Jeanne Hurley Simon
Chairperson
U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
The Herzfeld Auditorium
Hannan Hall
Catholic University
Washington, D.C.
7:00 pm
30 March 1995
Thank you for that wonderful introduction, Dean Aversa. It is an honor to be invited to deliver the sixth annual Elizabeth W. Stone Lecture at Catholic University's School of Library and Information Science. And it is a pleasure to join all of you this evening.
Truly, this lecture provides an occasion to pay tribute to this fine University, to the Catholic University of America's School of Library and Information Science, to Professor Emeritus Betty Stone, and to the example that Dean Stone's hard work, enthusiasm, and her dedication provides for librarians and non-librarians alike.
As the first Dean of Catholic University's Graduate Department of Library and Information Science, and as Professor Emeritus, Betty Stone exemplifies a librarian, an educator, and a leader. She is a source of continual inspiration; a model for the library profession.
I am thrilled to deliver this lecture. I am also honored to meet Dean Stone. If legends are historically accurate, Betty, your great energy, your vigor, and your ability to inspire collaboration, are unmatched. I have heard amazing stories about your capacity to work long into the night, to return early the next morning with only a few hours of rest, and your eagerness to chair even more meetings. There are even stories about sleeping on an office couch in order to devote more time to work!
No wonder your professional accomplishments are so prodigious! And what a list of accomplishments: President of the American Library Association, Chair of the ALA's National Library Week Committee which developed the popular and ubiquitous blue-and-white library logo symbol, President of the Association of American Library Schools, President of the District of Columbia Library Association, the list goes on and on....
Betty, your ability to coordinate, organize, and inspire colleagues to work together, along with stories about collecting owl statues, your passion for lemon ice-cream, and, especially, your ability to write wonderful "thank you" notes, are all legends among your peers in the library and information science field.
The stories reflect more then accomplishment. They reflect a personal affection and professional respect that you well deserve.
Dean Stone's professional leadership is most apparant in her recognition of the essential need for continuing education for librarians. In fact, with the support of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science in 1973 and 1974, Betty Stone directed a project to study the establishment of a nation-wide program to address the continuing education needs of professional librarians, library technicians, and library trustees.
The study recommended the establishment of a Continuing Library Education Network and Exchange (CLENE) to provide easy access to leadership expertise, as well as program and resource assistance. Dean Stone's work on the conceptual framework for CLENE at that critical time demonstrates her foresight and wisdom.
Also, your service as the Executive Director of CLENE reflects your ability and leadership. The recent rapid development of the Internet and the challenges these networking technologies present for libraries and librarians highlight the importance of Dean Stone's continuing education work.
The library profession and those of us who benefit from libraries have a great deal to thank you for, Betty. You have set an enviable record of achievement and accomplishment and I am pleased to dedicate this lecture to the outstanding example your career provides for all of us here tonight, as well as for our colleagues throughout the library and information science professions.
Among Betty Stone's 15 published monographs is a comprehensive study of American Library Development: 1600-1899, written in 1977. Don't worry, my lecture tonight on The Role of NCLIS in American Library Development is not quite as ambitious.
So you can relax. We're not going to cover three centuries of library development in a single lecture! Rather, my lecture concentrates on the mission, purpose, and mandate of the National Commission, not on the full array of programmatic studies, reports, studies, policy recommendations, Conferences, hearings, and plans that this small federal micro-agency has accomplished over the last 25 years.
Since NCLIS was established in 1970, tonight's lecture covers only the last quarter century. We will leave the job of extending Dean Stone's comprehensive history of library development to other, younger colleagues.
I selected an historical perspective for this evening's lecture quite deliberately. History helps us understand the present. History offers a context for today's news. And, if you are at all like me, today's changing news demands an historical perspective to help comprehension. Indeed, our sanity requires this perspective.
News stories are everywhere about radical and fundamental ways to "re-invent", "re-define", "re-position", "re-structure", "re-duce", or "re-incarnate", government -- usually by the wholesale elimination of social programs. Washington seems to be caught up in a feverish rush towards change -- at least, the impatient House of Representatives is lusting for quick and dramatic change.
We can only hope that the proposals for changing government programs and for funding cuts will, ultimately, be tempered by policies and provisions that strengthen our society and unite our national community. This hope is what supports the work of the National Commission, in the belief that thoughtful advice on national policy issues is essential if the information needs of the people of the United States are to be addressed.
Thinking back over the years since the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) was established in 1970 offers perspective on the past two decades of change and the impact of these changes on America's libraries. Indeed, trends over the last two decades have resulted in remarkable developments and profound changes in libraries and information services.
However, these changes may only preface more revolutionary changes in the future. In fact, some predict that libraries and information services will be transformed in a few years. Future changes may outpace those of the last two and-a-half decades as advances in communications and information services create new opportunities and challenges for society.
This evening's lecture offers perspective and provides some observations about the status and condition of libraries and information services in the United States by examining the purpose, role, and mission of the National Commission in relation to American library development.
I believe we can best prepare for the challenges and opportunities of the future by a careful and thoughtful analysis of our history -- hence, the subject of this evening's lecture.
Actually, this lecture serves a dual purpose. Not only is it an opportunity to honor Dean Stone's contributions to the library profession, it is part of a year-long celebration to mark the National Commission's twenty-fifth anniversary year. Established in 1970 by Public Law 91-345, the Commission will begin it's 25th year this coming July on the anniversary of the enactment of our enabling statute.
The members and staff of the National Commission are planning a series of activities and events to mark a year-long celebration of this landmark date. You will be hearing more about these plans later this spring. We hope to involve many in the library and information services community to help the Commission celebrate twenty-five years of national service, dedicated to meeting the information needs of the American people.
Many of the ideas included in this lecture result from work of the Commissioners and NCLIS staff over the last several months. In preparing the Commission's response to the Administration's National Performance Review - Phase Two initiative (NPR 2) we have addressed questions about the essential mission and purpose of government. Phase one of NPR in 1994 concentrated on how government operates in a customer-driven, streamlined mode. Phase two of NPR concentrates on defining what government should (and should not) be doing.
Vice President Gore launched NPR 2 with a memorandum to each federal executive-branch agency head earlier this year. To quote from the Vice President's 3 January 1995 memorandum:
"This phase two NPR review will examine the basic missions of government, looking at every single government program and agency to find and eliminate things that don't need to be done by the federal government. It will also sort out how best to do the things government should continue to do."
The Commission's response to the Vice President's charge took the form of a five-page agency options review, sent to the Office of Management and Budget in late February. The report addressed the question:
"If your agency were eliminated, how would the goals or programs of your agency be undertaken - by other agencies, by states or localities, by the private sector, or not at all?"
Why am I going in to this detail about NPR 2? What relation does this latest federal reform effort have to American library development?
Well, the Commission is taking the Vice President's charge very seriously. We are examining whether there is a need for NCLIS in the future. We are examining what our government would be like if there were no independent, advice-giving, citizens' group like the National Commission to make recommendations to elected leaders.
The NPR 2 process requires every agency to identify just exactly why it should continue to function as an essential federal responsibility. It forces us to define the role of government today and in the future. And it forces an agency to examine the consequences of elimination.
The Commission's conclusion is that NCLIS fulfills a critical role in determining the need for policies to assure that all the people of the U.S. have the opportunity to participate in the global information age.
NCLIS's existence is unique to our democratic society. It's function is inherently governmental. No other national, independent, governmental organization is charged to determine the library and information needs of the people, with special attention to the needs of rural areas, the economically, socially, or culturally deprived, and to the elderly.
The Commission does not represent libraries or the library profession. In fact, only five of fourteen NCLIS members are professional librarians or information professionals. Rather, the Commission provides an independent basis for evaluating policy options for achieving national goals in response to the needs of the all the people of the nation.
As I mentioned earlier, our NPR 2 agency report was submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a few weeks ago. We now wait, along with all the other Executive Branch agencies (including the Department of Education) for the Vice President's "reinventing government" or "re-go" recommendations and options.
We read about the results of several agency's recommendations for downsizing and restructuring earlier this week in Tuesday's Washington Post. President Clinton announced the cuts by saying:
"You can reinvent government, cut costs to the taxpayers, without a mean spirit or a meat axe."
The proposals for changes at the Department of Interior, the Federal Emergency and Management Administration, Small Business Administration, and at NASA are just the beginning of a series of dramatic and fundamental changes in the federal government.
NPR 2 provides an opportunity to re-examine programs, missions, and agency structures in an effort to re-define the nature and character of government. The NPR 2 process has enabled the Commission to review the role of NCLIS in the development of American libraries since 1970.
As a result of this review, I am more convinced than ever that the National Commission's role is essential, now and into the future.
The NPR 2 review enabled the Commission to see our historic mission from a contemporary perspective. This lecture continues this process by examining the original rationale for establishing NCLIS, by reviewing the Commission's mission, goals, and purpose, and, finally, by reviewing the Commission's mandate from today's perspective.
From the very beginning, an organization quickly adopts a unique approach to fulfilling its charge. This approach determines the structure, style, and character that are reflected in all subsequent activities. Whether in the case of the Catholic University of America's School of Library and Information Science, or for NCLIS, an organizational "stamp" reflects those individuals responsible for its existence at the point of original creation.
At the beginning, the Commission's whole rationale and character were set by the nation's chief executive: President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science did not just spring into existence when President Richard M. Nixon signed Public Law 91-345 on 20 July 1970. There was a preceedent.
When the Commission's predecessor, the National Advisory Commission on Libraries (NACL), was created by President Johnson's Executive Order 11301 on 2 September 1966, he posed the following three questions:
These questions reveal concerns about network development, effectiveness, and efficiency. Amazingly enough, almost 30 years later, the same concerns are reflected by the questions posed in our current Administration's NPR 2 initiative.
President Johnson's statement which accompanied the 1966 Executive order establishing the NACL continued as follows:
"I have asked the Commission to appraise the role and adequacy of our libraries now and in the future, as sources for scholarly research, as centers for the distribution of knowledge, and as links in our nation's rapidly evolving communications networks.
"I have also asked the Commission to evaluate policies, programs, and practices of public agencies and private organizations -- and to recommend actions which might be taken by public and private groups to ensure an effective, efficient library system for the nation.
"I believe that this new Commission, aided by public and private efforts, will bring real advances in our progress toward adequate library service for every citizen.
President Johnson's 1966 Executive Order charged the NACL with the following four functions:
1.) to make a comprehensive study and appraisal of the role of libraries;
2.) to appraise those public and private entities which affect library utilization;
3.) to appraise library funding in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency;
4.) to develop recommendations for action.
By the time that the statute creating NCLIS was enacted a few years later in 1970, the work of the NACL provided a conceptual framework for the new Commission's activities. The July 1968 publication of Library Services for the Nation's Needs: The Report of the National Advisory Commission on Libraries presents policy issues into the following six topic areas relating to libraries and information services:
NACL's assessments and investigations resulted in a series of recommendations addressing a number of inadequacies requiring "A variety of...sustained, consistent, and evolutionary...responses...with a substantial degree of Federal leadership and participation."
This recognition of the need for a sustained approach argues for a permanent policy presence. Commission activities over the last quarter-century reveal a consistency of approach that was established from the very beginning. The same six library and information policy topics relating to organization/structure, needs of users, economics, evaluation, new technologies, and human resources, also form the core of the most recent NCLIS orientation session held last March in Atlanta, GA.
This orientation meeting provided all NCLIS members, both newly appointed, as well as those in the midst of their five-year terms, an opportunity to review current and past NCLIS program activities, and to develop priorities and plans for the future. The titles of the various topics we considered were:
Material prepared for the NCLIS orientation meeting last year reviewed previous Commission involvement in these seven policy topic areas, citeded the relationship to the 1991 White House Conference on Library and Information Services (WHCLIS) recommendations, and summarized relevant current activities in order to assist NCLIS members in preparing prioritizing the seven topics. The background information about each of these seven policy topics is included in an appendix to the Commission's 1994 Annual Report. Copies are available this evening for those attending this lecture.
Over the past two decades, the nation's libraries and information service organizations have progressed from a fascination with data processing, automation, and microform technologies to a preoccupation with the revolutionary transformations associated with society's transition into the Information Age. Throughout these changing times, the National Commission's work has concentrated on our original purpose and mission. The progress of the last quarter century results from cooperation and coordination between the various national, state, and local governments, as well as through the involvement of private agencies. Now we are discovering that the library community is at the vanguard of a new era created by the convergence of the computing and communication industries.
Rarely has there been a more exciting, confusing, troublesome or potentially more transformational development involving the future of the library than the recent convergence of computing and telecommunications technologies. The transformational nature of this convergence affects all aspects of the information creation-representation-transmission-dissemination-and publication process, by which ideas are authored and absorbed. And the National Commission is once again at the center of the process of change through our recent work related to the role of libraries and the Internet.
The institutional consequences of this transformation are causing deep soul-searching and examination by librarians and other information professionals, as students, public policy officials, and private industry representatives move rapidly forward to implement change. Change is forcing us to adjust our view of essential information functions in new ways, with new partners, and with different criteria. Old formulae are being questioned and policy alternatives are being considered. NCLIS is involved in fundamental ways, investigating, researching, convening, recommending, listening, and acting.
A few minutes ago I quoted from President Johnson's 1966 executive order establishing the NACL. Now listen to comments made this past January by a contemporary national elected official:
"We should strive for every child in America, in every school in America, no matter how rural, no matter how poor, to have electronic access to the world of knowledge. That is a national asset. We should strive to make it easy for every scholar to interact electronically. That's a national asset. And the work done [at the Library of Congress] and the work done at other libraries across the country are the most cost-effective investment in learning that we make. And they have all to often been neglected because they don't have a big union and they don't have a big lobby and they don't count in the way people keep score nowadays, but, if you care about knowledge, here is a place to spend more, not less money, and here is a place that someone may well begin matching challenge grants from the Congress and in innovative approaches, but there are ways to leverage the Library of Congress to spread the opportunity for prosperity and the opportunity for freedom across this planet."
This quote reflects President Johnson's concerns about the role of libraries in communication network development and about the benefit of the public investment in libraries. President Johnson was a Democrat. Newt Gingrich is no Democrat, but the passage I just quoted was taken from remarks that the Speaker of the House made at the Library of Congress in early January 1995 when the new online public Internet system called THOMAS was announced.
Many things have changed over the years in politics, but I am pleased to note a striking similarity between President Johnson's 1966 instructions to the National Advisory Commission on Libraries and the recent remarks by the Speaker of the House earlier this year.
This consistency between Johnson, the architect of the Great Society, and the current Speaker, whose Contract With America is dismantling many welfare state programs, is reason for optimism. It is also part of the rationale for why we continue to need the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science as the only agency at the national level with responsibility for advising and recommending policy to the President and the Congress (regardless of majority party).
We have achieved our current state of library development in America through the coordination and dedication of millions of librarians, patrons, and citizens. But we face significant challenges in the future. In order to respond to these challenges and to lead our nation into the global information age, we need the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.
Thank you for your attention to these concerns.