electronic equipment must be silenced to prevent interruption of our business thank you today the committee will be conducting two types of business first we will mark up h r two one three four which  commission to study the potential creation of the national museum of the american teen community i will be offering an amendment to the bill which i'll explain later after this we will move forward with the other business before us an oversight hearing of the library of congress but let to know american community is often recognized for its share of the scope of rich traditions sense of community and deeply rooted beliefs which are woven throughout the fabric of american history as the nation's fastest growing ethnic community the latino population in america has more than doubled in size in the last ten years to over forty million and look and and continues to grow the creation of a national museum of the american left you know community would enable latino americans to tell their story and would create a destination for students families and visitors that would comprehensively depict latino american history in order to explore the possibility of creating such a museum with legislation before us specifies that a commission be created with twenty three members seven of whom would be appointed by the president and three voting and one non voting member each will be appointed by the speaker of the house minority leader the senate majority leader and the senate minority leader once appointed the commissioners would assess the cost of the muse its impact on other hispanic and latino related museums identify identify a possible location for the museum and propose guidelines for the museum's operations the commission will also work closely with the latino american community during the design and development phase to ensure that the museum accurately captures the latino american experience my staff has submitted an amendment to this referencing several technical changes including a provision to update the title of the legislation with two thousand and six in place of two thousand and five adding senate rules and administration to the committee list for the receipt of the proposed legislation and in section three d of the bill clarify them language to reflect the two year proper ations authorization applies to fiscal year two thousand and six in fiscal year two thousand and seven not vibrant history and tradition of latino americans i would also like at this point to commend mr nader who when he was chairman began the work on this with the interested parties and gave them encouragement and some result of that occur encourage meant this bill was entered into the record and has been considered by the resources committee and at this time i would be pleased to recognize any member of the minority that might wish to comment in the absence of the ranking member ms miller mcdonald who incidentally is a very important function assigning at the white house of the extension of voting rights act this very important effort forward certainly as a californian this has special meaning to me and i was you know i chair the california democratic delegation our delegation is very interested and supportive of this effort so i think this is a very important step forward for this effort that will honor in and lighten americans about our next you know roots especially in the west and southwest and i commend the chairman for his efforts as well and clerk will report the amendment i'm sorry i'm sorry we will now thirty two minutes trying to go to rapidly here the question is on the the chairman's amendment in the nature of a substitute those in favor will say there's opposed no the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted  recognized as mr name for the purpose of offering a motion thing was chairman i move that h r twenty one thirty four is meant to be reported they will lead to the house the question is on the motion those in favor  i ask unanimous consent that members have seven calendar days for statements and materials to be entered into the appropriate place in the record without objection them cheerio would be so entered asking alms consent then staff the office to make technical and conforming changes on all matters considered by the committee at today's market without objection so order without objection so ordered as reported out this concludes our markets of business and we will now move into the can committee's oversight hearing on the library of congress the purpose of today's oversight hearing is to get an update on the operations of the library of congress and the ways in which the library is preparing for its future through its ongoing strategic planning technology design and preservation initiatives one of the greatest challenges for america's wide brains and archivists is responding to the changing ways in which information is being created shared stored and maintained in the digital age in order for our nation's libraries to maintain their relevancy to the public they must look for opportunities to not only adapt to the digital revolution but to embrace dr james h building to the library of congress and one of our witnesses today i committed to levering the advances in technology to enhance the libraries operations and to meet evolving needs of the congress and the public today he will lay out his vision for how the library of congress will continue to transform itself in order to continue their goal of being america's premier library into the twenty first century one of the largest and most exciting additions to the library is the creation of the national audio visual conservation center a v c c located in culpepper virginia this facility which is made possible through a partnership between the library and the packard humanities institute with the aid of the architect of the capitol will eventually follows the entirety of the library's audiovisual collection and will feature specialized preservation laboratories used to minimize the degradation of these items over time i look forward to receiving an update from our witnesses on the construction of the end and a b c c facilities so that we may better understand how the opening of this facility next year impact current library operations an exciting initiative that embraces emerging techno algy's is the national digital information infrastructure and preservation program or andy i p p thank you need better afternoon g access to a rich body of digital content through the establishment of a national network of command partners who have a common goal of preserving preserving our digital heritage the network now h over sixty seven partners and plans to expand the program to assist state governments and the p p s focused on the retention of digital media which is so often lost due to its evolving dynamic nature and i can vouch for experience having dealt with this at state level with county and city clerks who wanted to preserve all the records digitally a few of them understood the complications of maintenance and i was fortunate to be in a position there to write the legislation to help guide them and not that they will certainly need your guidance to help guide the end the p p a than a national digital strategy advisory board has been created comprised of federal agencies such as a national archives and records and ministration narrow the government printing office g p o and the national science foundation and assess in addition to business leaders and technical experts we would like to learn from our witnesses today what progress has been made since the establishment of the program which overcoming upcoming projects are included in the program and the overall strategic direction i believe that to work with this program will be instrumental in the established government wide standards for the president preservation authentication and access to digital information i encourage the library to assist g p o and there as they work on standards that not only will digitize federal government information but will also preserve it and make it available to the public another technology initiative that is of interest to the committee as a world digital library which will create a repository of rare and historic materials for public use this program is being supported through both private and public funding recently google incorporated expressed their support for the project through a three million dollar donation am pleased that the progress that has been made in preserving our history through the use of technology there are many questions raised by the formation of the world digital library with the explosive growth of the internet and the never ending amount of material available that could potentially be archived at the library must ensure that the proper controls are in place so that the proper information is being stored with the appropriate operations in place to maintain the integrity of the collection i look forward to hearing from or witnesses today concerning the management and government of this important project another issue of importance before this committee of the progress being made on the jefferson building redesign with the construction of the capitol visitor center glowing growing closer to completion there will soon be an opportunity to give visitors to the c b c an additional rich multimedia experience as they enter the jefferson building i am eager to get a sense of our plans and schedule for the jefferson building space before i conclude my remarks i should note another issue that has come to my feet over the past year the committee has received several letters from members expressing deep concern criticisms are being made in the media it should be the objective of c r us to always present to the congress confidential analyses that fairly represents all sides of an issue this committee would like to  employees to keep that in mind when speaking about their work for the congress of the office finally with all of the changes that have taken place from them the library over the past several years and the increasing focus on digital and technological months to the libraries operations i would like to get a sense from dr going to them as to what is being done to ensure that the workforce in place at the library of congress is equipped temp repaired for this change and as we prepare our physical and technical infrastructure with the equipment required to keep up with the latest technology it is equally important to ensure that our workforce is prepared for this transition  the intellectual property subcommittee in which i also serve is in the middle of a markup so i may have to leave before concluded it's not for lack of interest in this subject i'm particularly interested in the digital efforts of the library and one of the things i hope that can be addressed in the testimony is the issue of accessibility of the digital effort as i'm sure the librarian is aware there is an effort underway in the private sector now to develop open source hundreds so that no proprietary standard would prevent access to the information and i'm very interested in pursuing that because to the extent that this is america really the world's library the world needs to have access to it and there shouldn't be any barrier that's proprietary to that goal secondarily i am interested in i didn't see any reference to it in the the written testimony but i assume that it has been thought of is which is cybersecurity which needs to be built in at the very beginning to the digital effort of the library and i'm interested in what process w using to make sure that the cyber security element has been addressed from the get go on this i commend i understand that copyrights do provide some barriers to access but i also know that  disposable to overcome those barriers with the permission of copyright holders and in fact we are well underway in adopting an orphan works bill that i think will assist this greatly because most of the  protected materials no longer being commercially exploited and we're going to come up with a way to make sure that that material is made available to the culture not simply lost because of copyright rules i just think this is a very exciting project google is not actually in my congressional district that's about eight miles outside but i certainly have many many constituents who work for google and i'm glad that they have been generous and contributing and i'm hoping that that will  be matched by other companies in the digital space who understand the implications for not only united states but the world in making this information so freely available so thank you mr chairman and also to the library without objection any members wishing to submit an opening statement for the record may do so and will be entered into the record so i'd like to welcome our first panel of the day and ask you to take your places at the table services laura campbell associate library first librarian for strategic initiatives almost sounds like a transit time job and through an jenkins chief of staff to the library of congress welcome testimony the real pleasure honored to appear before this committee and to thank you for the strong support than wise counsel that the committee has given to the library of congress over so many years i appreciate the opportunity to highlight for you some of the developments initiatives that are already transforming the library of congress and begun to shake congress's library in the twenty first century as you've already enumerated the congress of united states chairman has been the greatest single patron of the library in the history of the world building on its purchase of thomas jefferson's large wide ranging almost unique personal library the congress has created and sustained what has now become the largest and most widely inclusive repository both of the world's knowledge in almost all languages and of america's creativity in almost every kind of form  the overwhelming challenge now facing the library in its third century the oldest central culture of institutions is how to sort and preserve the exploding world of digital biology and information and then how integrated into the still expanding world of books and other traditional analog materials so that we can continue to provide congress and the american people with the objective knowledge and the dependable information that is needed more than ever in this information age everything from our security to our economic competitiveness all the creasing we depends on the information and knowledge base of our country now there is no change in the library's basic mission historic mission of acquiring preserving and making accessible the world's knowledge and the nation's creativity but the way in which we do our work is changing radically in the face of the greatest revolution in the generation and communication of knowledge since the advent of the printing press the digital age library began the necessary process of transformation more than a decade ago with our american memory website which provides free access on the internet to the libraries primary documents of american history are used by the nation's schools and everyone else in their own locality who has access to our web sites at the same time this committee asked the library to create thomas the system for giving the public a new simple way to access legislative information on electronic technology is transforming the work of c r s the copyright office the national library service for the blind it is a great handicap the global legal information network and the library's digital resources for k through twelve teachers and local users cross the acquired more than two million new analog items gave special conservation treatment to one point four million of the one hundred thirty two million i'd like items in our collection and received nearly three point seven billion electronic transactions on our autobiography of osama bin ladin all the materials needed to reconstruct the traditional laws of afghanistan that we're almost entirely destroyed by the taliban just two examples now then we want to report to you on the three major new library undertakings which you've already scares me itemize for us mr chairman and each of these was launched in response to congressional initiatives first will be the library's emerging new audiovisual conservation  never virginia then our national digital information infrastructure preservation program terrible acronym though it may be finally the new enhancements we are adding to the  years we are deeply grateful to the congress for this funding the facility has been built largely funded by the packard humanities institute of a projected cost of more than one hundred fifty million dollars which will be the largest private gift in the history of the library and one of the largest such capital gifts ever conveyed to the federal government dr deanna markham our associate librarian for library services will discuss this unprecedented project for preserving our massive but often at midpoint on the national digital information infrastructure preservation program which she has directed since a sovereign in december two thousand by a special congressional appropriations supporting one of sixty five five fo finally our chief of staff join jenkins will describe the project she is directing to enhance the experience that the greatly increased number of visitors will have in the new capitol visitor center and connecting passageways of the  open next year now we are grateful to members of this committee for their longstanding support both for restoring so magnificently the jefferson building and for now reconnecting it physically and intellectually with  capital where the library was originally house for most of its first century in the nineteenth century the new program will focus in the jefferson building will focus on bringing knowledge into life for an altogether new audience of visitor will complement the exhibits in the capital this is center by celebrating something that is not as well known as it should be namely that congress is unique historic role in preserving the creativity of the american people within the a branch of government  largely locating the copyright office within the library and making it possible for its deposits to be systematically housed there as well as the growing number of deposits from american creative figures over the years now these three outstanding leaders to my left here who will now continue the testimony exemplify mr chairman and members of the committee the quality of our remarkable and dedicated library staff like our unique collections the staff is a national treasure will begin with dr markham who will discuss our mission for transforming library services with examples of work already underway and chairman eyler members of the committee good morning our primary challenge in these early years of the twenty first century is to enhance and adapt digital technology ensuring that the library of congress continues to be the world's leading repository of recorded knowledge in all formats as you well know the library of congress has amassed an unparalleled richness of resources in all formats that creators have used with print on paper being the most commonly used format we have been places support preservation program or print on paper and all other formats but our immediate imperative is to understand the many new materials that are being created in digital form and find appropriate ways to add digital materials to our collections and to preserve them for future generations our motivation for creating a new kind of library the twenty first century library is that information speakers in congress as elsewhere have discovered the ease and convenience of web and search engines for finding information publishers have responded by making more of their recent products available on the web and so have we we have been at the forefront of making information available electronically but the library has not been replaced by google the library continues to be essential because it brings together information in all formats and organizes and authenticate this information equally important the library provides expert curators who make connections between and among information resources connect to connect people with the content in a way that is unmatch search engine the twenty first century of library of the library of congress will enhance not replace the library by collecting the growing amount of information in electronic form that will never be in print and the library will continue to digitize parts of the print collection as copyright permits to allow broader access to congress researchers students and the general public incorporating digital collections into the largest most comprehensive print repository will require changes in organizational structure processes and staff skills thro program called knowledge navigators we will bring the expertise of our highly skilled curators to the web making our validated authenticated resources more accessible and more all than ever before there was already evidence of the twenty first century library throughout the institution one good example of progress is the geographic information systems technology in our geography  congressional needs for nuance policy data overlaid on maps are already being met by the new technology since launching the congressional cartography program we have provided more than two hundred thirty custom maps to members for their use in legislative deliberations an outstanding example of the transformation that will occur throughout the library of congress is the national audiovisual conservation center that is nearing completion in culpepper virginia the collections of our motion picture broadcast and recorded sound division consist of over one million moving image collection items nearly three million audiophile action items and over one point seven million supporting paper documents and photographs the new facility in culpepper will bring together all of these collections now scattered in five storage locations as you see on this map together in a facility designed for their care and preservation thanks to the support of the congress and the unprecedented generosity of david woodley packard and the pack humanities institute the state of the art conservation center will preserve our collections and provide space for twenty five years of collections wrote the facility and this new technology will allow us to preserve the libraries collections four to five times faster than we can today and preserve our films three times faster great care going into the design and construction of this building the two church you see on these visuals one an aerial photograph and over here architectural rendering show you the scale of the facility and illustrate the attention that has gone into caring for the surrounding environment construction began in august two thousand and three the collection storage building was turned over to the architect of the capitol in december two thousand and five and the library began moving collections in february two thousand and six to date we have moved two million items to culpepper the conservation building will be turned over to the architect of the capitol in february two thousand and seven steps will move immediately thereafter it is a privilege for me to work on these important initiatives at the library of the transformation to a society in which near instant access to information is as common as electricity water and highways is underway we began our online national digital library with american memory in  now offering canon a half million items on line in one of the largest archives of commercial free high quality content on the web in one nine hundred ninety nine we extended that offering to include materials from seven other countries in two thousand we realized and congress agreed that we needed a program to preserve important actress digital content that exists and no other form born digital material the average web site exists for only forty four days bringing the rare and unique treasures of history from the library of congress as collections to schools and the general public was a bold parcher from our traditional audience of scholars last year congress authorized the library to roll out a national program for teachers and students in all fifty states in a little more than a decade we have built a rich information resource for the nation congress congress charge the library through our national digital information infrastructure and preservation program to build a national network of diverse partners in order to save and provide access to body of high quality content in digital form we've worked closely with content creators and distributors research libraries technology companies museums and nine federal agencies including the national archives in the government printing office we now have sixty seven partners under twenty eight agreements representing private and public organizations as shown on this map marking existing network partners in red they are collecting and preserving digital content developing the technical architecture that supports that network and conducting cutting edge research into tools and technologies to make the job easier our next investments will double the existing network as shown on the map to your left the digital preservation program has become a community of practitioners sharing a complex challenge and leveraging what any one institution could do alone by the year two thousand and ten we will produce a national collection of me williams of digital works through partnerships with more than one hundred fifty organizations sharing responsibility and costs for what was once the responsibility of only got a few large research libraries in two thousand and eight we will make recommendations to congress about the future of the network we will expand the network by the end of this year in three new ways one multi state demonstration projects will encourage states to work cooperative collect and preserve at risk state and local government information we have proposals involving more than thirty states now a new preserving creative america an initiative will target creative works from commercial companies including movies digital photographs and music third we will strengthen the existing preservation network through shared storage tools and services from nonprofit and technology companies we are also teaming with the national science foundation cyber infrastructure to make the national digic collection as comprehensive as possible finally and developing the world digital library we are building on our record of successful bilateral projects and partners in russia brazil france spain and the netherlands as well as enlisting new partners in the non western world beginning with egypt and m as indicated on the world map we hope to create alongside american memory digital presentations on the memory of these nations in a way that will bring people together from diverse cultures in a shared learning experience we are working with unesco and our existing partners to develop the guideline standards and approach for including countries around the world thank you for your generous support for our digital programs i'm happy to answer your specific questions are now introduce joanne jenkins our chief of staff chairman ehlers members of the committee you've heard dr bill and to the my colleagues describe the challenges before us which as we provision the library congress for the twenty first century the use of technology in the digital environment brings tremendous opportunities for the library to attract audiences that we have not been able to reach before with the support of the congress the thomas jefferson building was reopened in one thousand nine hundred seven and after being closed for ten years for renovation today we receive approximately one point four million visitors visitors a year to our three buildings our expectation with the capitol visitor center opening is that the number of visitors will greatly increase to somewhere between three and four million visitors a year the opening of the nearly completed passageway from the capitol visitor center to the jefferson building provides a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase congress's library and to draw into the library many potential lifelong patrons and learners are designing new exhibitions and experiences that will engage and intrigue visitors of all ages and will showcase the breadth and depth of the library's collections visitors will learn from our dedicated staff who acquire organize preserve and provide access to our vast materials in every language in format we have prepared a d v d that describes our plans and with the chairman's permission we would like to show just a short segment to give the committee an idea of our plans you mr chairman our plans do not involve any major construction in the jefferson building they are in fact designed to complement the capitol visitor center and to highlight one of the least known and unique accomplishments of the congress which is the preservation mint record of creativity of the american people as we increase access for a broader audience our traditional scholars and researchers will continue to receive the high level resources the research support as they have always received we are raising the funds privately to bring the new visitors experience to the library of congress from the private sector and on behalf of my colleagues we appreciate the opportunity to speak with for you today would be happy to answer any  thank you for your testimony with the most snow so for five minutes for various questions first when i have to dispose of just because of the facts many libraries throughout the country are worried about this and that is providing control of the library's decision to discontinue providing controlled series access in the  libraries are worried about losing that since they regard the library of congress as the authority on cataloguing information pre shared if you would describe this function and the justification for its broader library community about a recent policy decision to stop managing the series authority records in the catalog i'd like to put this issue in a larger context if i may as we move into the digital environment we recognize that our biggest challenge is to be to connect the user with the content it's not cataloguing will go away more than ever we need to describe all elements of these digital files so that people will know what is available online but it scenes with  work force in in the same numbers we have to make priorities we decided that we needed to streamline our cataloguing function following the rules that are meant for the print environment and focus more on the cataloguing that will be necessary for all of these electronic materials so we looked at the series authority records that are used by very very few people these are the of the series authorities let people know how a series title has changed over time all of the used information that we could gather indicated that about one half of one percent of the use of online catalogs is for that part of the record so we decided that we could stop nana ging that part and focus on some of these new digital requirements in retrospect i believe that our failure to communicate promptly with the library community led to this great concern that we were going to be phasing out some of our high quality cataloguing that certainly isn't the case we have in response to this issue i have convened an external advisory committee i've invited the american library association to name three representatives the association of research libraries to name three representatives special libraries and law libraries i've also invited the search engine companies to name a to think about cataloguing in the new digital environment and make some report that will be helpful to librarians everywhere slightly long answer but i one hundred people it still has eight hundred people and libraries of this sort are not too concerned about the digital issues they just are trying to keep their heads above water they are totally dependent on  to recognize you for many thank you so much mr chairman and can i thank you all so much for being here i'm sorry that i was not here at the beginning but nonetheless i was interested in what you had to the subject area mr dr billington how many staff members will be transferred i can't give you the exact number but most of them will be many of them will be transferred although not all because the basic use of the collections for research and for various purposes for which the material is transferred more than five million out there even explosives so they could never been stored here on capitol hill so we have a facility on right behind us an air force base which is being phased out and most of the employees some will choose to either retire or remain in men most of them will also be exact numbers for the record i would appreciate that and the general picture i think i can add a little bit there are eleven staff whose jobs will remain here they will say they will provide reference and technical functions in the performing arts room here will be providing services all of the other functions will be transferred to culpepper but individual staff who decided they can't go to culpepper for whatever reason we are making every effort to find equivalent jobs here and we will try to swap within the library so that those who wish to go to cope up or from some other part of the institution will be able to do so go to culpepper what they do and so i am interested in that the chairman did speak to me on the floor last week to tell me that majority of those employees were going to be transferred to jobs and that  appropriate job swaps and other job transfers and i was happy to hear that because i have worked very hard together to try to see how we could ensure that these simpl were asked who have always always sort of scholars very well supposing you know eleven or twelve year old niece or nephew kamen how did you get them interested in these primary documents of america and say how w materials as their students are because young people are growing up with a sort of a dream and the whole premise of this is to use we interact with the potential of the internet so that it's not like television which is essential even good television is essentially past if you're a spectator when it's memory project and there are all kinds of interesting ways of using this that are being devised in the seven states various members of whose congressional delegations of collaborated to set up programs that we help  help work with them on which even some plans are devoted to helping see this process of training teachers as well as providing material so i would say that one of the most important immigrations that the library has been done has been to educational function k through twelve to our already historic function of training hire scholars or the like using the interactivity of the internet to get people back into reading rather than pull them away with essentially passive spectator as a television new technologies tend to in the take the prior technology and the internet has been excessively imitated i think of television in that it's you know it's a vehicle for commercial advertising used methods of training and education using the internet now we have provided the material which is public that wing the curial either public domain or we have express permission of the copyright owners to use it for this educational supported largely with congressional support of course is essential but there's also that important private contributions to this ongoing developing and we will have by the end of this year a template for every state that wants to set up a program for better training but this is better training of the teachers who are sometimes as i say this is excessively difficult it really isn't difficult  it's not surgery or rocket science but it's an important addition to it's not a replacement for for traditional education and also it's extremely important for this fundamental problem of the time i got to the elevator they given up and adjourned so here i am back i think that what is going on at the library is very exciting you know i'm interested in a couple of issues  in the testimony in written and also here there's been a discussion about the need to access an open source in the committees you're putting together i hope i don't have i want the people involved today but i will send you a load of the people who've been in touch with me in the private sector we're putting together an effort may or may not mesh i mean you know the ones to decide that not me on the issue i was interested in the digital world digital library and they are partners in that and i noticed that we didn't have a spanish speaking partner nor did we have a partner in asia is what is the plan for that i'm in is that something to be concerned about i don't know whether  ms campbell would be the we do you have a partner in spain oh that's correct i was thinking latin america we do yes but i mean and i pads fine for brazil's of the our partner but as the largest port you speaking nation in the world i'm wondering though is there an effort to broaden that into latin america absolutely we had seven existing partners and we have recently signed ial seven partners and employ with that to a broader audience working with unesco and other communities to make certain that we include as many countries as we possibly can with most tightly presentation this is a very big issue for us and the underpinnings which i think from your earlier comments you can appreciate in terms of how we build the architecture that supports this body of content is a very very important so we'll be able to provide this obscurity for what i will be able to maintain it in several places around the world now pursuing that i'm not suggesting who should be our next partner i'm sure that's a complicated multinational decision but certainly there are some countries that are tiny and some that are huge and have more content to bring to the table and certainly some of those larger actors were not on board with us if this is truly to be a worldwide effort that would it would be a problem have a reaching out to some i as a recent partner of ours where we have preserved and working with them digitized manuscripts that deal with a number of subjects including including a lot of poetry and the history  africa west africa we recognize that in certain parts of the world they'll be some stronger libraries that will be able to help identify really interesting and fabulous unique material from got a couple of issues run converting our analog collection to digital and the others just simply collecting the digital world has evolved going to the second point there was a discussion about web pages  disappear and the need to collect and there have been actually some private sector efforts to do that and i'm wondering to what extend our effort duplicate that and whether it's necessary to duplicate that i don't suggest that that may not be  but also the reach of the the web that we i mean are we going into my space and facebook or are we just doing what's available to anyone what are we looking at well we're working with  internet archive which takes periodic snaps shots of the web and has done so since the early days of the world wide web they are one of our partners and collecting at west point the chal material in the national preservation digital preservation program we also helped to co found a international organization called the international internet preservation coalition where we have twelve national libraries and the internet archive  working together to common tool so we'll be able to share material with other countries that are collecting their own domain materials and yes that's true the figure that we sort of rely on is that the average web site disappears and for forty four days it isn't just the website it's all kinds of contacts photographs and independent films and things that certain communities can't afford to keep local and state data maps that are created on the fly if i can sound another thirty seconds in my i serve on the homeland security committee and one of the issues that we have least touched on but not addressed very well is information that was generally available and even published before nine eleven that now poses security concerns relative to the critical infrastructure of the united states have you come up with a strategy for dealing with that under the national digital preservation program that long acronym and we call it we have a subgroup of  nine federal agencies that are involved on our advisory board and one of the things that we are addressing is preservation policies many of those organizations have come up against this issue where they had to go take down material that was already out there in the public hands and so we're looking at those policy issues we're looking at preservation standards can we agree on what the preservation standard is across government because it make it easier for many of us and we need on a regular basis there's nine of us and i suspect there'll be a few other agencies that will join us if the department of homeland security one of the has just joined us would be happy to have the department of the questions we have today and so we will have to submit written questions on some issues but the first major question this misses a rank that we were well aware that in order to remain competitive in their workforce that is able to not only survive but thrive in an environment where the pace of change accelerates every year now the way it's not your grandmother's library anymore either so the library is not in a competitive marketplace but it plays a critical supporting role to the congress which needs to set top set public policy in a very dynamic world where models of human capital management that developed in the latter half of the last century cannot possibly fulfill the needs of the congress and the country in the twenty first century thank you bill clinton on this i have through related questions was the libration human capital sufficiently skilled and appropriate detroit to support the changing of crime and to the congress second is the library's human capital structured correctly to be highly responsive to the rapidly evolving environment in which it functions  the institutions that most directly serve the congress the congressional research service the law library there you will find that the it's almost completely transformed how they how knowledge is analyzed gathered and transmitted to members of congress and similarly the law library with its global legal information network from three participating countries increase last year for instance from in two thousand and two they were getting four hundred five fownes and hits on their web site through june of this year they got six million digital universe now the copyright office which is in the final stages of a reengineering in order to adopt copyright deposit and registration to the digital world so  also of course the technology staff serving the library as a whole was out in front of really of much of the world and much of the private sector with the launch of the web in hundred four with its ability to begin simultaneously both the american memory web site that ten million five hundred thousand items now now online an enormous number of hits and educational usage at the same time ways is that sufficiently skilled that appropriately deployed we have a couple of really profound problems that are have to be overcome first of all are a high degree of technological reaching out to do constituencies in the country in situations where we are not competitive in what we can pay skilled high tech workers although we need them very much we also have the problem of an replacement and we have the fundamental challenge that you have to have more and more people of the central library profession who have a variety of skills long doing it for that people with one of a kind s attain and we have we have an important need to for retraining we have now have a new leadership in our training office but we don't have a particularly high attracting budget and while it's too early to predict the final outcome of our current budget submissions we had a substantial not so many important request for of training budget for one of the most special intense work forces in the federal government so we have a great many problems but the great thing that we do have is a very dedicated workforce library but it requires it requires the ability to have people both exercise a good job and training people who will succeed in those intangible and skills in the electronics so that they're able to do for the congress cruising the free merican people one stop shopping where you can get information that is dependable you can sort through unfiltered world of the internet and integrate it into the world of traditional knowledge starting books of other analog items it's a enormous challenge it's one we're working very hard on and i think in our new strategic personal issues and we will pursue that later but my time is expired now i would like to mention that i thought we were having votes but in fact the house is recessed into trials so i hope we can finish this panel repository representing cultures around the globe i know good though it's providing funding for the initial planning for this well digital library but has gone well expressed an interest in continuing to and i realised they were they were telling stories that were very different from just how far showing high ends from beijing they were telling part of the story of these people and so i don't know much about that but i was kind of fascinated by love looking at this thought other people ought to have the same opportunity so it seems to me that this is a feeling that everybody has when they look at the so what we're doing here is also showing the world that america has not only preserved and stored much of the world's treasures but it's giving it back free to those countries and the commentary stuff in the middle is very largely visual a lot a lot of things of these kind that are immediately will attract an audi visual generation which is increasingly a worldwide phenomenon but at the same time we raise curiosity and interest and respect for the different cultures of the world so effort of a global thing was was in fact a national commission to do something with russia and that's a meeting of the frontiers program we did and we now have approaching a million items from russia russia to fix cooperation with the bilingual commentary comparison americans movement last with the russians moving east and but it's a very it was a very successful thing we got something like thirty six russian citizens are showing things  composed of many different cultures digest it take the material and molly it was over a couple years ago and there's an enormous amount of islamic medical hopefully because it's bilingual the commentaries and whatever the language of the country is as well as an english it's enabling american i remain in already established educational program to  but this is this one goes back a ways under chairman thomas tenure which is better than six years ago this committee spent a lot of time and effort working with the library to develop standards and protocols stablish comprehensive collections security you may recall at that time we had some losses so very serious losses could you please provide the committee with an update on your continuing efforts to ensure that the library's collections are being properly managed and protected well i would i would ask to be able to provide it for the for the record in security committee that now consists of staff from the collections in the library and our security they have worked very effectively in identifying all of the possible risks looking at ways to diminish those risks and consequently because of their good work i don't think we've lost significant since they have been lost a lot of naps during that time i'm happy to report that the library of congress did not lose a single map in that instance and we did we were quite familiar with the person who was doing it but i believe that the combination of the collection staff working with the security staff tightening up all of those procedures has been enormously successful thank  so i thank all of our witnesses on this panel for the testimony and none but mr dennis ross president of the congressional research employees association for his testimony mr ross five hundred bargain your employees in the congressional research service i would like to say how pleased i am to hear both of you say this morning how important staff are to the library of congress not just its resources the physical resources but also its human resources this morning i will focus on a small portion of those resources that exist in the congressional research service i would like to focus my specific testimony on the style of management being practiced under the leadership of the arrest director dan holland and its consequences on staff and on c r s leadership can be accomplished in many ways and we believe that the style currently practiced by serious management is inappropriate damaging and destructive for a professional service organization it is autocratic centralised and secretive staff who speak out and recommend changes to top level management decisions are labeled disloyal and whiners unwilling to accept change this is led to an ever widening gap in trust and respect between top level c e o s management and its staff c s o where is aware that this problem exists based on two communication surveys conducted in two thousand and two in two thousand and four and both surveys staff expressed a strong desire to have a participatory form of management that is an opportunity to be heard yet sirus top level management has chosen not to do so we believe the event that triggered the decline in trust and respect was a major reorganization of c r s in two thousand staff were never informed that a reorganization was being contemplated and what it was announced staff were told that management was not open to modify the major provisions of the reorganization because of this leadership style of decide and announce staffing top there were management began and disengagement whose effects still exist see tantalising information specialists are deemed good enough to work and advise you congress of the united states but not good enough to work for the top of a management of c r s director maccollins decision in september two thousand and five to learn that the positions of fifty nine production support the announcement of management's decision sent a shockwave throughout the service the primary reason given for the riff was that c r s had conducted quote sound business practice unquote analyses yet seriousness refused to let the study see the light of day the directors turned down requests from congressional committees individual representatives and senators and korea is unwillingness to give them to us has been found a legal by an arbitrator  think to any substantive study supporting a business decision of this magnitude and with such dire consequences would have been released immediately like us many members of the house were unable to comprehend the rationale for the director's decision and in february this year express their displeasure in a letter to librarian of congress james billington congresswoman melinda mcdonald and norton and congressman cummings gonzales honda and women often a critically that the director's process for reaching this decision was quote fundamentally flawed unquote and raise the prospect of open hearings the hearings are now in serious must be made to explain and defend its decision in the open we believe that the alleged sound business practice studies would be found to be deficient and found cost analyses in sound cost analysis and insufficient to reach a decision to eliminate the positions in question analyses conducted analytical divisions the rest will have on the diversity of cirrus staff that decisions be eliminated or help predominately by minorities and by women some staff achieve these positions by participating in affirmative action and when the ability programs across the seventy percent of those who are targeted to lose their positions were african american asian or hispanic hard hit were minorities in the middle grade levels and see that is at the g s a level under the g s twelve level clear from the outset push the concept of retraining retain but the position of serious top level management was to the contrary they argued that respected staff cannot be retrained for any positions that were to open up in the immediate future when clearly requested that director mahal and utilize the occupational development provisions of our collective bargaining agreement he replied that the employees cannot be retrained for the new serious positions in fact he went so far as to accuse me of being disingenuous  raising false hopes and expectations for the staff in january of this year the library opened up its online learning center at the o l c as part of the center for learning and development they all see provides access to about six hundred online courses including in the next ration finance and accounting human resources library science and contracting officers technical rep training i personally approached the director of the center to investigate if he had been contacted by c r s to assist in retraining and was disappointed but not surprised to learn that he was not through the more serious claim that they had more than adequate training the wrist staff was found to be false but they were betrayed or it is not to me to be qui what is lacking in cirrus and allied means willingness to do so what a waste of resources both the libraries training capabilities and the people who are being dismissed unlike the leadership of our sr legislative agencies the general general kind of billing office and the government printing office our director has determined that our staff are disposable and their long years of service and commitment mean nothing the director has also stated repeatedly that the fifty nine staff had to be released because funding was necessary to increase the analytical pass it it's the arrests of the ninety six positions we have counted to date that have been filled since the announcement only thirty four percent or about one of the every three has been for end of it for analyst or  specialist about eighteen percent were for supervisors or managers c l s top level management is increasing seriousness supervisory manager capacity more than its crispiness analytical capacity we save by eliminating fifty nine staff really going to hire more analysts and specialists we are not anti change what we are against is effectuating change to secrecy and in flexibility we are not seeking  management we are seeking opportunities to be consulted and influence major changes that affects here as a service to the congress the reputation of the rest with achieved and is maintained through the action of our analysts librarians and those who support them yet from top level serious management we cannot attain the respect and trust that you give us on a daily basis we seek your assistance in correcting this we wish to work with management to make serious the best place to work on capitol hill as it was when i first joined the organization thirty years ago we also request bequest that you make every possible effort to pass h r fifty three twenty eight the library of congress employee transition act of two thousand and six introduced by congress  of my discussions with the staff person is conducting their if they didn't have at that time a list of any open positions for them to be placed it was unclear there they had talked to each of the service unit heads and asked them to submit open positions and the private sector years ago i am concerned about a hostile environment that is not conducive to any type of positive working conditions and i keep hearing this coming up all the time that the environment is very hostile employees have to have respect and trust at all times no matter who they work for either for members of congress for the president of united states or for the library of congress and the c r s and so i i am very concerned and became concerned when i heard about these displacement or the attempt to subsequent to that i talked independently of with these employees were that were affected without either the unions or the management because i wanted to speak directly with them  i think it is really very shortsighted and to some degree rather telling when management says employees cannot be retrained even though  that management has never put funding in a program to retrain employees and this is my understanding mr roth am i correct and that assessment saying that money was never put in in fact i think an in her ruling noted that only twelve out of fifty one staff that's because that's a slim to our blog you know received training in two thousand and four and only two in two thousand and five was training directly related because of technological changes that you needed to update your skills that was not forthcoming as a result of that she has ruled that staff who felt they needed to do it out of pocket to keep current the vibration would reimburse those people i did read that that article has a library reimbursed so it's those employees who did take money out of pocket for retraining to keep up to the present technological advancements  the processes that the library has thirty days from receiving the decision to appeal any of the arbitrators findings and that would be aug eleventh by the way i calculated so unless we hear something that they're not going to appeal it  we haven't been told that they're going to fund it at any point in time i will raise that question with dr billington in just a short minute that the chairman has said that he heard from both i guess dr billington and certainly that those twenty seven the twenty nine persons who are the ones that are left some of this fifty nine that initially were going to be asked to buy out and leave their post we're going to be reassigned are you suggesting that that is not the case but we haven't heard that at all i mean i talk to those people affected on a daily basis i met as i said last week with the human resources person who's been contracted to deal with the rest and when i talk to them he did not have the responses if there would be enough he was not optimistic but he was you know i said you have to wait and see what question given that the chairman had spoken to me on the floor that that was twenty nine employees where in fact going to be the end signs at the positions are protecting our employees rights the reduction of force commenced on june twenty ninth and on that day i provided official notice to the impacted staff and met with them to explain the reduction in force process since then we have met with each of the employees individually each employee has given us a resume of his knowledge skills and experience which we have shared with each service unit in library now as part of the reduction in force process we have been hiring positions hiring actions in the impacted job series up to the highest grade impacted by the reduction in force and we are in tempting right now to on june twenty ninth we will continue our efforts through the months of august and september to attempt to identify positions for these employees  unit employees have significant protections in a reduction in force for example if if the we can do is to find an employee a position that is a lower graded position that employee has protections for his salary for a two year period the current salary and at the end of that two year period we then individual up to the highest staff within that grade and provide that employee up to one hundred fifty percent of the current staff so that it is quite possible that even if the best we can do is identify a lower grade a position an employee would be able to retain his salary from mr ross for his information and i learned some things that i was not aware of before and i appreciate you coming here also appreciate the library's honest intent to place them properly and i'm most concerned to ensure that this is properly done turn to the ranking member like you are right that i do recognize personnel issues and the importance of them not being publicly exposed but that is a lot of times when there's litigation going on that they cannot be done on a general note you can continue to raise a question the only thing i wanted to raise was if that that you're doing the processor mr human relations person is within the scope of collective bargaining that you have done with the union and secondarily every employee has bopping right to bump into their comparable position with that same salary and i would like to hope that this is what is going on in that process because that is where we bump into problems when it comes to and that's what i wanted to i you know there are many questions it seems like a vote is coming on i do have an appointment back in my office but i've got to go to i would like to ask though if the human relations gentleman i'm sorry i didn't get your name  get to on the bases with reference to those twenty nine employees that we have that we're trying to get positions for within the  testimony and we thank you for the library for the response i think this is something that we should be able to work through without too much difficulty with that we want to thank all of our distinguished witnesses for their time preparation and thoughtful comments as well as the members of this committee and their staff who participated in this hearing i ask unanimous consent that members and witnesses have seven counter days to submit material for the record including additional questions of the witnesses and also for those statements and materials to be entered into the appropriate place in the record without objection the material will be so entered i ask authorized to make technical confirming changes on all matters considered by the committee at today's hearing without objection so ordered having completed our business for today and for this hearing the committee is hereby