shortage of library personnel. Our public libraries are short about 12,000 professional librarians and 25,000 nonprofessional personnel. These are people needed to maintain existing services at acceptable levels, not to expand services to cover current unmet needs. The shortage of personnel affects library service in our elementary and secondary schools.

Mr. BAILEY. Dr. Cohen, may I interrupt at this point?

What percentage of the colleges and universities maintain courses to train librarians?

Mr. COHEN. There are 30 accredited library schools in the United States.

Mr. BAILEY. The number is inadequate, would you say?

Mr. COHEN. Yes; the number of schools is inadequate to train the number of persons in library science that are needed to have an acceptable level of library service in this country.

Mr. BAILEY. Proceed with your testimony and then we will get some information to insert in the record at that point.

Mr. COHEN. In 1958-59 about 117,000 school librarians would have been needed to meet acceptable standards of service, whereas only 19,372 qualified librarians were employed. For all libraries, we need 125,000 more trained librarians this year, but there were only about 2,200 degrees awarded in 1958-59 in library science.

The bills now under consideration would take some important steps toward affording a solution to these problems.

Dr. McMurrin and I appreciate the opportunity to review the needs of our libraries with you in detail, because this matter is a continuing concern of our Department. We know that the committee shares this concern. We are submitting herewith several staff reports which the Office of Education has made on libraries which may be of value to the committee in its consideration of this bill.

Mr. BAILEY. Might I ask there, they are not for insertion in the official record but for the use of the committee in consideration?

Mr. COHEN. That is correct. They will be a series of reports like this which I believe your staff will find of use in considering the legislation.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

Mr. COHEN. In conclusion, we should like to indicate our concurrence in the declaration of policy contained in section 2 of the bill which states:

The Congress hereby finds and declares that the growing need for information and education for all our people and the rapidly expanding body of knowledge make good libraries essential at all levels of education from elementary school through adult education in order to provide maximum opportunity for study and research and to produce well-informed citizens who are capable of exercising sound judgment and engaging in profitable employment. The present deficiencies of public libraries, school libraries, and college and university libraries are critical. Therefore, a coordinated program of library development is needed in order to bring about maximum availabality and utilization of library resources and services.

That concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman.

Perhaps you would like Dr. McMurrin to complete his and then both of us could answer any questions that you have.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Cohen, might I ask you what has happened recently with regard to public demand for library services?

Mr. COHEN. I did not quite get that question.

Mr. BAILEY. What has happened recently with regard to public demand for library services?

Mr. COHEN. I think the public demand for library services is increasing. As the whole educational attainment of our population increases, as the need for more skilled people in science and the humanities and as the need for more teachers increases, you have to have more effective use of libraries in order to develop these people.

As I said in my statement, during the next decade our population is going to increase probably 30 million persons. A higher proportion of these people are going to be educated, a higher proportion of these people will be semiprofessional, professional, and technical. are going to be teachers and research people and scientists, and people who are practicing the arts and humanities.

There

We just have to have a more effective library program in this country if we are going to meet this standard of excellence in education that we are all agreed we must have.

Mr. BAILEY. You have partially answered a second question I would like to submit.

What are the advantages of a coordinated library program compared to the present rural library service?

You have already covered that to some extent. Do you have any additional comment at this point on that?

Mr. COHEN. Yes; I believe we have made very great progress in the Library Services Act and we have demonstrated that there can be extension and improvement of library services in rural areas, and, as I say, bring out more State and local money in support. But there are still many other areas, as we have shown here in urban areas, in which there is inadequate or no public library service.

As I read that figure, that is about 62 million people in urban areas that have inadequate or no local library service. That is approximately equal to the same number in the rural areas. So I think there is a great deal that has to be done in the urban areas now to bring them along in the same way we have done in this very wonderful piece of legislation that has proved itself in the last 5 years.

As you said in your statement, I know of no other piece of legislation which has been so widespread in its support and acclaim and in the general recognition of the contribution it has made as the Library Services Act.

Mr. BAILEY. Out of curiosity might I inquire, do you have any information as to the status of the libraries in the Soviet Union?

Mr. COHEN. Well, I have a statement here that Dr. Lorenz gives me. I will read it here. It says a comparison of public libraries in the United States and the Soviet Union discloses that wide differences exist. In 1960, the Soviet Union had 138,000 library units serving 214 million people while in the United States about 19,000 library units, central libraries, branches, stations, et cetera, served 180 million people. The Soviet libraries had 803 million volumes compared with about 210 million volumes in the United States. Although library terminology and methods of counting statistics vary between the two countries, these data indicate that a much greater emphasis is being placed on public libraries in the Soviet Union than in the United States.

Mr. BAILEY. Do you have any information as to just what type of books are included? Are they specializing possibly in the sciences, engineering, and so forth, rather than the classical?

Mr. COHEN. For instance, I will give you this point here. Dr. E. Finlay Carter, of Stanford Research Institute, tells us that Russia has its all-union Institute of Scientific and Technological Information. It analyzes, abstracts, cross indexes, and distributes ideas from all over the world. This bureau employs 2,500 full-time and from 10,000 to 25,000 part-time highly qualified translators to keep abreast of all progress in science.

Mr. BAILEY. May I interrupt at that point to ask you if there is any kind of service like that in these United States?

Mr. COHEN. Yes, I think we have several organizations that are attempting to do this kind of digest analysis and make it available. Mr. BAILEY. Private individuals, or private groups?

Mr. COHEN. The Government also does this. The National Library of Medicine has a process for the organization of such information in the medical and scientific field.

This particular one in the Soviet Union, it says, reads essentially all scientific journals in the world. It is said to translate over 11,000 foreign scientific journals. Now, it is probable, I think, that we do not translate that many, and, therefore, while we are engaged in somewhat the same field, I think the evidence would seem to indicate that the Soviet Union is doing it much more extensively and making it much more available to their own scientists.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

I believe, at this time, we will hear from Dr. McMurrin, and then we may have some additional questions.

STATEMENT OF HON. STERLING M. MCMURRIN, U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. MCMURRIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: It is a pleasure to appear before your subcommittee today to discuss H.R. 11823 and other identical bills to amend the Library Services Act. Assistant Secretary Cohen has pointed out the vital importance of libraries, and of our interest in additional Federal action in this field.

At the outset I wish to reemphasize a central theme of Mr. Cohen'snamely, that the modern public library is an educational resource of the first importance. Historically, the public library has served as both school and college for millions of Americans, to the permanent benefit of our democracy. The importance of this institution has increased with time.

Today our public libraries continue to serve both the broad cultural interests of the community and the personal needs of individuals for intellectual growth. But they also serve a good many other essential functions of an increasingly complex nature. Our large libraries, for example, are also research centers of such importance that research in the physical and social sciences and in many other fields would be crippled without them.

In the course of this statement, I shall refer to standards for library services for the public and for students in schools and colleges. These are the standards arrived at by the American Library Association after careful study and professional consideration. We regard them as being sound judgments of desirable levels of service.

The Office of Education has devoted a great deal of attention to library needs over a period of many years. Our own studies indicate that only 28 percent of the American people are provided with "minimum adequate" library service. To have met these minimum standards. in 1960 our public libraries would have required an additional 29,500 professional personnel, an increase in operating expenditures of $370 million, and an increase of 40 million library volumes.

The bills before you would not solve, indeed, they are not addressed to, all of these needs. As Mr. Cohen has stated, we have not determined the precise provisions of legislation that would authorize a comprehensive Federal program, nor the level of appropriations needed to make such a program effective. We do agree, however, that the existing Federal effort in this field should be increased.

Titles II and III of H.R. 11823 are designed to assist in the improvement of library services in our public schools and in colleges and universities. In our judgment, adequate library facilities are an absolute necessity for high-quality education at every level of eduction. I know of no professional view to the contrary. Yet inadequate libraries are the rule, not the exception, in our educational institutions, and schools without libraries are not uncommon.

An Office of Education survey of public school libraries shows the following facts for the 1958-59 school year:

More than half of the public elementary schoolchildren, over 10 million pupils, attend schools without school libraries.

For 59,000 elementary schools there are only 4,600 qualified school librarians one librarian for every 13 schools.

Four hundred and fifty secondary schools, and about 1,100 combined elementary-secondary schools, together serving more than 600,000 pupils, have no school libraries whatsoever.

These figures tell an unfortunate story at a time when we are all so deeply concerned for the quality of American education. They help to explain the continuing crisis in elementary and secondary education.

Perhaps we can better appreciate the meaning of these figures when we consider the situation of the school system of one of our great cities. Minimum school library standards indicate a stock of 10 volumes per pupil and an annual per-pupil expenditure of $4 to $6 for new books. The New York City elementary and secondary school libraries, by contrast with these standards, average 21% volumes per pupil, and the average annual expenditure for new library books is 65 cents per pupil. Here in Washington, D.C., only two of the public elementary schools have a library, and at this critical educational level not 1 cent per pupil is expended for new library books.

Nationally, in 1958-59 the total expenditures for books for public school libraries serving nearly 34 million pupils was $36,943,016. If the generally accepted standards for expenditures had been met, this amount would have been $168 million. These figures require no elaboration.

We wish that we could report that higher education was free of the library deficiencies that afflict elementary and secondary schools. Such is not the case, and existing inadequacies threaten to become more serious with the rising tide of enrollment increases.

I might say here that the movement in higher education is in the direction of greater uses of library services so that we may expect in the future, because of the very large loads that are placed upon the classroom, it will mean more independent study on the part of all students and especially students of high competency and the libraries will be called upon far more in the future for that reason than they ever have been in the past.

The American Library Association has recently promulgated standards for academic libraries which we believe to be sound and reasonable. They specify for libraries of 4-year institutions a minimum of 50,000 well-selected volumes, a staff of three full-time professional librarians with adequate clerical help, and an annual expenditure equal to 5 percent of the total budget of the institution for educational and general purposes.

According to current data, the libraries in almost half of the 4-year institutions have fewer than 50,000 volumes; in fact, one of every five has fewer than 25,000 volumes. They are as badly off in terms of staff since half of them have no more than three full-time staff members, including nonprofessional employees.

I call attention to the fact Mr. Chairman, that the size of a library for such an institution is determined not simply by the number of students or the number of faculty in an institution but by the volume of books that are essential to cover the subject matter necessary for study in such an institution.

Mr. BAILEY. If you will permit at this time, I would like to make an observation, that the late Will Rogers must have sensed this situation. I happened to be present in Columbus, Ohio, at the dedication of a huge football stadium that seats about 82,000 or 84,000 people. You know, Will was a fellow who would not let anybody dictate to him as to what he should say and, of course, they had brought Will there as a sort of an extra impetus to their big dedication services. He went on to tell how much the stadium cost and how many people it would accommodate. He stopped in one of his dramatic pauses and said, "They tell me that this stadium will seat 84,000 people. I would like to remind you that they only have 37,000 books in the university library." He must have said "inadequate."

Mr. MCMURRIN. It tells a very important story, certainly, and it is all too true in many institutions.

Mr. BAILEY. Proceed.

Mr. MCMURRIN. The minimum standards for libraries in 2-year institutions are slightly lower, but the picture is more serious. The standards specify a collection of 20,000 well-selected volumes, a staff of two full-time professional librarians, and a budget of 5 percent of total institutional expenditures for educational and general purposes. It is estimated that the libraries of 6 out of 10 2-year colleges fail to measure up to these standards.

In 1959-60 our 2,000 colleges and universities spent for the operation of libraries about $100 million, or 3 percent of their budget for educational and general purposes. It would have required an addi