senior citizens, and the population movement from rural to urban or suburban areas. A coordinated national program of library development is needed that will include school libraries, public libraries, college and university libraries, and the training of librarians to staff these libraries in order to strengthen the Nation through information and education.

In the United States, there are approximately 8,000 public libraries and probably less than 100 are able to provide a high quality of service needed in this modern age. Public library development could be greatly enhanced by removal of the population limitation of 10,000 or less so that urban public libraries might be eligible for the needed benefits of this program.

In recent years we have been talking about raising the quality of instruction in our schools. One of the determining factors in the quality of any school is the quality of the library. More than 10,600,000 children and young people go to public schools where there are no school libraries. School library development is needed particularly in the elementary schools. It is alarming that 66 percent of our elementary schools in the Nation do not have libraries. In the State of West Virginia only 1 county out of 55 provides countywide school library service at the elementary level.

College and university libraries also face many major problems today. There are more than 2,000 institutions of higher education in the United States. A few of these have excellent libraries but the majority report that they cannot adequately meet the demands of current instruction and research. This means that there are a large number of small college and university libraries in the United States with very limited resources and most of them find it difficult to provide the books, periodicals, and other library materials, equipment, and the staff necessary for high quality instructional and research programs. The American Library Association standards for 4-year college libraries state that there should be a minimum of 50,000 carefully selected volumes, a staff of 3 full-time professional librarians with adequate clerical help, and a budget of at least 5 percent of the total institutional expenditures for educational and general purposes. Latest statistics indicate that libraries in almost 60 percent of the 4-year colleges have fewer than 50,000 volumes.

In West Virginia of the fifteen 4-year colleges, only 3 reported book collections of over 50,000 volumes and of these only 1 reported over 60,000 volumes as of June 30, 1961. College libraries must be raised to a high level of excellence in materials, services, and staff.

There has been, and will continue to be, a tremendous increase in student population of institutions of higher education. The enrollment has practically doubled in the past decade and the Office of Education estimates that in 1970 the student population will reach more than 7 million as compared to 3.6 million in 1960. More and better library materials must be provided by our colleges and universities to meet the needs of this influx of students in this scientific and technical age.

College and university libraries, confronted by these expanding demands, face another problem with the rapidly rising cost of library materials and services. Books, periodical subscriptions, binding, supplies, salaries, and wages have risen steadily during the past decade.

There is an extensive shortage of librarians throughout the country in each type of library which makes it more difficult to properly staff many libraries. It is estimated that in order to bring our libraries up to the accepted standards we need approximately 10,000 more librarians for public libraries, 112,000 for school libraries, and 3,000 for college and university libraries.

These are some of the problems facing libraries during this critical period. The continued progress of the Nation requires quality library services at all levels to strengthen the scientific, technical, economic, and intellectual development of our society. The problems of public libraries, school libraries, and college and university libraries are interrelated and we should have a coordinated national program, such as this bill would provide, so that these problems can be attacked together.

The important thing is to make books and other library materials available in sufficient quantity and quality to all of our citizens for the security and well-being of our country.

The West Virginia Library Association and the American Library Association firmly believe that Federal assistance should be extended not only to rural public libraries but also to other public libraries, public school libraries, and college and university libraries. Therefore, we hope that favorable consideration will be given to this bill. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the privilege of appearing before this committee.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Scott, do you have any questions?

Mr. SCOTT. No, thank you.

Mr. BAILEY. May I inquire, sir, somewhere in your testimony you state that only 1 county out of 55 provides countywide school library service at the elementary level.

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, sir. That county is Wood County.

Mr. BAILEY. Would the passage of this legislation enable that field to be broadened so as to bring more in?

Mr. SCOTT. It would greatly enhance the chances for improving school library service in the State of West Virginia.

Mr. BAILEY. Outside of the library association, that is created by State statute, is it not?

Mr. Scort. The library association?

Mr. BAILEY. Yes, for West Virginia libraries. How would they administer these Federal funds?

Mr. SCOTT. The association would not administer the funds at all. These would be under the public schools.

Mr. BAILEY. The department of schools.

Mr. SCOTT. The State department of education, I would say.
Mr. BAILEY. What do they have?

Mr. SCOTT. You would be interested in this, Congressman Bailey. For the first time we will have a school library supervisor in the State of West Virginia this year. In the last legislature, the money was passed to provide in the budget for a position of supervisor of school library services for the entire State of West Virginia.

That is something we have needed for a long time and we finally got the position approved. We have not yet, however, filled the position. We are looking very diligently, trying to find the proper person

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but from the testimony you have heard of the shortage of trained professional librarians, we are running into that difficulty in trying to fill this position of school library supervisor.

Mr. BAILEY. It looks like you are anticipating passage of this legislation.

Mr. SCOTT. We certainly hope so but the school library supervisor will help us in any case.

Mr. BAILEY. I am sorry that time will not permit me to ask you a lot of questions I would like to ask but let me thank you for your appearance here and your interest in pushing this legislation to final approval by the Congress. It has been a pleasure to hear your presentation of the situation in my home State.

May I say that I will be in your corner in trying to get this legislation approved.

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.

Mr. BAILEY. The next witness is Dr. Robert B. Downs of the University of Illinois.

Dr. Downs, will you further identify yourself to the reporter?
Please proceed with your statement.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT B. DOWNS, DEAN OF LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND DIRECTOR OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Mr. Downs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Robert Downs. I am dean of library administration and director of the Graduate School of Library Science at the University of Illinois. As former president of the American Library Association and of the Association of College and Research Libraries, I have had an opportunity to become acquainted with the major types of libraries in the United States and their complex problems. It will be my purpose to present some reasons why H.R. 11823 is highly important and should be enacted by this Congress.

In the past, we have tended to think of particular aspects of the library field, attempting, for example, to deal with the needs and problems of public libraries, or school libraries, or libraries in institutions of higher education, or of library education in isolation. We have gradually come to realize that national library service is an indivisible whole. One of the most significant features of H.R. 11823 is its recognition of the interdependence of libraries, each type complementing and supplementing the others. Weaknesses in one library area almost inevitably are a handicap elsewhere. For example, public libraries are constantly being called upon to provide library service to students at all levels-elementary, secondary, and college; the colleges and universities do much adult education work, which is usually considered the special province of the public library; and library schools are concerned with training personnel for every variety of library.

In the universities, we are especially aware of these interrelationships. The students who come to us from communities with good school and public libraries, who have formed reading habits at an early

age and been taught how to use books and libraries have a running start on students from communities lacking adequate library service. The rate of scholastic failures is far higher among poor readers.

Another feature of H.R. 11823 which seems to me of great merit is the proposal to broaden the scope of the original Library Services Act. In relation to public libraries, the present legislation is limited to areas of 10,000 population or less. Certainly there is no question of the woeful inadequacies of library service in many small towns and rural areas of the United States. All census studies, however, show that we have become a predominantly urban people. The problems of providing library service to the huge concentrations of population in urban and suburban areas are putting severe strains on the financial and other resources of those communities.

As a university librarian, am naturally most directly and intimately concerned with matters of college and university library service. The basic factor here, affecting the whole world of higher education, is the mounting tide of student enrollment. The growth in recent years has been almost geometrical. In 1946-47, reflecting the large influx of returning war veterans, the number of college students in the United States for the first time exceeded 2 million. In 1957, enrollment went past the 3 million mark, and in 1961-62 the figure was approximately 4 million. By 1965, the American Council on Education projects a total of 5 million, and by 1970, 7 million.

Meanwhile, confronted by expanding demands on every front, college and university libraries have been caught in an upward spiral of inflation. They have seen books, periodical subscriptions, binding, equipment, supples, and all other costs in a virtually unbroken rise. Faculties and staffs have multiplied, new departments have been created requiring additional library facilities. The rate of publishing and the varety of materials published are being stepped up sharply. In its relation to college and university libraries, H.R. 11823 is concerned only in aiding with the financing of books and other publications, but this is among the most important and troublesome aspects of the present situation because of the inflation in costs of materials. During the past 15 years, average subscription prices to periodicals, for example, have more than doubled. The largest increases have occurred in mathematics, chemistry, physics, botany, geology, and other branches of science.

Mr. BAILEY. Would the witness suggest that this committee investigate the increased prices of periodicals and publications?

Mr. Downs. Of course, it is a reflection of inflation in the rest of the economy. The publishers will tell you they must increase costs because the costs of printing are higher, the paper, every aspect of their operation is higher.

Mr. BAILEY. The impulse is strong to do just that, but I am not contemplating it right now.

Thank you.

Mr. Downs. I think a few typical instances of such increases might be worthwhile. The Journal of Pharmacology, for example, has increased its subscription price from $18 to $40; Science Abstracts has jumped its price from $19 a year to $96 a year. Those are just typical of hundreds of such increases.

Another highly significant factor is the ever-widening geographical scope of library collecting activities. With few exceptions, American libraries have traditionally limited their procurement efforts to materials in Western European languages. But with the increasingly important role played by the United State in world politics, the recognition of certain critical areas of the world, and the numerous studyarea programs being developed in colleges and universities, the Nation's research libraries are undertaking aggressive and ambitious acquisition plans in languages and regions previously unknown to or neglected by them.

An obvious conclusion to these facts is that college and university libraries must find additional sources of financial assistance if quality and strength are to be maintained in higher education and educational standards not permitted to sink into mediocrity. Increased appropriations from their parent institutions, Federal aid, foundation grants, and a proper share of research contract funds seem the most logical and promising sources from which to meet a rapidly developing crisis.

There will doubtless be a temptation, as huge student enrollments begin to swamp university campuses, to cheapen the quality of educational programs. Confronted by multitudes of students, some colleges and universities will resort to mass methods of instruction. Their faculties may return to the old single-textbook plan for undergraduates. Institutions concerned with producing well-educated citizens, however, will avoid such techniques. In every way possible they will encourage independent work and study on the part of students, and for them the library will be the heart of the educational process.

Certainly, at more advanced levels, scholars and graduate students in the humanities and social sciences recognize libraries as indispensable laboratories. Books and journals are equally essential to the pure and applied sciences, for the scientist, like the humanist, and social scientist, requires records of previous investigations and experiments to save him from duplication of effort and to provide a foundation for further progress.

Finally, I want to stress the basic importance of title IV in the pending bill, providing for library training institutes. Professionally trained librarians are desperately needed in every branch of librarianship. As director since 1943 of one of the leading library schools, I have seen a shortage which begun during World War II become steadily more acute. The Wall Street Journal recently estimated that the national deficiency in librarians is about 18,000. That figure probably did not include school libraries. Meanwhile, the 32 accredited library schools of the country produce annually about 10 percent of that number. Every new library school graduate has an average of at least 15 job offers from which to choose.

Mr. BAILEY. The committee is to understand that there are 32 institutions of learning in the Nation that offer special training in libraries?

Mr. Downs. The 32 schools are those accredited by the American Library Association, which is the accrediting agency for graduate library education programs. Actually, there are many more institutions in the country which offer some type of undergraduate library