservation
production for 2004 included the creation of 5,638 digital sound files.
The Recorded Sound Processing Unit and the Recording Laboratory worked
closely to establish new and more efficient workflows facilitate digital
preservation and metadata creation.

The Motion Picture Conservation Center (MPCC) in Dayton, Ohio, has
acquired the Library's first film scanner, digital correction tools, and
film recorder system. This system was designed especially for an initial
large-scale project to digitize the Library's Paper Print collection,
the world's largest single collection of films from the earliest years
of the cinema. This marks the Library's first foray into the digital
preservation of motion pictures. Also during 2004, the MPCC concluded
work on a joint project with Warner Bros. to preserve the Studio's early
short films. Nearly 250 shorts produced from the mid-1930s were
preserved under this unique arrangement in which Warner Bros. funded the
production of preservation copies both for the Studio and the Library.

[MIC: Moving Image Collections Portal.]{.underline} In a milestone for
the project, the MIC development team has successfully implemented the
MIC Union Catalog mapping utility, which automates the record mapping
and loading process to enable organizations with in-house metadata
schema to contribute records to the MIC Union Catalog. Using the MIC
Mapping Utility, any organization with non-MARC records can submit an
application and submit sample records electronically. A MARC record
version of the utility was also completed in 2004. Cosponsored by the
Library and the Association of Moving Image Archivists, MIC is the first
Internet-based union catalog and access portal to the world of moving
image archives and collections. MIC is being developed at three external
university sitesBRutgers, Georgia Tech, and the University of
WashingtonBthrough a National Science Foundation grant. Following a
technology transfer, the Library will serve as permanent host for the
project, which will become a key access program of the NAVCC in
Culpeper.

**ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE**

Beacher Wiggins is the director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic
Access and the acting assistant director for Acquisitions. Judith A.
Mansfield is the assistant director for Bibliographic Access (BA), with
collateral duties as chief of the Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division.
Nancy Davenport, the former Director for Acquisitions, retired from the
Library in July and is now President of the Council on Library and
Information Resources.

**ACQUISITIONS DIVISIONS**

Judy McDermott, chief of the African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas
Operations Division (AFAOVOP), retired on October 1. The acting Chief of
AFAOVOP is now Lygia Ballantyne.

Michael Albin, chief of the Anglo-American Acquisitions Division (ANAD),
retired at the end of October. The acting chief responsibilities are
currently being rotated among ANAD section heads.

[Duplicate Materials Exchange Program.]{.underline} The Duplicate
Materials Exchange Program (DMEP) was started in 2002 as a business
process improvement focused on the Library's duplicates exchange
operation. Thus far, the project has centralized and partially automated
numerous exchange operations that had previously been scattered
throughout the Acquisitions Directorate. DMEP now handles exchange
accounts for approximately 2,600 partners around the world. The next
step for DMEP will be the implementation of a Web-based service. In
September, the Library awarded a contract to SQN Solutions to develop
the required software and Website. The site will employ shopping cart
functionality to allow DMEP's partners to select materials that they
would like to receive in exchange for materials that they send to the
Library. When implemented, the Library's operating costs for DMEP will
be greatly reduced and service to partners will be significantly
improved.

[Electronic resources initiatives.]{.underline} In March 2004, a Library
representative met in Leipzig with representatives of the EZB
(Elektronische Zeitungen Bibliothek), Deutsche Bibliothek, German State
Library in Berlin, and the Bavarian State Library to inaugurate
discussion of a "whole life cycle" exchange of government e-journals.
This project is intended to lead to an exchange between U.S. national
libraries (including the Government Printing Office) and German National
Libraries (including the EZB) of the following: 1) free access online to
government e-journals; 2) the right to freely download and archive on
their own servers a subset of the other government's e-journals; 3)
metadata for those e-journals; 4) a commitment by each set of national
libraries to preserve and provide access to its government's e-journals;
and 5) electronic reference service in support of their government's
e-journals. The proposal was well received by the German participants,
and discussions continued through the year.

In July, the European and Latin American Acquisitions Division sponsored
a conference at LC that included participants from the EZB, Stanford
University Library, Northwestern University Library, the University of
Wisconsin Library, Cornell University Library, the National Agricultural
Library, GPO, and a cross-section of LC participants. The purpose of the
conference was to explore interest in possible collaborative
acquisitions and library system interoperability projects. The principal
outcome was an idea for an electronic Cooperative Acquisitions Program
(ECAP) modeled in part on the Cooperative Acquisitions Program run by
the LC overseas offices.

[GENPAC.]{.underline} The Library's general appropriation (GENPAC) for
the purchase of library collections materials has not received a
programmatic increase in more than ten years. Over that time, the
appropriation has grown at a rate that has not come close to keeping
pace with the increased cost of acquiring materials, and the Library's
buying power has been diminished. In addition, an indispensable and
relatively expensive new class of research materials, electronic
resources, has emerged and must be funded. An increase of over four
million dollars to GENPAC (to be apportioned over a three-year period)
was included in the Library's fiscal 2005 budget request, in addition to
funding to establish a special Chinese acquisitions program and a
general price level increase. The entire price level increase
(\$503,000) was approved along with a \$500,000 programmatic increase to
GENPAC. Since the bulk of the budget request was disapproved, the
Library likely will resubmit an adjusted GENPAC increase request in the
fiscal 2006 budget process.

[Materials from Iran]{.underline}. Although the Library\'s retrospective
collections of Iranian materials are extraordinarily rich, there are
major gaps in the collections covering the past twenty-five years. As an
initial step in improving the acquisition of contemporary Iranian
materials, the Library has re-established an exchange arrangement with
the National Library of Iran. The first shipment of books from NLI was
received by the Library in July.

**BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIVISIONS**

[Access-level record.]{.underline} With a realistic understanding that
the resources available for cataloging electronic resources are unlikely
to increase, and that the volume of requests to catalog such resources
will increase, the BA Divisions began investigating ways to provide
catalog records that support resource discovery, but at a lower
cataloging cost. The concept of an "access level" MARC/AACR catalog
record comes from a recent report from an internal LC workgroup
operating under the former Cataloging Directorate Strategic Plan for
fiscal years 2003/2004 (for the full report, see
\<<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf>\>). This
group recommended that a new level of cataloging be defined, emphasizing
data elements that allow catalog users to search for and find records,
while de-emphasizing data elements that have traditionally been used in
full level records to describe and identify the resource but are not as
relevant to remote access electronic resources, or do not support
resource discovery.

LC's Office of Strategic Initiatives funded a contract with a noted
cataloging consultant, Tom Delsey, during the summer of 2004 to work
with an LC team of cataloging and reference librarians to develop a core
data set for "access level" records. The core data set was developed by
analyzing the specific uses to be supported by the record, taking as the
starting point the four generic user tasks (find, identify, select, and
obtain) identified in the International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA)'s *Functional Requirements of
Bibliographic Records* (FRBR). For each of the specific tasks, the
attributes and relationships required to support the task were
identified and mapped to the corresponding element in AACR and to the
data elements defined in the MARC 21 formats. The project team then
assigned values of "high" or "low" to each FRBR attribute/relationship,
and each AACR and MARC element as the basis for defining the core data
set. Delsey also assisted in the development of a draft set of
"cataloging guidelines" specifically designed to address problematic
cataloging issues.

In order to confirm that the proposed "access level" meets the
objectives formulated for the project (functionality, cost-efficiency,
and conformity with current standards) the Library of Congress will be
testing the application of the proposed data set and draft cataloging
guidelines on a subset of remote access electronic resources selected
for inclusion in the LC Online Catalog (monographs and integrating
resources only). After evaluating the results in the first quarter of
2005, LC will consult widely with stakeholders internal and external to
the Library, including our traditional bibliographic partners, related
to the evaluation, revision, and possible implementation of this new
level of cataloging.

For more information, the project report is available at the following
links for review and comment

Project Report (25 p., including Appendices A-E) \[link to LC‑Access
level record‑report_final.pdf\]

Core Data Set (20 p. data set table to accompany Appendix A. Note: to
print, use legal sized paper with landscape orientation) \[link to
LC‑Access level record‑core data set_final.pdf\]

The Library welcomes comments, which may be emailed to Dave Reser at
[dres@loc.gov]{.underline}

[Arrearage Reduction.]{.underline} In October, the associate librarian
and the director for ABA determined that the Library had completed its
arrearage reduction program for collection materials in nonrare print,
maps, rare books, and prints and photographs. Since the original
arrearage census of September 30, 1989, the arrearage of nonrare books,
microforms, and serials has been reduced from 4,042,526 items to
291,631. Thus nearly 93 percent of the original nonrare print arrearage
has been eliminated. The map arrearage stood at 54,475 items as of March
31, 2004. More than ten million pictorial items have been cleared from
the arrearage since September 1989\--a reduction of 76.6 percent. For
rare books, also a special format, the backlog has been reduced from
332,000 in September 1989 to 88,954 at the end of March 2004, a decrease
of 73.2 percent. A sound management approach requires that the items
remaining to be processed in these formats be handled as work on hand,
using the resources that are available for processing current receipts.
Accountability for these backlogs is assured through supervisors\'
performance plans, individual accountability statistics collected by the
BA Divisions and Serial Record Division, and divisions\' annual reports.

[Bibliographic Enrichment Projects.]{.underline} The Library's
interdivisional Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT), led by
the chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, initiates
research and development projects to increase the value of cataloging
products to library users. The team's best-known project is the
enrichment of online catalog records by providing electronic table of
contents data (TOC). In fiscal 2004 BEAT-developed software supported
the inclusion of TOC in more than 45,000 records for Electronic
Cataloging in Publication titles and enabled links to and from another
8,300 catalog records to D-TOC, or digital tables of contents, residing
on a server. Links to TOC were also provided by the BEAT ONIX projects,
which link LC catalog records to tables of contents, publisher
descriptions, and sample text provided by publishers in ONIX, the
standard for communicating book industry product information in
electronic form; this fiscal year BEAT introduced links to contributor
biographical information, as well as including book jacket illustrations
in all of its enhancements. At year's end there were more than 250,000
links, including links to more than 7,500 sample texts and more than
63,000 publisher descriptions of publications. The Library counted
approximately 1.5 million visits this fiscal year to the D-TOC and ONIX
records residing on its server; there have been more than four million
visits since the project began in 2001.

In fiscal year 2004, BEAT continued its joint venture with H-NET,
*Humanities and Social Sciences Online,* by which cataloging records for
selected monographs in the LC collections were linked to *H-NET
Reviews*. New links were made to 1,022 items, keeping within the
projected range of 1,000 links to reviews per year.

Another noteworthy BEAT project has continued this year to provide
significantly improved access to pre‑1970 Congressional hearings,
resulting in improved service to the Congress, centralized availability
of information now widely dispersed throughout the Library\'s
collections, modernization and uniformity of catalog formats for the
hearings, and addition or inclusion of other information, such as the
existence and location of alternate data sources. Approximately 6,500
hearings have been identified and are being processed.

The newest BEAT project is scheduled for launch on February 1:
computer-generated contents notes to be added to the 505 field of about
100,000 MARC 21 bibliographic records.

[Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS)]{.underline}

[*Cataloger's Desktop* on the Web]{.underline}
\<<http://www.loc.gov/cds/desktop>\> and \<<http://desktop.loc.gov/>\>.
Desktop is now in its second year and new resources have been added,
including *AACR2 Rule Interpretations of the Library and Archives
Canada*, *Canadian Subject Headings*, *LC Classification Outline*, and
Web resources from the National Library of Medicine and the National
Agricultural Library. The product's major feature is that it includes
extensive linking between *AACR2*, the *LCRI*s and the MARC 21 formats.
One-on-one demonstrations and daily theater presentations are available
to visitors at the booth.

*[Classification Web]{.underline}*
\<<http://www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/>\> and
\<<http://classweb.loc.gov/>\>.

There are now more than 1,500 sites and 8,200 concurrent users for this
product, which was introduced in June 2002. Of particular interest to
public and foreign libraries, the LC/Dewey correlations have recently
been added to the product. Enhanced links into *WebDewey* will be
available in 2005. The product includes the entire *Library of Congress
Subject Headings* and *Library of Congress Classification* schedules.
Plans are currently under consideration to add the *LC Name Authorities*
in the second half of 2005. One-on-one demonstrations and daily theater
presentations will be available to visitors at the LC exhibit booth in
Boston.

*[LC Classification Schedules]{.underline}*,
\<<http://www.loc.gov/cds/classif.html>\>. Eight new editions were
published in 2004: KB: Religious Law YH: Social SciencesYKF: Law of the
United StatesYQ: ScienceYH: Social SciencesYP-PZ Tables: Language and
Literature TablesY PN: Literature (General)YPQ: French, Italian,
Spanish, and Portuguese Literatures. Three new editions are coming early
in 2005: PR, PS, PZ: English and American Literature, Juvenile Belles
LettresYPB-PH: Modern European LanguagesYPT: German, Dutch, and
Scandinavian Literatures. Three new editions are scheduled for
publication later in 2005: P-PA: Philosophy and Linguistics (General).
Greek Language and Literature. Latin Languages and LiteratureYPJ-PK:
Oriental Philology and Literature, indo-Iranian Philology and
LiteratureYPL-PM: Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania;
Hyperborean, Indian, and Artificial Languages. The new *LC
Classification* Schedule KB: Religious Law will be on display at the LC
exhibit booth in Boston.

*[New training products]{.underline}*
\<<http://www.loc.gov/cds/training.html>\>. The newest CDS training
materials are available as economical PDF files: *Basic Subject
Cataloging Using LCSH* (2004) and *Basic Creation of Name and Title
Authorities* (coming September 2005) are both under the "Cooperative
Cataloging Training Program" (CCT). *Rules & Tools for Cataloging
Internet Resources* (2004) is the first publication from the "Cataloging
for the 21^st^ Century" program; four more are coming over the next two
years.

[Cataloging in Publication Division (CIP).]{.underline} In fiscal 2004,
the BA Divisions cataloged 53,349 CIP titles, using the same highly
trained professionals, applying the same standards, as for published
books; average throughput time was 12.7 days, with 78 percent of all CIP
records completed within fourteen calendar days. The CIP Division
carried out the administration and development of the program, which
involved extensive liaison work with publishers, creation of initial
bibliographic control (IBC) records for the galleys submitted by
publishers, obtaining a copy of the published book (in addition to
copies received through copyright) and ensuring that "CIP verification"
is performed.

The division continued to encourage publishers to opt for the Electronic
Cataloging in Publication program (ECIP); during fiscal 2004 the number
of participating ECIP publishers increased twelve percent, to 3,212, and
55 percent of all CIP titles were submitted as ECIP galleys, with the
percentage of ECIP galleys climbing to 60 percent in October and 62
percent in November 2004. Since they are submitted electronically, ECIP
galleys are cataloged much more quickly\--often within a few hours of
receipt\--and without the expense of mailing and handling paper galleys.
Electronic galleys also tend to be more complete than paper galleys,
enabling catalogers to perform more thorough subject analysis in advance
of publication.

[Publisher‑supplied summaries.]{.underline} As an enrichment of ECIP
records as well as to compensate for the suspension of AC (annotated
card) treatment for non‑fiction juvenile titles in January 2004, the CIP
division developed the CIP Guidelines for Summaries, a set of
instructions and examples to assist publishers in creating clear,
concise, and objective summaries for inclusion in the CIP record created
during the ECIP process. A pilot program was initiated that allowed all
ECIP publishers willing to adhere to the guidelines to participate by
submitting summaries. For the time period of August 30th‑Dec.3rd, we
received a total of 349 summaries; of this total, 332 were used in CIP
records exactly as they were submitted. Seventeen summaries were
rejected, most often due to excessive length. Each week additional ECIP
publishers request inclusion in the pilot, and the CIP Division has
received positive feedback from participating publishers, including one
publisher who said they "believe this is a fabulous program not only for
publishers, but for libraries and consumers as well and would be a great
asset to the reading community." At the CIP Advisory Group Meeting on
Saturday morning at Midwinter (Jan. 15, 9:30 am-12:30 pm, Sheraton
Boston Hotel, Conference Room 7) CIP Division Chief John Celli will
obtain additional feedback to use as a basis for deciding whether to
make the publisher-supplied summaries a permanent program.

At the end of November, the CIP Division's automated operations
coordinator, David Bucknum, enhanced the Text Capture and Electronic
Conversion (TCEC) software application that supports ECIP cataloging so
it will now migrate publisher supplied summaries into the MARC 21
bibliographic record automatically during the TCEC process. All the
cataloger need do is read the summary; if it does not meet LC's
criteria, the cataloger can easily delete it but otherwise the cataloger
need do nothing. As a result, the number of TOCs added to records at the
CIP galley stage increasedBin October, 35 percent and in November, 37
percent of all CIP records included TOCs.

[Cataloging Policy]{.underline}

[Descriptive cataloging]{.underline}.

[2004 Update to AACR2]{.underline}. LC implemented the 2004 Update to
AACR2 on September 1, 2004. LC's implementation plans are available on
the CPSO Website \<<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/>[\>]{.underline}

[Greek romanization]{.underline}. In response to reactions CPSO received
to the proposed revision of the ALA/LC romanization table for Greek, LC
has decided not to make any changes to the Greek table at this time. LC
is looking forward to such time as the Library can prepare bibliographic
records with the Greek characters included, using Unicode, and can
provide the romanization of those characters through computer program.

[AACR3: Resource Description and Access]{.underline}. Dr. Barbara
Tillett\'s background paper on AACR3, "AACR3: Resource Description and
Access," is now available on the Joint Steering Committee for Revision
of AACR\'s public Website at:
\<<http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/current.html>[\>]{.underline}

[Subject cataloging]{.underline}.

[FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology)]{.underline}.
Information about the FAST project is available at
<http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/fast>. In mid-November a beta
version of the FAST authority files was posted at
<http://fast.oclc.org/>. The Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) of the
Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) of
the American Library Association (ALA) has formed a subcommittee to
evaluate the FAST project and provide feedback on it. The subcommittee
will hold its first meeting at the Midwinter Meeting of ALA in Boston in
January 2005.

[Library of Congress Classification]{.underline}. The 2004 printed
editions of Class H, Subclasses PN and PQ, and the P-PZ Tables were
published by the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) of the Library of
Congress in the summer. A new schedule KB for Religious law in general
was published in the fall. It includes the newly completed subclasses
KBM (Jewish law) and KBP (Islamic law) as well as updated versions of
KBR (History of canon law ) and KBU (Law of the Roman Catholic Church).

[053 Project]{.underline}. A pilot project to add 053 fields for
biography classes to name authority records for individuals and
corporate bodies in the field of music was devised in response to
Program for Cooperative Cataloging requests. The Library of Congress
Classification numbers within the scope of this project are ML410-ML429,
a span in a major subclass of class M, Literature on Music. Ten numbers
in the span are used, each subdivided by cuttered subclasses for the
subjects of the individual biographies (including bio-critical works)
within it. The pilot project has been in progress in the Cataloging
Policy and Support Office (CPSO) since July 2004, and in the three Music
and Sound Recordings (MSR) Teams in SMCD, where the project has been
under way since April 2004. In CPSO, existing authority and
bibliographic records are being examined; in the MSR teams, name
authority records for the subjects of newly cataloged materials assigned
to the relevant classes are eligible. In CPSO, bibliographic and
authority records for materials in letter .A of the relevant classes
have been examined. The 053 field was added to existing name authority
records for the subjects of biographical/bio-critical works where no
conflicts or other impediments appeared, roughly 82 percent of cases.
Along the way, selected authority records were enhanced and
bibliographic file maintenance was done for many biographical names in
obsolete or incorrect forms. To date, 053 fields have been added to more
than 650 authority records by both divisions.

[LC/Dewey correlations]{.underline}. Through the courtesy of a
cooperative agreement between OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
(OCLC) and CDS, LC/Dewey correlations are now available in LC\'s
subscription service, Classification Web, which provides access to
Library of Congress Classification and Library of Congress Subject
Headings on the Web. With the new correlations feature, users can enter
a Dewey classification number and display a list of matches to LC
subject headings or LC classification numbers as they have been applied
in LC bibliographic records. Subscribers to OCLC\'s WebDewey service can
also link between products to obtain the most-up-to-date Dewey
classification data. Information on Classification Web and LCC schedules
is available at <http://www.loc.gov/cds/training.html>.

[Database improvement]{.underline}. On June 28, 2004, CPSO began a
one-year pilot project for a Database Improvement Unit to develop,
analyze, and document maintenance procedures for the online catalog.
Under the direction of the Subject Headings Editorial team leader, staff
for the pilot consist of three catalogers and one cataloging technician.
To date, this database improvement pilot has updated approximately
200,000 records, mainly obsolete subject headings on bibliographic
records.

[Copy cataloging.]{.underline} The Bibliographic Access Management Team
authorized the test of redesigned workflows for copy cataloging in two
divisions, Arts and Sciences Cataloging (ASCD) and History and
Literature Cataloging (HLCD), in June 2004. The HLCD initiative would
test a workflow in which technicians and subject catalogers worked
together to produce copy cataloging; the ASCD pilot would test the use
of a dedicated, all-technician copy cataloging team. The two copy
cataloging workflows will be tested after bargaining their impact with
the labor organizations.

The BA Divisions increased their production of copy cataloging in fiscal
2004 by nineteen percent over fiscal 2003. The divisions began reviewing
copy-cataloged records produced in the Library's field office in Rio de
Janeiro. An important factor in increasing production was the use of
Z-Processor, a software application that searches both bibliographic
utilities, allows the searcher to view and select the best copy found,
and merges the best record into the LC ILS. Specialized versions of
Z-Processor search the National Library of Canada, the National Library
of Australia, or the Deutsche Bibliothek via RLIN; another version is
used with cataloging electronic resources. SMCD used a similar
application, Z-Client, for simultaneous database searching for compact
discs, longplaying sound recordings, scores, and books. The Computer
Files and Microforms Team revised its workflow for direct-access
electronic resources so that before any initial processing is
undertaken, direct access items are searched for copy on the
bibliographic utilities, eliminating the need to create IBC records for
items that have copy.

In addition, most copy cataloging in the BA Divisions was done according
to Aencoding level 7\" guidelines that call for authority work to be
done only to break conflicts in the catalog or to establish needed
subject headings. By setting the copied records' encoding level to "7,"
the divisions signaled that full authority support was not provided and
ensured that any fuller records created by other libraries would not be
overlaid in the OCLC database. Divisions also made use of Marcadia, the
automated copy matching service now owned by Backstage Library Works,
Inc., to help process more than 4,400 items in law, the arts, and the
social and physical sciences. Match rates for Marcadia searching
remained stable at 22 percent in ASCD and 30 percent in the Social
Sciences Cataloging Division.

[Dewey.]{.underline} The Decimal Classification Division assigned Dewey
numbers to 107,911 books in fiscal 2004, an increase of more than eleven
percent over production the previous fiscal year. This number included
9,668 records with copied Dewey numbers, i.e., copy cataloged records
carrying Dewey numbers that were accepted by LC, continuing an
initiative begun in fiscal 2003.

[National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections.]{.underline} The
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) is a
distinctive cooperative program that provides and promotes bibliographic
access to the nation's documentary heritage. The NUCMC Team, SMCD,
administers the program and provides archival cataloging in the RLIN
bibliographic utility for manuscript repositories that are not members
of a bibliographic utility. In fiscal year 2004, for the eighth year in
a row, NUCMC Team cataloging production exceeded that of the preceding
year. The team produced cataloging for local, regional, and state
historical societies and a variety of special focus repositories. Three
projects that received special focus this year were the Montana Union
List Project (MULP), the Cooperative Historically Black Colleges and
Universities Archival Survey Project (CHASP), and the Maine Historical
Collections Project (MHCP). The team also provided new or improved
access to papers of thirty former Members of Congress, including Horace
Mann and Barbara Jordan. The NUCMC Website continued to earn high marks
from the public and the archival and manuscript community it serves,
with 72,714 \"hits\" on the site recorded in fiscal year 2004.

[Program for Cooperative Cataloging/Cooperative Cataloging
Team.]{.underline} The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) achieved
the following in fiscal 2004: Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO)
participants contributed 146,645 new name authority records (NARs),
9,453 new series authority records (SARs), and revised 41,019 NARs and
SARs. Since the inception of the NACO Program, cooperative libraries
have contributed nearly three million name authority records to the
authority file. Subject Authority Cooperative Program (SACO)
participants contributed 2,558 new subject authority headings, revised
586 subject headings, and successfully proposed 1,724 new classification
numbers for inclusion in LCSH and LCC. The Bibliographic Cooperative
Program (BIBCO) libraries contributed a total of 71,661 records during
the fiscal year.

Roxanne Sellberg (Northwestern University) chaired the annual PCC Policy
Committee (PoCo) meeting, November 4-5, 2004. The meeting focused on the
revision of the PCC tactical plan for 2004‑2006. Those tactical
objective items of the highest interest were delegated by the PCC
Steering Committee to various PCC members for refining, writing action
items, assigning specific responsibilities, and setting time frames.
Preliminary work was also begun on the revision of the strategic plan
for 2006‑2010.

[NACO.]{.underline} NACO training in fiscal 2004 drew on the talents of
NACO trainers from many partner institutions and centered mainly on
expansion training for existing NACO libraries, with the addition of
some new NACO contributors. The trainers took an active role in refining
NACO training documents that are offered online.

NACO series activity reached new levels in fiscal 2004 beginning with a
Train-the-Series-Trainer course that prepared eleven veteran PCC
contributors to deliver series training to PCC libraries. The PCC NACO
Series Institute training manuals are available online to be downloaded
and used locally as needed by PCC institutions.

[SACO.]{.underline} SACO achieved status as a full-fledged component
program of the PCC. The PCC secretariat produced a full set of
requirements, applications, procedures, and training workshops that will
apply to all libraries joining the program. SACO was established to
provide a means for libraries to submit subject headings and
classification numbers to LC via the PCC. Each SACO-only institution has
agreed to an annual numerical contribution goal. To maintain a
consistent understanding among SACO participants and to provide formal
training sessions, SACO workshops are offered by the PCC either in
conjunction with library-related meetings or conferences, or as part of
the jointly-developed ALCTS/PCC-Standing Committee on Training subject
cataloging workshops available through the Cataloging Distribution
Service.

\"Basic Subject Cataloging Using LCSH\", a workshop jointly developed by
ALCTS/PCC, has been successfully presented at its initial regional
venues, including the Southern California Technical Processing Group,
Texas A&M University, and the Oregon Library Association's Technical
Services Roundtable. The course provides a solid foundation in the
principles and practices of subject cataloging using LCSH, including the
application of topical, form, geographic, and chronological
subdivisions. The course, designed as a two‑day workshop totaling twelve
hours, is geared to those individuals who are new to subject cataloging
with LCSH but who have some basic knowledge of cataloging and the MARC
formats.

[BIBCO.]{.underline} In September, Carolyn R. Sturtevant was appointed
as permanent Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) BIBCO Coordinator.
Ms. Sturtevant is familiar to many program participants from her long
term of service as the NACO Coordinator, working with new and existing
NACO institutions to provide training, liaison, and ongoing information
about program policies and practices.

BIBCO activities in fiscal 2004 have centered on training programs that
have great potential for strengthening participation. Work on the
revision of the BIBCO Training Manual has been completed and the
document has been made available to BIBCO members on the PCC Website.

The online FAQ on BIBCO cataloging includes new items guiding catalogers
on the use of the 042 in BIBCO records and on the use of parallel
language records in OCLC. Members are monitoring changes in cataloging
of Integrating Resources, the 2004 Update to AACR2, and the development
of AACR3.

[CONSER.]{.underline} CONSER is the arm of the PCC that coordinates
contribution of serial bibliographic records. Many CONSER activities
during the past year were associated with carrying out recommendations
from the CONSER Summit, held March 2004. The CONSER Summit was a meeting
of 70 people who shared experiences in serials related library work,
commercial information services, and standards development. Panel
discussions and facilitated breakout sessions resulted in specific
recommendations for CONSER and the PCC. A summary and list of
recommendations is available from
\<<http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/summit.html>\>.

Two recommendations from the Summit focus on CONSER and the ISSN. Regina
Reynolds, head of the National Serials Data Program (NSDP), has been
working with CONSER members to gather input on the ISSN revision process
and ideas for improving ISSN accuracy in the CONSER database.

Members of the CONSER Publication Patterns Initiative have been working
on Summit related recommendations, including the model of the "super
record" used to improve the display of records for print and electronic
versions. Patterns Initiative members have pursued interoperability and
compliance issues directly with publishers and vendors.

Three task groups were set up at the CONSER Operations meeting in May
2004 to explore other Summit recommendations, including coverage of
electronic serials within the CONSER database, use of URLs in CONSER
records, and accommodation of non-AACR2 records.

[International Cooperation ("INTCO")]{.underline}. The PCC programs in
the current fiscal year include sixty-four non-U.S. members;
approximately one-third are individual members, the others participate
through funnels. Fifty-eight members contribute to NACO. Nine contribute
to both NACO and SACO. Six members are SACO contributors only. Three
institutions are members of CONSER. Areas represented by participants
are Europe with eleven members; Canada, nine; Latin America, eighteen;
Asia, three; Africa, twenty; Australia, two; and New Zealand, one.

Statistics for fiscal 2004 show international PCC participants
contributing 19.87 percent of new name authority records, 23.99 percent
of the revisions to existing name authority records, and 20.45 percent
of the new subject headings contributed by the PCC to LCSH. The British
Library (BL) continues to be the largest NACO contributor and remains
among the largest SACO contributors. A recent study revealed that, when
creating bibliographic records, LC staff use twenty percent of the new
personal name headings established by the BL within five months of
creation by the BL. The BL resumed its NACO and SACO contributions in
June after a hiatus to implement its new integrated library system.

[Music cataloging.]{.underline} The Hofmeister XIX Project will convert
the Hofmeister series of printed music catalogs (starting in 1829 and
largely German) into a searchable, Internet-based database for scholars
that will be mounted incrementally. This collaborative venture was
funded and scanning was coordinated during fiscal year 2004. Catalogers
on the Music and Sound Recordings Teams, SMCD, contributed to the
project design.

[Strategic Planning for Bibliographic Access.]{.underline} Recognizing
that the digital context in which libraries now operate demands
additional skills and values, the Bibliographic Access Management Team
(BAMT) began "Reflections on the Future," a series of one-day or
half-day educational retreats in support of the BA strategic planning
process. The series was kicked off by Associate Librarian for Library
Services Deanna Marcum, who met with the BAMT at the end of March to
discuss the challenges that libraries face in the early 21^st^ century
information environment, which is marked by an abundance of information
that is easy to obtain but not necessarily authoritative and is
dominated by search engines such as Google. Other speakers in the
Reflections series included Cindy Cunningham of the Corbis Corporation,
speaking on online search in the commercial and nonprofit sectors;
Lorcan Dempsey, vice president for research and chief strategist at OCLC
Online Computer Library Center, Inc.; and Sarah Thomas, Director of
Libraries, Cornell University. A special highlight was an all-day
discussion on September 28 with eight representatives from major
publishers such as Cambridge University Press, McGraw-Hill, and Thomson
Learning, about how publishers and the CIP program could help each other
achieve new objectives using Internet and other computer technology.

The \"Reflections on the Future\" series provided a basis for drafting
new Bibliographic Access Strategic Goals and Initiatives for Fiscal
Years 2005-2006, issued in November 2004 (fiscal year 2005). The new
strategic plan, which supercedes the Cataloging Directorate Strategic
Plan issued in March 2003, has five strategic goals:

I. Make it easy and fast for end users to find, identify, select,
obtain, and use a complete range of information and creative resources.

II\. Lead and collaborate globally in the development, promotion, and
dissemination of policy, practice, standards, and programs for
bibliographic description and access and inventory control.

III\. Leverage opportunities presented by the service unit realignment
to realize efficiencies that will optimize service to users.

IV\. Free resources for exploring and implementing innovations in the
Bibliographic Access Divisions.

V. Prepare managers, team leaders, and team members for successful
performance in the hybrid analog and digital environment.

Each goal is amplified by a set of objectives and tasks. In early
January 2005, the assistant director for Bibliographic Access began
seeking volunteers to work on carrying out the various strategic
objectives. The entire Bibliographic Access Strategic Plan is available
online at URL \<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan0506.pdf\>

*Bibliographic Access Divisions and Serial Record Division Production,
FY04 and FY03*

*Bibliographic Records Completed* FY2004 FY2003

Full/Core Original 185,309 185,363

Collection-level cataloging (CLC) 4,393 4,268

Copy cataloging 46,363 39,015

Minimal level cataloging [23,872]{.underline} [34,696]{.underline}

Total records completed 259,937 263,342

*Total Volumes Cataloged* 294,510 287,988

*Items Processed on Inventory-Level* *Records* 24,392 42,465

*Authority Records Created or Updated*

New name authority records 92,311 84,822

New series authority records 8,770 8,762

New Library of Congress Subject Headings [6,393]{.underline}
[7,242]{.underline}

Total records created 107,474 100,826

**COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES DIRECTORATE**

Carolyn Brown is director of the new Collections and Services
Directorate. Steven Herman is assistant director for collections
management, with collateral duties as chief of the Collections Access,
Loan, and Management Division. Mark Dimunation is assistant director for
special collections, with collateral duties as chief of the Rare Book
and Special Collections Division.

**GENERAL COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES**

[African and Middle Eastern Division]{.underline}

The Head of the Near East Section, Mary Jane Deeb, went on an official
Library of Congress mission to Iran with Dr. Billington at the
invitation of the Director of the National Library and Archives, Dr.
Mohamed K. Bojnourdi (October 28-November 5).

*From Haven to Home*, a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years
of Jewish life, opened to the public on September 9, 2004 and closed on
December 30, 2004. The exhibition may be viewed on Library's website:
<http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/>. In conjunction with the
exhibition, the Library published a companion volume, *From Haven to
Home; 350 Years of Jewish Life in America,* edited by Michael
Grunberger, head of the Hebraic Section, which features essays by ten
leading historians on American Jewish history.

Noteworthy acquisitions include:

> Ge\'ez Psalter (Book of Psalms). Hand-written, ink on parchment.
> (s.l., late-eighteenth century), with nine illustrations. It is of
> value to researchers of biblical iconography.
>
> *Dutch‑English Torah Scroll*. Parchment. (ca. 1700). Torah scrolls
> dating back to the colonial‑period are extremely rare. The importance
> of this one lies in its possible American provenance as well as in the
> insight it provides into the impact of printing on the 18^th^ century
> manuscript hand.

*Rodef Scholem Bene Independent Podhaizer Sick and Benevolent
Association Wall Plaque.* Wall Plaque, with New York State Certificate
of Incorporation. Ink and watercolor, May 26, 1900. This elaborately
decorated plaque provides a unique perspective on the first of the great
European Jewish migrations to America.

> The Archives of the First Georgian Republic. These are primary source
> documents of this important but short lived predecessor to the
> Georgian SSR. The Library is the only public institution in the U.S.
> holding these vital records for researchers studying pre-Soviet
> Russia.
>
> *Muhbir,* an Ottoman Turkish emigre periodical published in London,
> issues for 1868. It provides the researcher a rare glimpse of a 19^th^
> century overseas community with origins in the Middle East.

160 children's books from the Arab world.

[European]{.underline}

In September, the *Meeting of Frontiers* project team completed a major
expansion of the *Meeting of Frontiers* website, the seventh since the
site was first launched in December 1999. The latest expansion includes
24 collections from 14 different libraries and archives in Irkutsk,
Kemerovo, Krasnoiarsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and other Siberian cities, as
well as additional collections from the National Library of Russia in
St. Petersburg, the Russian State Library in Moscow, and the Library of
Congress, and new narrative text on a range of topics and collections.
The total size of the update was 5,575 total library items, or 255,177
total digital items. With these additions, the *Meeting of Frontiers*
website includes more than 580,000 digital images relating to the
history of Siberia, Alaska, and the American West.

*Meeting of Frontiers* outreach and educational activities continued,
and included participation by members of the project team in a summer
workshop in Alaska in July 2004, sponsored by the Alaska Geographic
Alliance/Institute of the North, to develop teaching tools and lesson
plans with *Meeting of Frontiers* for use in classrooms in Alaska and
Russia.

Work continued on a joint digital project, *France in America,* that
will feature rare maps, books, manuscripts, and prints from the
collections of the two institutions relating to the French exploration
and settlement of North America from Cartier to the sale of Louisiana. A
second stage of the project will deal with U.S.-French interactions in
the 19^th^ century.

[Humanities and Social Sciences Division]{.underline}

[Reference Service]{.underline}

[QuestionPoint]{.underline}. The Main Reading Room/Microform and Machine
Readable Collections and the Local History and Genealogy staff answered
3,705 requests from June-November, 2004 submitted through the
collaborative digital reference service QuestionPoint.

[Collection Development and Acquisitions]{.underline}

[Microform Custodial Collections.]{.underline} After the receipt of
122,884 and the removal of 5,747 items from the Library, the Microform
Reading Room custodial collection contained 7,559,178 items at the end
of fiscal 2004.

[Machine-Readable Custodial Collections.]{.underline} After the receipt
of 6,590 items, the Machine-Readable custodial collections contained
54,284 items at the end of fiscal 2004.

[Key acquisitions.]{.underline} *World War History: Daily Records and
Comments as Appeared in American and Foreign Newspapers, 1914-1926* /
Compiled for the New York Historical Society by Otto Spengler. \[New
York: Argus Pressclipping Bureau, 1928?\] 400 v.: ill., maps; 65 cm.
Chronologically arranged clippings of news articles, editorials and
letters to the editor appearing in more than 100 American and Canadian
newspapers in English and German; also recommended were 75 titles on the
genealogy of royalty/nobility and 200 titles of German local history.

**COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT**

[Digital Reference Team]{.underline}

The Digital Reference Team joined the Collections Access and Loan
Management Division in late 2004. The charge of the team in the areas of
digital reference and public outreach remains the same. Reference
support for the Library's digital collections and the digital reference
initiative is a primary charge of the Digital Reference Team. To this
end the team provides both text-based and chat service via direct access
from <http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/>. The team continues to test and
build the knowledge base that is available to QP member libraries and
the Global Network. During fiscal 2004 the DRT answered nearly 18,900
inquiries and conducted 2416 live chat sessions. The DRT team continues
to function as the Question Point team with 4 digital reference
specialists assigned to this function. Working with OCLC this group has
performed numerous testing functions for this product. During the past
year the team handled the QP help desk, profiling function for new
QuestionPoint members, and the pilot project with InfoEyes. Statistical
report needs for LC have prodded OCLC to improve the reporting
mechanisms. Diane Kresh, Director of the Veterans History Project,
continues to serve as the institutional representative from LC with
OCLC.The Digital Reference Team, which continues to serve as a public
interface for the Librarys digital collections, presented 113 on-site
workshops and presentations to nearly 2054 participants and 166 video
conferences to 2945 participants over the past fiscal year. 16 off-site
workshops and presentations were made to 780 participants.The team also
developed and refined four workshops for teaching on-site or as video
conferences: Digital Research Orientation, Gathering Your Communities
Stories, The Spy Map and George Washington, and THOMAS. Descriptions are
accessible at <http://memory.loc.gov/learn/educators/video/index.html>.
Seven web guides were introduced on the Virtual Programs and Services
Page at <http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/bibhome.html>. Congressional
Documents, A Guide to Poetry & Literature Streaming Video, African
American Resources, Brown vs Board of Education, Guide to World War II
materials, Researching the Wreck of the H.M.S. Titanic, and Primary
Documents in American History form the nucleus of an ongoing project. In
developing new audiences and using new technologies, the Digital
Reference Team started a pilot test with web conferencing software.
Program content, technology constraints, audience needs, audience
hardware and software, presenter needs, etc. are under scrutiny during
the test period. The current offering of 4 sessions for OPAL, Online
Programming for All Libraries, is available at
<http://www.opal-online.org/programs.htm> .

[Fort Meade Offsite Storage Facility]{.underline}

The Library's offsite collections storage facility at Fort Meade,
Maryland, first opened in November 2002. Each new Fort Meade project
follows a process approach with three phases for each project: program
for design; design; and construction.

Module 1 opened on November 18, 2002. Approximately 1,465,000 items have
been transferred to Module 1 from the general collections, Law Library
collections, and Area Studies collections. Module 1 capacity is
estimated at 1.6 million items. Module 1 is now approximately 92 percent
full, and will be filled sometime early in calendar 2005.

More than 15,000 requests have been received for items stored at Ft.
Meade. The retrieval success rate remains at 100 percent. The module has
excellent environmental conditions for storage of paper-based
collections. The year-round environment is maintained at 50F, and 35
percent relative humidity.

Module 2 construction is well underway. Completion is scheduled for
March 2005. As is true for Module 1, Module 2 will house primarily book
items selected from the general collections, Law Library collections,
and Area Studies collection, although there will be a small number of
items from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and Music
Division. Module 2 capacity is estimated at 2 million items.
Environmental conditions are the same as for Module 1.

In the Modules 3 and 4 program, design has been completed for the
construction. Construction of these modules and four cold vaults are
designed to address the needs of the special format collections - e.g.
maps, prints and photographs, microfilm, manuscripts. The initiative to
combine Modules 3 and 4 was decided upon as the appropriate course of
action necessary to address crucial crowding in the special format
collections. Incorporating four cold vaults (three at 35 degrees
Fahrenheit, one at 25 degrees Fahrenheit) is essential to protect media
types that need such an environment, for example our 400,000-500,000
reels of microfilm masters, many of which are deteriorating under
current storage conditions. Processing space at the facility will allow
the Library to acquire special format collections and process them
directly into the facility rather than having to ship these back and
forth between Ft. Meade and Capitol Hill. An isolation room will permit
the Library to ensure that newly acquired collections are free of any
insects before the collections are introduced into the storage modules.
A security base of operation is also being incorporated into this
construction project to protect all Library buildings and grounds on the
Ft. Meade campus. Construction and occupancy dates are dependent upon
receipt of construction funding. A request for construction funding
submitted as part of the fiscal 2005 budget was not approved by
Congress.

**SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES**

[Serial and Government Publications Division]{.underline}

[Developing the Library's collections.]{.underline} The Division
acquired the following items for the National Library collections:

> \(1\) A significant number of rare 18th-century American newspapers,
> including *The South Carolina and American General Gazette* of
> Charleston reporting on the Revolutionary War.
>
> \(2\) Historic newspaper issues documenting 19^th^-century historic
> events and World War II events.

The Division added the online collection A"ewspaper Pictorials: World
War I Rotogravures" to the American Memory Website, composed of scanned
images from *The War of the Nations: Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings*,
a volume published by the *New York Times* shortly after the armistice
that compiled selected images from their "Mid-Week Pictorial"
supplements of 1914-19; Sunday rotogravure sections from the *New York
Times* for 1914-19; and Sunday rotogravure sections from the *New York
Tribune* for 1916-19.

The Division loaned the Proquest Corporation more than 90 volumes of
original issues of the *Chicago Tribune* to create new master negative
film which will be scanned for Proquest's Historic Chicago Tribune
newspaper project. In return, the Library will receive new microfilm,
digital images of all pages scanned, and discounted access to the
Proquest digital project.

**PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE**

Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum is acting
director for Partnerships and Outreach Programs. Sara (Sally ) Arason is
special assistant to the director and is also on detail as confidential
assistant to the associate librarian.

[Center for the Book]{.underline}

With its network of affiliated centers in all fifty states and the
District of Columbia and more than eighty organizations serving as
national reading promotion partners, the Center for the Book remained
one of the Library\'s most dynamic and visible educational outreach
programs.

Since 1977, the Center has used the prestige and resources of the
Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books, reading,
libraries and literacy and to encourage the study of books and the
printed word. In fiscal 2004, the Center for the Book continued to be a
successful public‑private partnership. As authorized by Public Law (PL)
95‑129, the center\'s projects and programs were supported by
contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations.
Additional funding came through interagency transfers from other
government agencies. In fiscal 2004, the Center for the Book received
more than \$500,000 for projects and general support from outside the
Library. The Library of Congress supported the center's full‑time staff
positions.

The Center develops national reading promotion themes and campaigns to
stimulate interest in and support for reading and literacy projects for
all age groups. The Center's current reading promotion theme, "Telling
America's Stories," cosponsored with the American Folklife Center, was
extended through 2004. First Lady Laura Bush is the honorary chair.
Information is available in a Center brochure and on the Center's
Website. Previous themes still used by the Center and its partners
include "Read More About It" and "Books Make a Difference."

At the end of the fiscal year, there were affiliated centers in all
fifty states and the District of Columbia, with each center developing
and funding its own operations using the Center for the Book's themes as
appropriate. Three-year renewals were approved this year for the centers
in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana,
Maine, Nevada, Vermont, and West Virginia.

"Reading Powers the Mind" became the Center for the Book's new family
literacy program, with \$409,000 in funding from the Viburnum Foundation
announced in December. The first "Reading Powers the Mind" family
literacy workshop was held at the Library of Congress, July 22-23,
highlighting pilot demonstration projects in twelve states. Senator Jeff
Bingaman of New Mexico was the keynote speaker.

[Federal Library and Information Center Committee]{.underline}

Susan Tarr, executive director of the Federal Library and Information
Center Committee (FLICC), has announced plans to retire at the end of
January.

The mission of the Federal Library and Information Center Committee is
"to foster excellence in federal library and information services
through interagency cooperation and to provide guidance and direction
for FEDLINK."

FLICC continues its collaboration with the Library's General Counsel on
a series of meetings between federal agency legal counsels and agency
librarians. Now in their sixth year, the fora grew out of the
recognition that federal attorneys and librarians face many of the same
questions concerning copyright, privacy law, the Freedom of Information
Act, and other laws in the electronic age, both in using information
within the agency and in publishing the agency\'s own information. These
meetings have enhanced the relationship between agency attorneys and
librarians and have helped them develop contacts with their counterparts
at other agencies. In 2004 the series featured discussions on assessing
copyright and fair use issues, and on rights management for access to
research results funded by federal grants.

Without an updated census of federal libraries and information centers
by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), FLICC endorsed
membership participation for a second year in the annual Outsell survey
of content deploying functions in industry, academia, and the public
sector. Nearly 300 federal librarians participated in the survey.
According to Outsell, Inc., a unique research and advisory firm that
focuses exclusively on the information content industry, the survey
showed that federal library government budgets are significantly lower
in 2004 and staffing levels have declined for the second year in a row.
Federal content managers identify themselves primarily as information
professionals and librarians, managing externally procured content;
however, content-related functions are amalgamating throughout every
subset of government. The trend of reporting into administration and
operations has deepened this year, despite the fact that science, as
well as research and development, is the most common mission of
government content managers.

FLICC\'s cooperative network, FEDLINK, continued to enhance its fiscal
operations while providing its members with \$60.7 million in transfer
pay services, \$7.7 million in direct pay services, and an estimated
\$26.1 million in the new Direct Express services, saving federal
agencies more than \$11 million in vendor volume discounts and
approximately \$8.9 million more in cost avoidance.

Fiscal 2004 also saw innovative educational initiatives including
workshops and seminars on Library of Congress subject headings,
integrating resource and cartographic cataloging, virtual reference, and
information retrieval and searching. Staff members sponsored 38 seminars
and workshops for 1,557 participants and conducted 39 OCLC, Internet,
and related training classes for 551 students.

FEDLINK also continued to customize and configure software and support
services for electronic invoicing and increase online access to
financial information for member agencies and vendors. Furthermore,
FEDLINK's continuing financial management efforts ensured that FEDLINK
successfully passed the Library\'s Financial Audit of Fiscal Year 2003
Transactions performed by Clifton Gunderson, LLP.

[FEDLINK (Federal Library and Information Network).]{.underline} In
fiscal 2004, FEDLINK managers and professional staff members executed
plans for the third year of the business plan under the Revolving Fund.
They improved processes, increased marketing of the program to federal
libraries and their partner contracting officers, and expanded the
number and types of services that libraries and information centers can
procure via the FEDLINK program. They also continued work to ameliorate
the effects on federal libraries of the bankruptcy of a major serials
subscription agent, Faxon/Rowecom (Rowecom), by working with the
Library's General Counsel and the Department of Justice on the
bankruptcy proceedings claim made by the U.S. Government on behalf of
the FEDLINK program. At the close of fiscal 2004, FEDLINK had agreed
with Library of Congress and Department of Justice counsel to submit a
joint settlement agreement, in cooperation with the debtor, to the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court, rather than pursue further litigation. After the court
has approved the settlement agreement, FEDLINK will reimburse libraries
for their losses as established under the settlement. The debtor will
then pay the FEDLINK program with whatever proceeds from the estate
accrue to the Library of Congress as an unsecured creditor.

FEDLINK continued to give federal agencies cost-effective access to an
array of automated information retrieval services for online research,
cataloging, and interlibrary loan (ILL). FEDLINK members also procured
print serials, electronic journals, books and other publications,
CD-ROMs and document delivery via Library of Congress/FEDLINK Contracts
with more than 100 major vendors. The program obtained further discounts
for customers through consortia and enterprise‑wide licenses for
journals, aggregated information retrieval services and electronic
books. FEDLINK awarded a new contract for interlibrary loan fee payment
and initiated the whole new area of preservation services with thirteen
companies in place to provide microfilming, duplication and conservation
of books, archival materials, photographs and other flat materials, as
well as tailored consultation on how best to preserve materials in
federal collections. A number of national conferences highlighted
FEDLINK programs including the Special Libraries Association and Medical
Library Association meetings.

[Interpretive Programs Office]{.underline}

Since the ALA Annual Conference in June 2004, the Interpretive Programs
Office has presented and closed the following new major exhibitions in
the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building spaces : *Churchill and the
Great Republic,* February 5-July 10, 2004; "*With an Even Hand": Brown
v. Board at Fifty,* May 13-November 13, 2004; *From the Home Front and
the Front Lines,* May 24-November 13, 2004; *Humor's Edge: Cartoons by
Ann Telnaes,* June 3-September 4, 2004; and *From Haven to Home: 350
Years of Jewish Life in America,* September 9-December 30, 2004.

The *Bob Hope Gallery of American* *Entertainment* rotated 110 items
into the permanent exhibition and presented a special tribute to Bob
Hope, who died in 2003.

*American Treasures of the Library of Congress* began its seventh year
as one of the Library's ongoing rotating exhibitions, with two new
rotations this year. A significant addition to *American Treasures* in
fiscal 2004 was the display of the striking life‑size facsimile of the
1507 Martin Waldseemüller map in the pavilion gallery. An enlarged
display, featuring contextual materials from the Age of Exploration,
will accompany the premiere display of the original map in fiscal 2005.
During this fiscal year, *American Treasures* was seen by more than
187,000 visitors during the Library's normal hours of operation, and
those that logged into the exhibition's Website exceeded 3,500,000,
making it the Library's third most popular online exhibit destination.

The Interpretive Programs Office has begun planning and designing a new
space for the Swann Gallery for Caricature and Cartoon, since the
existing Swann Gallery has been displaced by the tunnel being built to
connect the Jefferson Building to the new Capitol Visitors Center. The
new gallery space will consist of two exhibition areas: a permanent one
in which information will be presented through text, facsimiles of
artifacts, and graphics and a changing display space for exhibitions of
original objects with particular themes. The featured collections will
include three areas: the Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon; the
Herblock collection, a gift to the Library of original drawings by the
noted editorial cartoonist; and collections from the Center for
Architecture, Design, and Engineering, which contains the work of many
noted figures in those fields. At three times the size of the old space,
the new gallery will offer exciting new opportunities for exhibitions
drawn from these major collections of the Prints and Photographs
Division.

[National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
Handicapped]{.underline}

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
(NLS) provides talking books, playback equipment, and braille materials
for more than 800,000 blind and physically handicapped readers
throughout the nation and conducts research programs to improve library
access media and equipment for these readers. NLS maintains a national
network of 57 regional and 81 subregional cooperating libraries that
circulate materials to blind and visually handicapped readers.

During fiscal year 2004, NLS entered the conversion phase of its plan to
implement digitally based systems and services that will lead to the
introduction of digital talking-book (DTB) media and playback machines
in 2008.

In conjunction with the national outreach plan (see below), NLS has
tasked the public relations firm of Fleishman-Hillard (FH) with
publicizing DTB developments nationally. For this communications
project, FH will send monthly newsletters to a range of professional
organizations and issue monthly news releases to newspapers and radio
stations. These will detail contributions of the United States Postal
Service and the Library of Congress to reading programs for blind and
physically handicapped individuals in each state and territory. The
first new release announced the appointment of Jean Moss as digital
projects coordinator for NLS in August 2004.

[Web-Braille.]{.underline} In August, Web-Braille marked its fifth year.
This Internet-based service provides in an electronic format thousands
of braille books, hundreds of braille music scores, and all braille
magazines produced by NLS. The service also includes a growing
collection of titles transcribed locally for cooperating network
libraries. The Web-Braille site is password-protected, and all files are
in an electronic form of contracted braille, requiring the use of
special equipment to gain access.

Web-Braille began with approximately 2,600 titles and only a few hundred
registered users. At the end of fiscal 2004, the system offered 6,628
titles from the national collection, 582 music scores, 29 NLS-produced
magazines, and six sports schedules. The number of users was 3,554.

[Voyager NLS catalog.]{.underline} In 2004 NLS refined and expanded its
Voyager database, which went online, separate from the Library of
Congress Online Catalog, in May 2003. The *International Union Catalog*
was made available in the NLS Voyager database and included more than
326,000 catalog records by the end of the fiscal year.

[National outreach plans.]{.underline} A private-sector public relations
firm has been engaged to develop a national campaign to increase NLS
patron registration by ten percent by targeting veterans, seniors,
students, and public library visitors. A panel of NLS regional
conference chairs, representing network libraries, and the head of the
NLS Publications and Media Section met in November to plan for the
outreach project, identifying the target groups and recommending key
strategies for reaching them.

The national outreach project has a goal of attracting 70,000 new
readers in 2005, as announced at the National Conference of Librarians
Serving Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals in May. The primary
initial audiences for this campaign are senior adults and veterans. The
international firm of Fleishman-Hillard (FH) will conduct outreach to
print, radio, and television media; create new posters and brochures;
enhance the NLS Website; and develop organizational partnerships for
NLS. The campaign will kick off in early 2005; country-and-western
singer Ronny Milsap, who has consented to be the campaign spokesperson,
will visit ten sites around the country to promote the talking-book
program that year. This campaign was conceived to address continuing
network library concerns about obtaining and maintaining media coverage,
handling distributions with staff shortages, and dealing with budget
constraints. FH will coordinate all aspects of this new campaign;
network libraries will be responsible only for routine registration of
new patrons. NLS has an ample supply of cassette playback machines to
meet the needs of the anticipated new patrons.

The FH firm is currently conducting market research, with plans to
complete campaign development by the end of 2004. An FH account
executive will contact network librarians in specific states or regions
as the firm proceeds with market research, telephone surveys, and
customized campaign placements in the months ahead.

[Office of Scholarly Programs and the John W. Kluge Center]{.underline}

Calendar year 2004 marked the third year of full operation of the Kluge
Center. The Center showed its promise as a locus for senior scholars and
postdoctoral fellows who come to Washington to use the matchless
collections of the Library of Congress. The Center planned and hosted a
number of events in the second half of 2004, of which the most notable
was the award of the second John W. Kluge Prize.

On November 29, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced the
award of the second John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the
Human Sciences to Jaroslav Pelikan of New Haven, Conn., and Paul Ricoeur
of Paris, France. The Kluge Prize of one million dollars is given for
lifetime achievement in the humanities and social sciences\--areas of
scholarship for which there are no Nobel Prizes. The Librarian presented
the shared award at a formal ceremony at the Library of Congress on
Wednesday, Dec. 8.

Notable among the distinguished senior scholars and chair-holders at the
Center during 2004 were the former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso and his wife, Dr. Ruth Cardoso, both working on projects derived
from eight years in the Presidential office, and Robert Remini, writing
under Congressional mandate a one-volume history of the House of
Representatives as the Kluge Center's Distinguished Visiting Scholar of
American History.

The selection procedures for Fellows in the spring of 2004 marked the
final round for The Andrew W. Mellon Library of Congress International
Studies Fellows, the International Studies Fellows for East and
Southeast Asia supported by the Luce Foundation, and the Rockefeller
Humanities Fellows for the study of Islam. Each of these foundation
programs was established for a period of four years and has now
concluded. The thirty-six holders of these fellowships in fiscal 2004
conducted research that showed the breadth of interest in Islam and
China.

The Kluge Center was fortunate in 2004 to add an endowed David B. Larson
Fellowship for Health and Spirituality to the endowed Kluge Fellowships
and two potential Kislak Fellowships for study of the Mesoamerican and
Latin American materials that have been added to the Library in the
Kislak Collection to augment the Library's deep existing collections.

[Kluge and Other Chair-Holders and Senior Distinguished Scholars Chair
Holders.]{.underline} The presence of Senior Scholars and Chair Holders,
although often limited in time, was invaluable to the collegial life of
the Center. In 2004, Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov was named the first
holder of the Chair of Modern Culture. The composer and educator Libby
Larsen held the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education. Mark A. Noll
held the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics.
During the year Lamin Sanneh was named to the Chair of Countries and
Cultures of the South, succeeding its first holder, Romila Thapar.
Lanxin Xiang became the third Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in Foreign
Policy and International Relations.

[The Poetry and Literature Center]{.underline}. Ted Kooser was appointed
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by Dr. Billington in August.

[Veterans History Project]{.underline}

The Veterans History Project was created by the U.S. Congress four years
ago to collect and preserve the first-hand accounts of war experiences
from veterans and civilians who served. The Library of Congress, through
its American Folklife Center, embraced the Project as a way to add
personal histories to its collections, materials that illuminate and
enrich our understanding of America during the 20^th^ century at times
of war. VHP staff routinely travel to Congressional districts to engage
Members and support Member-sponsored VHP events. To date, nearly half of
all Members of Congress are actively engaged in the Project.

Diane Kresh became the permanent director of VHP in May 2004. Using a
generous contribution from the Library's Madison Council, the Project
benefitted from the enthusiasm and hard work of eight Madison Council
Interns during the summer. They were responsible for rehousing and
cataloguing more than 150 collections per week, plus a windfall of 3,000
stories collected at the National World War II Reunion on the National
Mall over the Memorial Day weekend.

The number of items in the collection grew from nearly 26,000 items in
September 2003 to more than 80,000 items at the end of September 2004.
The collection includes audio- and videotaped interviews, entire sets of
correspondences, diaries, memoirs, photo albums, scrapbooks, films and
maps. VHP has 682 online digitized collections that are now available at
\<<http://www.loc.gov/warstories/>[\>.]{.underline}

In December 2003, the Veterans History Project was contacted by National
Geographic Books to publish a book on the stories in the collection.
After eight months in development this Veterans Day, VHP will publish
through National Geographic Books its first book, *Voices of War*, a
comprehensive narrative of 70 stories from the collection. Voices of War
had its debut at the Library's National Book Festival on October 9. *The
Washington Post* published an article about the book on Sunday, October
10, 2004.

The VHP exhibit *From the Home Front and the Front Lines* in American
Treasures opened on May 24, 2004 and closed on November 13, 2004. On
July 28, the virtual exhibit of *From the Home Front and the Front
Lines* became available online at
\<<http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/homefront-home.html>\>.

Debra Murphy joined VHP as Coordinator for Diversity Programs in summer
2004. She will build ties to various communities including the African
American churches, and other ethnic groups and minority social and
service organizations with outreach to Asian Americans, Native Americans
and women. VHP attends minority veteran conferences and actively
develops partnerships with minority groups including the Afro-American
Historical and Genealogical Society, the American Indian Veterans
History Foundation, Japanese American Veterans Association, and the
League of United Latin American Citizens.

**PRESERVATION DIRECTORATE**

The acting Director for Preservation is Dianne van der Reyden, who has
collateral duties as chief of the Conservation Division. Former director
Mark Roosa left the Library of Congress in July to become director of
libraries at Pepperdine University.

The Preservation Directorate\'s mission is to assure long-term,
uninterrupted access to the Library\'s collections, either in original
or reformatted form. In fiscal year 2004 the Preservation Directorate
accomplished its mission through its four divisions, Binding and
Collections Care, Conservation, Preservation Reformatting, and Research
and Testing; two additional long-term programs, Mass Deacidification of
manuscript sheets and books and the National Digital Newspaper Program;
and two congressionally approved multi-year short-term initiatives, the
Preventive Care Program and the Preparation of Collections for Moves to
Fort Meade and Culpeper Program.

The Preservation Directorate in fiscal year 2004 completed more than ten
million assessments, treatments, rehousings, and reformattings for
books, codices, manuscripts, maps, cartoons, political posters, palm
leaves, architectural drawings, photographs, newspapers, discs, film,
magnetic tapes, and artifacts. A total of 4,132,284 items were repaired,
mass deacidified, or microfilmed at a total cost of \$18,367,801. The
average cost per item was \$4.44, representing a decrease of \$2.05 per
item from fiscal 2003.

Highlights included conservation of 17^h^ century fortification and
battle plans, 19^th^ century Japanese Maps, architectural drawings of
the Capitol, William Penn's papers, Theodore Roosevelt's Presidential
papers, and Wright Brother drawings. Particular effort was expended to
make available in reformatted versions currently relevant and
time-sensitive collections. Conservation was performed for such rarities
as an oversized NAACP political banner with damaged paint on canvas;
Korean metal type with bronze disease, and James Joyce's plaster death
mask, which required a custom-designed protective storage box.

To extend the life and utility of collections through appropriate
treatment and technologies, 299,064 books and 1,219,500 document sheets
were mass deacidified as part of the Thirty Year (One Generation) Mass
Deacidification Plan to stabilize more than thirty million general
collection books and manuscripts in thirty years. The Library was able
to make full use for the second year of a new single-sheet treatment
cylinder that was installed onsite in the Madison Building in August
2002, to deacify non-book, paper-based materials that were too valuable
to be transported to the vendor plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
where the Library's books continue to be deacidified. With the
successful mass deacidification program in place since 1996, the Library
has to date extended the useful life of more than 1,000,000 bound
volumes and more than 2,000,000 sheets of manuscript materials from the
national collections through utilization of this advanced preservation
technology that neutralizes the acid in paper.

In addition, 289,401 general and special collection books, manuscripts,
drawings, prints, and photographs received preservation treatments;
630,269 documents, photographs, discs, film, and magnetic tape reels and
cassettes were rehoused for preservation and access; 4,103,419
photographs, paper and other collection material were assessed for
future preservation needs; and 4,111,415 documents and newspaper pages
and motion picture reels were converted to microfilm and digital format.
To support access to collections electronically through the National
Digital Library, 31,663 items were stabilized. To support outreach
through exhibitions, 1,372 items were treated and 562 matted or
otherwise housed for the Interpretive Programs Office. A special
initiative to test a new technology for paper strengthening resulted in
the treatment of 16,024 bound newspaper pages that were too brittle to
serve to users, bringing the total for the three-year initiative to more
than 30,000 pages at a quarter of the estimated cost.

To provide environmentally stable storage for special format
collections, Preservation continued five multi-year initiatives. The
penultimate year of the environmental monitoring and control initiative
with Image Permanence Institute resulted in improved storage
environments extending the life of 1.3 million items available to users
on Capitol Hill. This initiative has installed 95 preservation
environmental monitors in all Capitol Hill buildings to help lower
temperatures to slow aging of collections, thereby extending the items=
useful life expectancy. The third of a five-year preventive preservation
initiative accomplished the rehousing 142,758 special collection items
on Capitol Hill. The second of a three-year preservation preparation
initiative to move select collections to environmentally controlled cool
and cold storage resulted in rehousing 502,715 audio/visual items for
the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, and
31,753 special collection items for the offsite storage facility at Fort
Meade, Maryland, the eventual home for 30 million special format items
currently being accessed for preservation needs. A specifications
initiative completed the development of non-damaging bookshelf covers to
protect books from damage caused by storage on slotted shelves, and
specially designed carts for protecting oversized or rolled items during
transport, processing, or use. The third year of a multi-year research
project to determine the life expectancy and signal stability of CD-ROM
media resulted in an expansion of sample population from 125 to 1,000
discs to increase confidence level of findings to 95 percent.

To secure the national collections during storage, transport,
processing, use and exhibition, the directorate updated the preservation
component of the Library's collection security plan, in collaboration
with the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness. To improve
security for the Library's Top Treasures, Preservation acquired and
installed state-of-the-art gasketted stainless steel cabinets that are
watertight and can be filtered against pollution or other contaminants.

The directorate organized and hosted several events to foster
collaborative partnerships with other libraries, public and nonprofit
organizations, and the private sector. The annual Microform Round Table
addressed problems of cellulose acetate with the British Library,
Cambridge University Library, Bodleian Library, the national libraries
of Scotland and Australia, New York Public Library, and the Libraries of
Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. Six *Topics in Preservation Science*
lectures, most open to the general public, featured speakers from
universities and other preservation agencies on subjects including
imaging sound, archiving optical storage media, laser-cleaning paper,
and stabilizing iron gall ink; the series also included workshops on
leather, parchment and adhesives opened to professional conservators.
Directorate staff developed the program *Sights and Sounds: Preserving
the New Media* for the WorId Information Congress and General Conference
of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in August. Staff also developed training and
handouts for the Library's contracted mail and package handlers, Pitney
Bowes, to prevent damage to collections as they are screened for
biohazards, and designed and conducted Conservation Clinics for the
National Book Festival, the Dedication of the World War II Memorial on
the National Mall, and "The Library of Congress Goes to Ohio," sponsored
by the American Folklife Center.

[New Initiatives]{.underline}

The directorate launched several new training, research, and interagency
projects, pursuing the objectives of Library Services to preserve
collections and extend collaborative partnerships. A new curriculum was
developed for the Catholic University School of Library and Information
Science course on preservation, to be led by directorate staff in the
spring semester of 2005.

To foster increased diversity in the Library and make preservation
opportunities available to a broader group of professionals, the
directorate started a new outreach training option by launching a
Multi-Cultural Fellowship Program. The program's first fellow was
accepted from the University of Texas= Graduate Conservation Program.

Several collaborations and interagency programs started by the Research
and Testing Division supported research into the long-term stability of
collections and storage materials. A Research Fellowship funded by the
Nielsen-Bainbridge Company, a producer of preservation supplies, will
defray expenses for a named fellow to research the use of zeolite
molecular sieves, which can be incorporated into housing materials and
may absorb and trap pollutants in collection storage environments. The
work will build upon research performed at the Getty Conservation
Institute.

To evaluate the long-term stability of digital media, an interagency
agreement was signed with the Information Technology Division of the
National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to share data and
methodology in the study of the effects of natural and accelerated aging
on signal stability of CD-ROMs and DVDs. The Research and Testing
Division will study CD-ROMs, and NIST will focus on DVDs. To study
natural aging, a sample set of CD-ROMs is intermittently called from the
Library's collections and evaluated using special signal testing
equipment; in addition, the division is developing procedures for
accelerated aging of CDs and evaluation protocols. The interagency
agreement provides special funding from the Library to enable NIST to
expand its participation and hire a scientist to work with LC staff in
evaluating the test data and adapting testing and aging protocols.

To develop a protocol for preserving sound recordings, a second
interagency agreement was signed with the Department of Energy\'s
Lawrence Livermore Berkeley Laboratory to study the efficacy of
digitally imaging sound recording materials, such as wax cylinders and
shellac discs, using two- and three-dimensional imaging methods. Issues
to be addressed are scanning speed optimizations, measurements of
damaged and moldy samples, and comparisons of two- and three-dimensional
scans on laterally modulated disc media. If successful, digital imaging
techniques will be able to capture many levels of sound from damaged or
fragile original materials without further damaging, altering or wearing
down the originals.

A third interagency agreement marked a collaboration between the United
States Newspaper Program (USNP) and the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) to form the U.S. Digital Newspaper Program, which would
preserve and make accessible local newspapers throughout the United
States. Following the USNP model, NEH expects to award ten cooperative
agreements in 2005 to state level institutions to digitize select
newspapers from the 1900-1910 period and to deposit those files with the
Library of Congress. The Library will be responsible for developing a
repository to aggregate, store and serve the deposited content freely on
the Internet. This program is intended to assist in developing standards
for page-level access to historic newspapers converted from preservation
microfilm and to serve as a model for cooperative digital content
development.

The Preservation Directorate acquired new equipment to improve housing
for all formats in the collection life cycle of storage, transport, use,
exhibition, and processing. Two new automatic computer systems were
purchased that design, measure and cut custom mats and boxes, thereby
reducing time and increasing accuracy and range of techniques and
materials used to protect and display collections. An automatic
mat-cutter can instantly cut any combination of shapes, and a Kasemaker
boxmaking system contains a library of more than 200 box styles that
allow operators to design new boxes using plastics, cloth, paper, and
solid and corrugated board.

The Conservation Division hosted five interns from conservation programs
in the U.S., France, Italy, Korea and Japan, and awarded its final Getty
Preventive Conservation Internship to Columbia University preservation
graduate from Puerto Rico. To support increased diversity in the Library
and make conservation opportunities available to a broader, more diverse
group of professionals, the directorate launched a Multi-Cultural
Fellowship Program, and accepted the first Fellow.

The Binding and Collections Care Division provided timely commercial
bindery preparation, labeling, box making, and repair of Library
collections. Division staff prepared and sent 212,445 volumes for
commercial library binding and trained Asian Division and African and
Middle Eastern Division staff to prepare serial issues for binding,
permitting this very labor-intensive work to be performed in those
divisions, reducing risk of loss and damage to the serial issues.

The Preservation Research and Testing Division completed the first phase
of a study that investigated the effect of laser-engraving permanent
property identification around the central hub area (where no data
resides) on compact disk media. Such laser engraving can discourage
pilferage and was found to have no impact on the long-term life and
signal stability of CD-ROMs.

The Research and Testing Division supported national and international
standards related to preservation of library materials, including
standards for hot-melt, pressure-sensitive, and archive adhesives and
test methods for adhesives. In this work staff collaborated with
scientists from National Archives and Records Agency, American Society
for Testing and Materials, Yale University, New York University, Forest
Products Laboratories, and technical representatives of adhesive
manufacturers.

The Preservation Reformatting Division and its programs successfully
converted 4,110,945 units (e.g. pages, photographs, posters) of library
material through a combination of preservation microfilming (4,038,946
pages or 2,316,219 exposures), preservation facsimile (33,873 pages or
116 volumes), digitization (36,390 pages or 216 works), and other
preservation photographic reproductions (1,706 images) for service to
the public. Collections receiving focused efforts included Arabic
language newspapers; severely embrittled World War One era military camp
publications; acetate and nitrate photographs; and monographs identified
through use (e.g. loan request, reference request, collection care
request) that were too brittle to be served to readers.

Two new reformatting projects were undertaken with the Prints and
Photographs Division to address deteriorating photographic materials.
High priority deteriorating acetate base negatives were identified for
cleaning, stabilization, and reformatting treatment through a contract
with Chicago Albumen Works. High priority nitrate negatives stored at
Wright Patterson Air Force Base were identified for digitization under a
contract awarded to TransImage.

**TECHNOLOGY POLICY DIRECTORATE**

Henry Rossman is acting director for Technology Policy.

[Integrated Library System Office]{.underline}

In 2004, the ILS Program Office expanded its vision beyond the Library's
"traditional" integrated library management system (ILMS) to implement
new systems that utilize emerging technologies to improve service to
staff and users. While the ILS Program Office continued to maintain and
implement improvements to existing production systems, it also planned
for new systems to organize and manage licensing data for the Library's
electronic resources; add searching functionality; and expand and
improve access to the Library's collections for staff and public users.
This year marked the transition from the use of a single integrated,
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product (Voyager) to multiple COTS
products to increase access to and improve management of the Library's
digital collections while continuing to support acquisition,
description, preservation, and access for all materials in the Library's
collections.

[Integrated Library Management System.]{.underline} The ILS Office has
continued to expand access and improve service for users of the Library
of Congress Online Catalog (catalog.loc.gov). In 2004, the Library
increased the number of simultaneous OPAC users by almost 25 percent,
and saw a resulting decline in the number of customers who could not be
accommodated. In 2005, the ILS Office will continue to monitor external
use and seek ways to increase access for those users. ILS staff
continued to test the Unicode conversion of the LC Database. The ILS
Office has tentative plans to upgrade to the Voyager with Unicode
Release before the end of calendar year 2005, but has not yet scheduled
a date for this upgrade.

LC installed a proxy server in March 2004, which functions as a
front-end to LC's Voyager Z39.50 server. This proxy has improved ILS
system performance by handling in-bound Z39.50 traffic more efficiently.
Future plans include support for serving XML records that contain
holdings data.

[Find It!, LC's OpenURL Resolver.]{.underline} As part of the Library's
ongoing efforts to meet the changing demands of its users in the digital
environment in 2004, the Library acquired the OpenURL software SFX from
Ex Libris, Inc. This new feature, called Find It!, will enable users to
navigate seamlessly between independently managed resources by
generating links from citations for resources to full digital content
and other services, such as tables of contents and abstracts, the
traditional library catalog, search engines, or document delivery
applications. The ILS Office expects to make Find It! available to users
in the first quarter of 2005.

[Electronic Rights Management System.]{.underline} In 2004, the ILS
Office implemented an Electronic Rights Management System (ERMS), which
it purchased from Innovative Interfaces, Inc., after issuing an RFP
based on Digital Library Federation recommendations. The Library's new
ERMS was in production by the end of the year, enabling LC technical
services staff to incorporate e-licensing and procurement into their
regular workflow and facilitate the transfer of data from related
systems. Future directions for the project include exploring the
integration of the ERMS with other production systems, such as Find It!,
LC's OpenURL Resolver, to serve as a target for a listing of LC's
e-journal holdings.

[Federated Search Pilot Project for LC Bibliographic
Databases.]{.underline} As a major provider of structured descriptive
metadata, the Library of Congress strives to make its metadata available
via search tools that are currently in use or under development by
library software vendors. In 2004, many popular LC databases containing
structured descriptive metadata could not be searched and could not send
search results to federated search or metasearch software that relies
heavily on the Z39.50 search protocol now widely used by libraries. To
identify issues and possible solutions to this problem, LC contracted
with Index Data to provide search and retrieval gateways for
representative LC databases (e.g., InQuery, Lucene, and MySQL) in
addition to Voyager. The front-end of this software will communicate
using a standard (open) protocol Z39.50, SRU (Search/Retrieve URL), or
SRW (Search/Retrieve Web Service) and the back-end will communicate with
LC databases using their proprietary protocols or APIs. This pilot
project will focus on federated searching of LC databases, not external
databases. At the end of the pilot, LC will determine whether it will be
feasible to make selected bibliographic databases not currently
accessible via Z39.50, available via federated search.

[Handle Server.]{.underline} The Library uses CNRI's handle server
software to provide persistent identification of LC-managed electronic
resources. In December 2004, the Library\'s handle server database of
more than 500,000 handles was successfully converted to the CNRI
software Oracle platform.

[Encoded Archival Description.]{.underline} LC's seven special format
divisions created over 75 new EAD finding aids in 2004. The 266 finding
aids indexed in LC's EAD InQuery search system provide access to more
than 16 million archival items in LC's collections. The LC ILS contains
collection level summary records that point to these EAD finding aids
through persistent identifiers (handles). RLG regularly harvests LC's
EAD finding aids for inclusion in their Archival Resources site, a
"union catalog" of finding aids.

LC's EAD Technical Group is nearing completion of the conversion of the
Library\'s SGML finding aids into XML, using the revised EAD2002 XML DTD
released in 2004 by the Society of American Archivists. LC's Music
Division staff facilitated this conversion by developing a software
toolkit and distributing it to the EAD community. Toolkit enhancements
also provide staff with new web display options during the finding aid
creation process. In the first quarter of 2005 LC staff plan to modify
the Library\'s EAD InQuery-based search system to accommodate the new
XML EAD2002 documents. PDF versions of LC\'s EAD finding aids are being
generated from the XML files.

[Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)]{.underline}

[MARC 21 (]{.underline}<http://www.loc.gov/marc/>[) and MARCXML
(]{.underline}<http://www.loc.gov/marcxml/>[).]{.underline} MARCXML
provides a lossless pathway from MARC 21 to MARC in XML and then back.
NDMSO has provided several transformation to move data to and from
MARCXML and other XML metadata schemas such as MODS, Dublin Core, ONIX
(bibliographic data content), and potentially others as needed. These
developments have been important for opening up MARC 21 data to easier
manipulation with XML tools and use with XML-based protocols and formats
such as Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
(OAI-PMH), SRW/SRU (see below), and the Metadata Encoding and Retrieval
Standard (METS).

A brief publication called Understanding MARC Authority Records, a
useful teaching tool for new staff and library schools, was published
recently, joining the popular *Understanding MARC Bibliographic* which
is now in its 7^th^ edition. They are both available in individual
copies from NDMSO and in bulk from CDS. *Bibliographi*c is on the MARC
Website and *Authority Records* will soon be.

[MODS (\<]{.underline}<http://www.loc.gov/mods/>[\>) and MADS
(\<]{.underline}<http://www.loc.gov/mads/>[\>).]{.underline} LC is using
version 3.0 of the Metadata Object Description Standard (MODS) in
digital projects and experimenting with it for cataloging of Websites.
In December 2004, the War in Iraq Websites collected by the Library were
rapidly cataloged using a special MODS template that had been
pre-populated with data derived from the sites and with pre-formed
selection lists for data such as subjects and languages. Outside of LC a
number of digital library projects, many that also incorporate METS,
have begun to use MODS for descriptive metadata. An article in the
September issue of *D-Lib Magazine* described the use of MODS at the
National Library of Australia.

NDMSO has released an authority record companion for MODS: Metadata
Authority Description Standard (MADS). The draft was posted on the Web
in June and July for broad review, with the comments incorporated and
then another round of comments in December. The review mechanism is via
an open listserv ([mailto:mods@loc.gov](mailto:mods@loc.gov)) so all
interested in participating in the discussion or just listening to it
are encouraged to join. MADS has a relationship to the MARC 21 Authority
format, as MODS has to MARC 21 Bibliographic, but it simplifies data and
relates to MODS itself in new and useful ways.

Articles on the METS, MODS, and MARCXML were published in Vol.22, Nos,
1-2, of *Library HiTech* by NDMSO staff. These articles are good
introductions to this group of standards.

[Rights Expression Languages.]{.underline} An article derived from the
NDMSO study on rights expression languages (RELs) was also published in
the September issue of *D-Lib Magazine.* The full report, prepared by
Karen Coyle under contract to NDMSO, examined the prominent RELs today
(early 2004), such as ODRL, METSrights, Creative Commons and MPEG-21/5.
The full report is available from the following Office Website:
\<<http://www.loc.gov/standards/relreport.pdf>\>.

[Information Retrieval : Z39.50 and SRW.]{.underline} LC had been
spearheading work on the following "Z39.50 next generation" services:
SRU (Search and Retrieve URL Service) which allows users to send a
search using title, name, identifier and other parameters via a URL
(HTTP GET) and receive records in response, and SRW (Search and Retrieve
Web Service) which supports a web search that operates over the web base
protocol, SOAP, rather than directly through HTTP. It is more robust
than SRU. In February 2004 SRW/SRU Version 1.1 was published and in July
2004 an SR Editorial Board was put into place.

These XML-based search and retrieval protocols are semantically
compatible with Z39.50, adapting the most useful parts of that protocol
to the Web environment. This enables users to provide SRW/SRU gateways
to existing Z39.50 applications, as LC has done using open source
software from IndexData. Since installing that software in front of the
OPAC (Endeavor) Z39.50 search module, LC has had improved Z39.50 search
responsiveness and is now also able to accept SRW and SRU searches and
respond in a variety of formats, including MARC 21, MARCXML, MODS, and
Dublin Core.

LC is in the process of installing the Zebra software from Indexdata
that will enable web services access for various files such as the MARC
organization codes and the name and subject authority files, via SRW or
SRU.

["info" uniform resource identifiers (URIs).]{.underline} NDMSO has been
supportive of the development of the "info" URI, led by the Los Alamos
Library staff as part of the OpenURL standardization as it opens up the
possibility for establishment of URIs for many elements in the library
and publishing standards landscape, important first steps for semantic
Web development. NDMSO recently registered three "info" URI schemes B
lccn, srw, and netref.

During fiscal 2004 NDMSO also published a Website "URI Resource Pages"
providing basic definitions and concepts for URIs and their schemes,
including detailed description of the "info" URI scheme
\<<http://www.loc.gov/standards/uri/>\>. The intent is to keep reporting
events in the development of URIs on this site.

**OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES**

The Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI), the Library of Congress=
newest service unit, reached several important milestones during its
third fiscal year of operation. OSI is charged with institution-wide
management and oversight of the Library's digital initiatives and
technology requirements. Its services include digital conversion of the
Library's primary source materials for broad public access via the Web,
management of many of the Library's most popular public Websites, as
well as information technology support for the institution. The service
unit also leads a congressionally mandted program to collect and
preserve significant materials in digital formats for current and future
generations of users.

**NATIONAL DIGITAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRESERVATION PROGRAM**

As in fiscal 2003, OSI's major emphasis was on the National Digital
Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). This
program, which the U.S. Congress asked the Library to lead in 2000, is
working to develop (1) a nationwide network of partners committed to
collecting and preserving at-risk digital material of vital importance
to the nation, (2) a technical infrastructure to support long-term
preservation of these materials and (3) a research program to develop
advanced technology, tools and methods for digital preservation.

The Library is leading this massive digital preservation program to help
ensure that the students, historians and lifelong learners of tomorrow
will be able to study these subjects and others with the same degree of
comprehensiveness and reliability that historians of the past enjoyed
when they were studying less ephemeral analog materials.

In August 2003, NDIIPP issued its first "Program Announcement to Support
Building a Network of Partners." The deadline for submitting proposals
was Nov. 12, 2003. All qualified proposals were vetted by a peer-review
panel of experts assembled by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington made the final selections.

On Sept. 30, 2004, eight lead institutions and their partners received
awards totaling approximately \$14 million. These institutions are the
first formal NDIIPP partners, and they have agreed to identify, collect
and preserve historically important digital materials within a
nationwide digital preservation infrastructure. These awards from the
Library will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the winning institutions in
the form of shared costs to execute the cooperative preservation
program. The institutions will share responsibilities for preserving
at-risk born-digital materials of significant cultural and historical
value to the nation. The announcement received widespread media
attention, including a Sept. 30 feature in the *New York Times*
"circuits" section. The first joint meeting of the partners will be held
at the Library on Jan.12 and 13.

The three-year preservation projects that are receiving Library funding
include digital content relating to important people, events and
movements that have had a major impact on the nation's history, such as
the birth of the "dot com" era, satellite mapping, public television
programs, historical aerial photography, and opinion polls and voting
records. The NDIIPP Website is at <http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/>

[Web Capture Team]{.underline}

In fiscal 2004, OSI initiated a Web Capture Team to support the
collection, ingest and archiving of born-digital content in the form of
Websites. During the year, 4.3 terabytes of Websites were collected
relating to the 2004 elections, the war in Iraq, the 108th Congress and
public policy topics. The team participates in the International
Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) made up of 11 national libraries
(including the Library of Congress) and the Internet Archive. The IIPC
is cooperatively developing open-source tools for Web collection and
archiving.

[Archive Ingest and Handling Test]{.underline}

In June 2004, the Library entered into a joint digital preservation
project with Old Dominion University, Department of Computer Science;
Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries; Stanford University
Libraries & Academic Information Resources; and Harvard University
Library to explore strategies for the ingest and preservation of digital
archives.

The Archive Ingest and Handling Test (AIHT) is designed to identify,
document and disseminate working methods for preserving the nation's
increasingly important digital cultural materials, as well as to
identify areas that may require further research or development. This
test supports the work of the National Digital Information
Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).

The AIHT participants are investigating and applying various digital
preservation strategies, using a digital archive donated to the Library
by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. The
archive is a collection of 57,000 digital images, text, audio and video
related to the Sept. 11, 2001, events. The transfer of these 12
gigabytes of digital content is being used to emulate the problems that
arise in digital preservation and to test possible solutions.

Participants in the AIHT range from fully operational repositories to an
advanced research project investigating methods for preserving digital
objects; additionally, one institution is comparing multiple technical
solutions within one environment. A broad array of current open-source
(nonproprietary) and proprietary digital-object management and
preservation technologies are being deployed in the test.

[NDIIPP-National Science Foundation Partnership]{.underline}

Also in June, NDIIPP partnered with the National Science Foundation
(NSF) to establish the first research grants program to specifically
address digital preservation. NSF will administer the program, which
will fund cutting-edge research to support the long-term management of
digital information.

This Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation research program will
make approximately \$2 million in initial awards using NDIIPP funds. It
has three main focus areas for which proposals were sought: digital
repository models; tools, technologies and processes; and
organizational, economic and policy issues.

**NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM**

The Websites of the National Digital Library Program are the primary
electronic outreach effort of the Library. These initiatives, chiefly,
American Memory, America's Library, Today in History, the Wise Guide and
THOMAS, reach millions of Americans and people around the world with
their high-quality commercial-free content that draws on the riches of
the Library and other institutions. More than 9.2 million digital items
are available from the Library's various Websites, and 744,105 of these
items were produced in fiscal 2004.

[American Memory]{.underline}

The American Memory Website continues to be the Library's most popular,
registering more than 617 million "hits" in fiscal 2004 B an increase of
more than 100 million transactions during the past year. The four most
recently added multimedia collections bring the total to 127
collections:

"A Civil War Soldier in the Wild Cat Regiment: The Papers of Tilton C.
Reynolds" documents the Civil War experience of Captain Tilton C.
Reynolds, a member of the 105th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers,
also known as the Wild Cat Regiment.

"The Spalding Baseball Guides," provides a selection of "Spalding's
Official Base Ball Guide" and the "Official Indoor Base Ball Guide." The
collection reproduces 35 of the guides, which were published by the
Spalding Athletic Co. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress" presents a
selection of 10 plays written by Hurston (1891-1960), author,
anthropologist and folklorist.

"World War I Rotogravures" track American sentiment about the war in
Europe, week by week, before and after the United States became
involved. Events of the war are detailed alongside society news and
advertisements touting products of the day, creating a pictorial record
of both the war effort and life at home.

A comprehensive redesign of the American Memory Website was launched on
Oct. 6 to provide easier and more logical navigation of the site. The
site was redesigned for universal access and is now in compliance with
federal Section 508 accessibility standards for Federal Websites (a
standard with which LC as a legislative branch agency complies
voluntarily). All users can benefit from the new consistent global and
local navigation features. All the collections can be browsed or
searched either as a whole from the home page or within each individual
collection. The redesign is the result of many months of analysis of use
as well as user testing.

[America's Library.]{.underline} In fiscal 2004, the America's Library
Website for children and families handled 218 million "hits," making it
the second-most-popular multimedia Library site. The site attracted
users with new content, including interactive games and other
activities.

[Today in History.]{.underline} This Website, based on materials in
American Memory, offers information on what happened on any day in
history. This site is also being redesigned.

[Wise Guide.]{.underline} The Library's monthly magazine, the Wise
Guide, is designed as a Web portal to introduce users to the many
fascinating, educational and useful resources available from the Library
online. The Wise Guide is refreshed monthly, with articles and links to
the best of the Library\'s online materials in its other Websites.

**COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL INITIATIVES**

[Global Gateway]{.underline}

The Global Gateway Website features the extraordinary international
collections of the Library and other major repositories from around the
world. In fiscal year 2004, four features were added:

"Selections from the Naxi Manuscript Collection" features ceremonial
writings of the Naxi people of China\'s Yunnan Province. The Library's
Naxi collection is the largest outside of China and is considered one of
the finest in the world. The Naxi use a unique pictographic writing
system that is similar to the ancient Egyptian and Mayan writing
systems.

"The Atlantic World and the Netherlands" focuses on the Dutch influence
in America, from Henry Hudson\'s voyage of 1609 to the sale of New
Amsterdam to the British in 1664. The presentation was developed by the
Library in cooperation with the National Library of the Netherlands.

"United States and Brazil: Expanding Frontiers, Comparing Cultures"
includes some 9,800 images from the rare book, manuscript, map, print
and photographic collections of the Library of Congress and the National
Library of Brazil.

"The Lewis Carroll Scrapbook" is an original scrapbook kept by Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Oxford.
He is better known as Lewis Carroll, the Victorian-era children's author
of such titles as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865) and "Through
the Looking-Glass" (1871).

**EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH**

In addition to providing educational materials to the general public
through its various Websites, the Office of Strategic Initiatives offers
programs and oversees initiatives especially for educators and their
students.

[Adventure of the American Mind]{.underline}

The Adventure of the American Mind (AAM) project is designed to train
in-service and pre-service classroom teachers and college teacher
education faculty to access, use and produce curricula using the
Internet and the digitized primary source materials from the collections
of the Library. This congressionally mandated program is currently
active in Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and
South Carolina.

These six states have a total of 19 participating institutions. New
partners were added from Eastern Illinois University, Barat Educational
Foundation (Ill.), Illinois State University, Waynesburg College (Pa.),
California University of Pennsylvania and Metropolitan State College of
Denver.

[The Learning Page]{.underline}

The Learning Page Website is designed specifically to help teachers use
the Library's online primary source materials in the classroom. It
offers ready-to-use, teacher-tested lesson plans, activities and
features as well as a Community Center chat room that puts teachers in
touch with one another on a variety of education topics.

Among the new offerings of the Learning Page are:

an updated "Getting Started" section to improve usability; four features
and activities; four lesson plans; four Community Center chat rooms;
five "Collection Connections," which point teachers to highlights of the
American Memory Website.

**INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES**

This year, Information Technology Services (ITS) initiated significant
strategies to ensure the current and future soundness of the Library's
technical infrastructure. With these strategies, ITS will continue to
provide the highest levels of service to Congress and the public,
through the Library's digital initiatives and business applications. ITS
also supports the technology needs of all Library service units and
their staffs.

[Service to Congress and the Public]{.underline}

The Library's online computer resources attracted an even greater number
of users than previous years. This year, there were more than 3 billion
Internet transactions on the Library's Websites, an increase of 20
percent over fiscal 2003.

ITS brought more processing power to the Library's online catalog
system, called the Integrated Library System (ILS), to meet increasing
demand from all sectors. The upgrades allow for a doubling of the number
of sessions available for search and retrieval.

[Strategies for Sustaining the Infrastructure]{.underline}

A major milestone was the issuance of the first IT Security Plan based
on the guidelines of federal security Abest practices. The Security
Plan, developed with service unit representatives, serves as the basis
for associated security directives and practices to ensure the
protection and safeguarding of IT data and systems in an increasingly
complex and uncertain environment.

[Strengthening of the Infrastructure]{.underline}

ITS implemented a system development life cycle (SDLC) methodology to
reflect current "best practices" in industry and government IT
management. ITS managers and staff apply SDLC practices within a project
management framework to continue to improve the quality and vigor of
Library IT activities.