TRAVELING EXPENSES FOR ATTENDANCE ON MEETINGS, ETC.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Putnam, on page 47 I notice some new language inserted in the paragraph for the distribution of card index, and I notice similar language inserted in other paragraphs. What is the purpose for requesting that legislation?

Mr. PUTNAM. It is to meet the provision in the last District of Columbia appropriation bill, section 8, I believe, which prohibited the expenses of such attendance at meetings to be charged to the Government unless expressly authorized in the appropriation bill in which the appropriation appears. Now, in connection with the card indexes, when I asked that $500 of the sum should be available for traveling expenses, I explained that it was necessary for either the chief of the section or for one of his assistants to attend some of the larger library meetings, in order to explain the system and answer questions, and in general exploit the work. This phrase was suggested by the auditor as meeting this provision in the District of Columbia appropriation bill. The only meetings to which we are obliged to send other representatives of the Library might be the annual meeting of the American Library Association and certain meetings of interstate associations. Our service, in proportion as it is national and cooperative, requires indispensably that we shall have representatives at such meetings as those where the discussions are technical as to cooperative enterprises in which we are engaged. They really could not get on without us, and we could not get on without the information which they afford us of the requirements of other institutions and of the aid which those other institutions can give in our work.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is not proposed to have anybody's initiation fees or annual dues, or any such thing as that paid out of this amount? Mr. PUTNAM. No, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. You indicate that $500 is the amount you would like?

Mr. PUTNAM. Not exceeding $500 under this item. It is not an extra item. It is only that $500 of the card-section appropriation shall be available for that purpose.

DISTRIBUTION OF CARD INDEXES.

[See also p. 8.]

Mr. JOHNSON. How much is the card section bringing into the Treasury in excess of the cost of operation at this time? I presume that is your report.

Mr. PUTNAM. For last year, Mr. Chairman, the cash sales of cards. during the last year roughly amounted to $42,000, and the appropriation for service was roughly $22,000.

Mr. JOHNSON. The appropriation for the current year is about $24,500?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; for the present year.

Mr. JOHNSON. As far as you have advanced into the current year, what is the outlook?

Mr. PUTNAM. The sales during the first quarter exceeded by 16 per cent those of last year. The increase during the month of Octo

ber was 21 per cent over October of last year. Last year we had an appropriation of $22,000, and we had receipts of $42,000, and these are increasing at a progressive ratio of from 15 to 25 per cent.

Mr. JOHNSON. You spoke when you were before the committee last year of the increase in the charge for the cards. What did you do about that, and what was the result of your experiment?

Mr. PUTNAM. It is a very small fraction of 1 cent, you know, in the case of each card. I have not any statistics as to the result, except that one assumes, of course, that they will improve our margin over expenditures.

Mr. JOHNSON. Did you find that the provision in the bill that allowed you to carry an unexpended balance into the succeeding year an advantage to you?

Mr. PUTNAM. In the case of the past year we did not have anything to carry over, and as a rule we have not anything; but if that provision can be carried along permanently, there will certainly be years in which it will be a very great convenience and economy.

Mr. JOHNSON. You feel that if we renew that provision in the bill you will not feel obliged to buy all the books you have money to buy before the year expires?

Mr. PUTNAM. It quite often happens, Mr. Chairman, in May, for instance, that we are advised of opportunities to occur after the 1st of July which we would rather save for, if we could do that without losing the balance by covering it into the Treasury.

MAILING PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.

Mr. JOHNSON. We inserted in the legislative bill at the last session a provision in regard to mailing public documents from the Printing Office instead of from the various departments. Does that affect the Library of Congress; and if so, how?

Mr. PUTNAM. We had been handling our own publications and sending them out. We have, of course, ceased to do that. We have transferred to the Government Printing Office what stock we had on hand of our own publications, and we now supply lists of addressees. It has affected us in some present saving of service, which we were very much embarrassed to provide, anyway, without any item in our appropriation for an organization for handling publications. For some years past I have asked for such an item, an assistant in charge of publications, at $1,500, and a junior messenger. I have dropped that item now, and that is an evidence of the prospective saving. But we had not any apparatus that we could turn over to the Government Printing Office in pursuance of this system. We were simply using an addressing machine, which we have to use anyway in connection with the card-distribution work.

I

Mr. JOHNSON. Has the mailing of the documents from the Government Printing Office injured your Library service in any way? Mr. PUTNAM. The test has been rather brief, Mr. Chairman. should certainly not say it need injure it. Whether it will be as prompt and certain as our direct service is, of course, yet to be determined. When we have a letter or request for a document, or when the need for a document arises in the course of our correspondence, and we can send it out immediately to the man, we know it has gone, and of course that is a great convenience. There is no doubt about

that. If we can know it will go with equal promptness from the Government Printing Office, it will serve our purpose just as well.

COPYRIGHT OFFICE.

[See also p. 13.]

There are three positions asked for in the Copyright Office, Mr. Chairman. The Copyright Office is something more than a division of the Library. It is in some ways a bureau. While it is under the supervision of the Librarian of Congress it is conducted, as far as the daily service and routine is concerned, by the Register of Copyrights. Mr. JOHNSON. Have you the figures as to the Copyright Office, the operations of the Copyright Office during the last fiscal year? Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. Give it to us in brief, please, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. The total number of registrations was, roughly, 121,000, and the total fees received $116,000; the expenditures for service and for stationery and sundries amounted to $96,000, leaving the net margin of receipts about $20,000. Now, the register, who is here, explains to me that these three additional positions are particularly to undertake certain indexing and cataloguing work that the law contemplates shall be done, but which it is impossible for them to do without neglecting the current work which must be kept up; and if the committee desires to go into the situation which requires that, or to have any details about the situation in the Copyright Office or its organization, the register is here at my suggestion, and of course he can answer with the experience of daily contact.

Mr. JOHNSON. In regard to the necessity for these additional employees which he is asking for, I presume you would rather have him make that statement.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, because he wishes to distinguish those three positions or the work for which he requires them from the ordinary routine. Last year we asked for certain additional positions. there, of which two, at salaries of $900 each, were granted. Those are ordinary clerks, and he will distinguish this work from the work of the positions asked for last year.

RESTRICTION ON INCREASES OUT OF LUMP-SUM APPROPRIATIONS.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Putnam, you wished to make some statement in regard to the lump-sum appropriations.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir; if I may, Mr. Chairman. There is a provision that precludes any advance of salary to a person employed out of a lump-sum appropriation, and that has suddenly checked the regular operation of our service and the procedure in the card section, because there it has been regularly our principle not to fix the salaries at the normal in the beginning, but to start the salary of a new employee at considerably below the normal, thus saving to the Government a considerable percentage while the employee is working for the first few years, as we say, acquiring experience and dexterity. Now, an examination of that salary roll shows that the salaries there taper all the way down to 20 cents per hour. It shows that we have about 30 people there, 13 of whom are receiving salaries of less than

$700 per year. Now, every one of these persons has been content to start in at this low rate, knowing that it was our practice, and, as they supposed, a part of their contract of service, that they should be advanced as their efficiency increased.

Mr. GILLETT. Automatically?

Mr. PUTNAM. No, sir; but on very careful reports, recommendations, etc. Now, since the passage of the legislative act-that is, since September 1-practically the whole progress of these people has been stopped, and we are not able to give any further advances, which was contemplated when they took their places, expecting that in the course of the procedure they would be advanced as their efficiency increased. It simply means this, that as they performed their work more and more skillfully we would give them more pay, just as would be done in any private business. Now, I do not know-but I shall know in the course of a few days, when I have an opinion from the comptroller upon a list of these employees that I am submitting to him-just how complete this embarrassment is to be. There may be relief in this-that promotion may be made where the duties change. Now, the question we are submitting to the comptroller is this: Must the duty differ in kind or is it sufficient that there shall be a difference in degree? For instance, in the case of employees who are doing what we call " searching." We have a number of people there who are doing what we call searching-that is, identifying cards and filling particular orders. Now, if we should simply call these people searchers we would be unable to advance the salary of any one of them beyond the point at which it was on the 24th of August.

Mr. GILLETT. From lump-sum appropriations

Mr. PUTNAM (interposing). All these are paid out of lump-sum appropriations. Now, the work of searching varies to such a degree and the difficulty of searching varies to such an extent that we are employing some people to search at $300 per year and others at $1,500 per year. Now, while the work is the same there is a difference of degree in the difficulty of the work.

Mr. JOHNSON. Now, you say that you have called for a ruling from the Treasury Department?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, when you get that ruling we will be glad to see it.

The section you refer to reads as follows:

That no part of any money appropriated in lump sum in this act shall be available for the payment of personal services at a rate of compensation in excess of that paid for the same or similar services during the fiscal year 1912; nor shall any person employed at a specific salary under this act be transferred during the fiscal year 1913 and be paid from a lump-sum appropriation a rate of compensation greater than such specific salary, and the heads of departments shall cause this provision to be enforced.

Now, under that you could take a man working for $600 and advance him to $720 or $900, if there was anybody who got $720 or $900 for that work the year before, but you could not take a man receiving $1,800 per annum on the statutory roll and advance him to $2,700 or $3,000 out of a lump-sum appropriation. Now, that is just what was being done, and it was that situation that this section was intended to cure. That is what I supposed.

BOOKS FOR THE BLIND.

[See also p. 6.]

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Courts has called my attention to the fact that in 1879 Congress appropriated $250,000 to this publishing house in Louisville, Ky., and we gave them each year the interest on $250,000, or $10,000.

Mr. GILLETT. That is for the blind?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir. Now, under that arrangement with these people, why do we not get a copy of each book they print at the Library. After you once make the plates the printing of additional copies is not expensive, is it?

Mr. PUTNAM. It would not involve much additional expense. It would involve only the additional paper and press work. The making of the plates is the most expensive part of the process, as I understand it. Now, this act stipulates that one copy shall be given to each one of a number of institutions. At the time that act was passed the Library of Congress was not interested to have a copy and it was not included among the institutions. It would now, of course, relieve us of a very considerable expense of purchase if we could be included among the institutions to receive one copy, so far as desired, of every publication printed by the Louisville establishment.

Mr. JOHNSON. Would you mind sending to the committee a section to be inserted in this bill that you think would cover this matter? Mr. PUTNAM. I shall be very glad if I may be permitted to do that. (See p. 8.)

COPYRIGHT OFFICE.

[See also p. 11.]

STATEMENT OF MR. THORVALD SOLBERG, REGISTER.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Solberg, on page 46 you ask for a little increase in the force of your office, and we will be glad to have an explanation from you.

Mr. SOLBERG. Mr. Chairman, on March 4, 1909, a new copyright act, entirely replacing the former legislation, went into effect. It very seriously affected the work of the Copyright Bureau, and there are two considerations in relation to that legislation which I should like to say a word about: First, the difference in the fee, and, second, the difference it made to the office in the character of the work and in the service which the office is expected to give. The fee apparently was doubled, because under the old law there was one fee of 50 cents for registration with an optional certificate at a second fee of 50 cents, whereas the new law makes the fee $1, including the certificate. This is not, however, a doubling of the fee; first, because the law further provided that in the case of books in more volumes than one there should be one registration for the entire set, and that has made a considerable difference in the total of the fees, because we sometimes register 20 volumes for one fee. In the second place, under the old law there was a $1 registration fee, or a $1.50 registration fee with certificate, in the case of all foreign entries, but since the