New York Public Library to undertake a reorganization of the Library's processing operations.

On April 24, 1941, Mr. MacLeish defined processing before the Legislative Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, as follows:

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

At the same hearing Mr. MacLeish supported his requests for the coming fiscal year and told what he had been doing during his first year in office. He said:

We reorganized our processing operations and increased the processing staff as the appropriation permitted us to do. *** What we did, first of all, was to secure a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York which enabled us to bring in three of the most distinguished librarians the country has to advise us as to the *** whole highly technical operation. *** Next we looked for a director to put these findings in operation, in the position of Coordinator of the Processing Divisions *** and we were fortunate enough to be able to secure for 1 year from the New York Public Library, Mr. Mumford, who was released for that time. Mr. Mumford is an expert in that field and had sat in with the Librarian's committee and, therefore, knew the situation. *** What we have done as a first step, therefore, is to reorganize the processing operation, both as regards its subdivisions and as regards the actual physical flow of the work. We have changed the relation of the various units to each other on the floor so that the work flows naturally."

Mr. MacLeish's description of the new processing methods was:

a complete physical rearrangement of work and personnel has been made. Material now proceeds in a logical fashion from the point of receipt through the various cataloging processes to the point of distribution to the shelves. Elimination of lost motion *** will contribute greatly to the efficiency of the organization. Procedures, routines, and records are undergoing a thorough overhauling. Old practices are being questioned and, in many cases, eliminated. Simpler methods are being instituted wherever possible. Every effort is being made to avoid unnecessary work. It is believed that these changes will greatly increase the efficiency and therefore the output of the Processing Divisions 72 # #

On May 26, 1947, Luther Evans, who had succeeded Mr. MacLeish as Librarian, told the House committee this:

Our present inability to take care of the current intake of material or to reduce the tremendous arrearages which have developed represents, in reality, a waste of the investments which have already been made."

He added:

The backload which existed before the move to the Annex has in large part remained and in some ways has grown larger."

At the same hearing Mr. Henkle, the Director of the Processing Department, told the House committee that—

TO Hearings before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the legislative branch appropriation bill for 1942, 77th Cong., 1st sess., April 24, 1941, p. 3.

71 Ibid., pp. 2-3.

72 Ibid., pp. 8-9.

73 Hearings before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the legislative appropriation bill for 1948, 80th Cong., 1st sess., May 26, 1947, p. 3.

74 Ibid.

The work of filing is pretty badly in arrears; I should say very seriously in arrears, particularly in the public catalog in the Annex. There are nearly 700,000 cards unfiled."

At this particular hearing Dr. Evans reported statistically about what the Library had taken in during the preceding 12 months. It included 410,000 books and pamphlets, 75,000 maps, 135,000 phonograph records, and so forth, running up to a total of 3,551,700 pieces of material for the year 1946.

On May 23, 1949, Evans told the House committee that the Orientalia Division of the Library had just had given it 350,000 Japanese items and 89,000 Chinese items that came from the Washington Document Center. In June 1953 Mr. Evans told the committee that the far eastern law section of the Library should be expanded. Lawrence Keitt, the Law Librarian, was a witness and made this statement:

We have about 20,000 volumes in far eastern law and about 16,000. I estimate, are in the languages of the far eastern countries, and that great portion of the far eastern law is in a pitiable state."

Finally, in the most recently available Librarian's Annual Report, which was submitted by the Acting Librarian, Mr. Verner W. Clapp, for the year ending June 30, 1953, is the statement:

The collections themselves, which amounted to about 24,900,000 on June 30, 1945, increased to 31,600,000 by the end of the fiscal year 1953."

That is to say that the collections of the Library of Congress are now more than 3 times the size they were in 1939, or 15 years ago, when Dr. Putnam retired.

The following is a report made to the chairman of the Rules and Administration Committee on June 18, 1954, concerning the current processing arrearages of the Library of Congress:

75 Ibid., pp. 139-140.

Hearings before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the legislative-judiciary appropriations for 1954, 83d Cong., 1st sess., June 1953, p. 180. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1953,

p. 5.