The views, opinions, and recommendations expressed in this Report do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Center for Education Statistics, the Office of Library Programs and the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning of the U.S. Department of Education, or the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information ScienceThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences -- Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Library and Information Services Policy Forum
General Information, Focus Groups Summary Reports on Focus Group Sessions
Agenda, 1995 Library and Information Services Policy Forum
List of Participants
The third annual Library and Information Services Policy Forum, jointly sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the Office of Library Programs (LP), the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning (NIPELLL) of the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) was held in Washington, DC, on May 15 and 16, 1995. In addition to federal officials from the
U.S. Department of Education, the Library of Congress, the Department of Commerce, NCES, and NCLIS, the Forum involved library administrators, officers of library and information service associations, government officials, educators, researchers, and statisticians. Dr. David P. Boesel, Acting Director, National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning served as the Forum Moderator.
This year's Forum focused on Changes in Library and Information Services: 1996-2001, and included forecasts for the next five years regarding economic, social, and technological changes, and changes in education.
Economic -- Gail Makinen (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress). If a recession occurs, it should be short and shallow because interest and inflation rates are already low. The Federal Reserve will try to engineer a soft landing. Possible pitfalls are foreign economics, supply shocks, and the behavior of the American public in general, e.g., influences on spending of optimism or pessimism.
Social -- P. Royal Shipp (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress). There are not many social forecasts; most forecasts come about with respect to legislation. The following factors make optimism difficult: sense of moral decline, age of great uncertainty, globalization of economy, lack of common purpose, aging of population.
Technological -- Jane Bortnick Griffith (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress). Technology will continue to develop at a very rapid pace and computing power will continue to expand. Storage capacity and interconnectivity will increase; network bandwidth will grow; and globalization will continue. Software will become more sophisticated and user-friendly. There will be more and more data available in distributed modes, from more and more channels of information, with the pace getting faster and faster and with less time in which to process the information. The challenge for libraries is integrating traditional formats with electronic formats. There are unique opportunities for library and information science professionals, i.e., finding useful information, verifying what is real and accurate, serving as knowledge navigators, knowing how to organize and index large amounts of information, participating in and/or organizing peer reviews and synthesis of electronic information.
Education -- Luncheon speaker Ramsay Selden, Director, State Education Assessment Center, Council of Chief State School Officers, spoke on Changes in Education: 1996-2001. Mr. Selden stated that the overriding factor will be the federal attempt to balance the federal budget by 2002. For the next couple of years, he predicted there will be nothing more than level funding (in education) and beyond that substantial cutbacks in every domestic program. There will be consolidation and reorganization of federal education programs. All in all, he noted, it is not a particularly rosy picture.
According to Mr. Selden, the overriding education issues over the next five years will be:
A Special Francis Keppel Award for the development of the NCES/NCLIS Library Statistics Program was presented to the Hon. Emerson J. Elliott, NCES Commissioner, 1988-1995. Mr. Elliott expressed his surprise and pleasure for the award stating, "I have been especially pleased to work on library statistics, partly because everyone's so energetic and enthusiastic."
Focus Groups
The major portion of time at the Form was devoted to five concurrent focus group sessions on the following topics:
The groups were asked to focus their discussions on seven questions outlined on pp. 51-52.
Following are some of the key observations and recommendations of the several Focus Groups:
National Level Changes
--A spur for innovation, a catalyst for change;
--Provide assurance for public access to government information;
--Recognize and deal with the equity issues relating to the information 'haves and have nots';
--Attend to the issues of copyright and seek a balance between
the rights of
authors and the needs of users in terms of fair use.
State and Library System Changes
Public Library Changes
School Library Media Center Changes
for teaching and learning.
Academic Library Changes
These key points reported and provided by the Focus Group chairs and recorders were greatly enriched by the total Forum discussions which followed the report of each group and are included in these Proceedings.
Library and Information Services Policy Forum
Changes in Library and Information Services: 1996-2001
Monday, May 15-16, 1995
Washington, DC
General Session
9:30 - 11:30 a.m.
I would like to ask everyone to introduce themselves and to indicate if they attended the second Forum held a year ago. I want to do this exercise because this meeting room is easily twice as large as last year's meeting room. I think the size of this year's group represents a certain maturing of this organization, which is wonderful. I am delighted that our friends from the Congressional Research Service are present to take part in today's conversation, as well.
The objective of this Forum is to address public policy data needs for all types of libraries. This being Washington, DC, I know it is difficult to disentangle this issue from announcements made last week regarding the terminations of various agencies, reductions in force, and the terminations of many, many programs in the U.S. Federal Government. If you read the fine print, at least one termination prominently mentioned was that of federal library grant programs. I trust that this is not news to anyone here. But, I know that it is going to be hard to disentangle those announcements from today's conversations.
I would like to take a minute to discuss the philosophical basis for holding these Forums. It is always fun to talk about data. If you look at the agenda, you will see that it prominently features issues of an economic, sociological, and technical nature. The question behind all of it, and one which we need to have addressed for our participation in this Forum is, "Where does all this fit in from the point of view of the data that are needed by public policy makers?" Many public policy makers are in Washington, but they are not all in Washington. They are in all of our communities; they are city managers, serving on local boards, state legislatures. There are many people who have to make decisions about the future of libraries, library funding, training for libraries, and the support for libraries in this country. That is finally where we want to go. And, each of these issues is an important issue in and of itself - sociological, technological, and economic. That is what we draw out for the purposes of this conference. I think they each have a life of their own, and need to be pursued. And, you will pursue them in other Forums.
A planning Forum was held in September 1993, and it was concluded that the next Forum would look especially at the economics of library services and the impact of technology on libraries. So, in May of 1994 the second Forum was held and many of you participated and many of you did not. We want you to catch up and to be a part of this new Forum. The economic issues that were discussed in May 1994 were on the adequacy of library funding, library costs, and the impact of the library on the economy. Again, a very important conceptual issue when we are talking about dealing with people who need to understand libraries better in order to make decisions about them. What is the effect of libraries on the community and on the economy?
The technological issues focused on the impact of Internet and the National Information Infrastructure.
So, that moves us to today where we especially want to look at the changes that may be anticipated for all of the libraries with which we are dealing: public libraries, school library media centers, academic libraries, and state libraries and library systems, as well, over the period from 1996 to 2001.
Since we last met, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) has had its own authority amended and extended. One of the pieces of that authority created an institute that has a responsibility for dealing with postsecondary education and lifelong learning, and also dealing explicitly with research issues relating to libraries. I welcome the change that Congress has made in the authority for OERI because I think it offers a potential for an additional qualitative dimension to the data concerns that I know are of concern to the library community everywhere.
With those few preliminary remarks, I take great pleasure in introducing the Honorable Jeanne Hurley Simon, the Chairperson of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.
JEANNE HURLEY SIMON: Thank you so very much, Emerson.
I do want to add my welcome to this Forum on behalf of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. I also want to introduce several of the Commissioners here today: Shirley Adamovich from Durham, New Hampshire; Bob Willard from Dayton, Ohio; Carol DiPrete from Bristol, Rhode Island; Bobby Roberts from Little Rock, Arkansas. These are the outstanding Members of the Commission here today to contribute. From the Commission staff we also have Mary Alice Hedge, Associate Executive Director; Peter Young, Executive Director, is ill today, and I regret that because I lean on him very much; John Lorenz, Coordinator, Library Statistics Program; Jane Williams, Research Associate; and, of course, running the whole show are Barbara Whiteleather and Kim Miller.
As Emerson just said, this is the third Library and Information Services Policy Forum co-sponsored by NCLIS and NCES. I was here last year when I was truly surrounded by statistics that I did not understand and policies that I was just beginning to grab hold of, and probably still a little bit in the dark. I am especially pleased with the cooperation and the collaboration that these Forums (or should I say 'Fora') represent. They do reflect an interdisciplinary spirit that is proving to be essential in an era characterized by radical and revolutionary change. You have heard the word "revolutionary" lately on the House side of the Congress. Perhaps not a wise use of the word "revolutionary," but there it is.
And, which of us in library and information services are not experiencing some kind of change? For those of us in the federal sector and those of you in the libraries, associations, and/or industry, we all are increasingly aware of the impact of change on our institutions, our policies, and on the information needs of our communities. That is why I am so glad that we are talking about change this morning.
I am sure it is no secret to any of you that change is a way of our contemporary life. When the President designated me the Chairperson of this Commission in November 1993, I thought I knew a little bit about libraries. But, over the last 18 months, my vision has been expanded, and I have developed a whole new respect for the meaning of that word, "change." I have learned that technological changes brought on by networks and the global Internet are only one of the many forces that are reshaping libraries and information services. Social, economic, political, education, and policy changes in information technology will have a fundamental impact on libraries by the year 2001. But, what is most impressive to me about the changes in libraries and information services is the rapid rate with which they are coming. But, without being able to measure these changes, managers and policy makers will not have the tools they need to be effective. That is why we are here today - to develop informed projections about the state of the future.
Your assignment at this Forum is to conceptualize the future. I heard John Lorenz say, "To conceptualize the future is the real meaning of this Forum." The future is not just for ourselves, librarians, or associations. It is not just for schools, states, agencies, or constituents. It is for the people; our children, our grandchildren, and for the people of the 21st century who require adequate library services. Only then, when we have the services, can they participate fully in civic, social, intellectual, and economic life of our country.
Peter Young suggested that I quote from a Bob Dylan song that I think you all know, "The times they are a' changing. So, you better start swimming, or you will sink like a stone, because the times they are a' changing." So, right now, I think I had better start swimming by introducing David Boesel, who represents a change in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. David is the Acting Director of the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning. (Applause)
DAVID BOESEL: Thank you, Jeanne. Welcome to this Forum on Changes in Library and Information Services: 1996-2001.
It is very appropriate that we are taking on this subject at this time because we are clearly in the midst of sweeping changes, both national and international - the globalization of economies, the proliferation of information technologies and attendant social and political changes, questions of the relation of citizens to government, and the role of government in the United States.
We are today to discuss how these changes affect libraries, but also the role that libraries can play in the midst of these changes. How can libraries better meet user needs, and how can libraries better provide the kinds of information that policy makers need to make informed policy decisions? We think that is very important. Informed policy decisions.
We are rapidly approaching the year 2000, the end of the millennium. Over the course of the last decade, there have been any number of commissions and bodies that have looked at or examined their disciplines in light of the end of the millennium. We have had Goals 2000, and we have had Work Force 2000. And, now, as we actually approach the end of the millennium, the years are beginning to slip into 2001, as here, or 2002, when we all hope to have the budget balanced.
DAVID BOESEL, Acting Director, National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning. As we approach the end of this millennium and the beginning of the next, we have here a group of distinguished millenniumists, and we are going to ask them to introduce themselves and to say a few words about their affiliation and to offer one sentence or so of thought about the future as it relates to libraries. And, in the course of this, as Emerson suggested, please mention whether you were at the last conference or whether you are new at this one.
SHIRLEY ADAMOVICH, Member, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. I was not present for the last Forum. I am a former State Librarian of New Hampshire, and a former Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, which is tied into the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. We were one of the early states in collecting statistics, and it meant a very great deal to us in New Hampshire and in New England. I do work very closely with the school libraries in New England and I am happy to see them included in this Forum.
RICHARD AKEROYD, State Librarian of Connecticut. I was not present at the previous Forum, and I am looking forward to participating in this one.
JOHN BERTOT, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University. However, I will soon be with the University of Maryland's Baltimore County Department of Information Systems. Last year, I was co-author with Chuck McClure and Doug Zweizig on the NCLIS-sponsored study, Public Libraries and the Internet, with research assistance provided by Carrol Kindel and NCES. I am currentlyworking again with Chuck McClure on developing, again for NCLIS, costing models of public library Internet services.
JULIA BLIXRUD, Program Officer, Council on Library Resources. I was at last year's Forum. I look toward this Forum to give me some guidance in terms of the answers that this group might have.
LAURA BREEDEN, U.S. Department of Commerce. I direct a grant program in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. NTIA makes grants to public institutions and state and local governments so that they can acquire and use the information infrastructure. There are some grantees here, and I am sure there are some "would be" grantees here, as well. My boss, Larry Irving, has a commitment to make public schools and public libraries access points for people who might not have access otherwise and for everybody, really, to the information superhighway.
ADRIENNE CHUTE, National Center for Education Statistics, Library Statistics Unit, U.S. Department of Education.
SANDY COOPER, State Librarian in North Carolina. I was not at the last Forum, and I, too, am looking forward to this Forum as an opportunity to think and re-focus some of my own thinking on where we are going with our state and federal policies on libraries. I need to persuade our General Assembly to increase data.
EVELYN DANIEL, Professor and former Dean at the School of Library Science at the University of North Carolina. For a long time I have been interested in change, especially change propelled by information technology. I am currently chairing the American Association of School Librarians' Library Statistics Committee, and, like Joe Shubert, I, too, am an optimist and looking forward to these discussions.
BLANE DESSY, Acting Director, National Library of Education. I did attend the first meeting.
CAROL DIPRETE, Member, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and Dean for Academic Services, Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode Island. I have had a wonderful experience in dealing with statistics since I have been on the Commission, 1990. I have been to two of these Forums, and I always find them exciting because I do think data is absolutely essential as we continue to move into new areas. I am delighted that I am here.
CHRIS DUNN, Acting Director, Discretionary Grant Programs Division, Office of Library Programs. I also work with the National Center for Education Statistics on fast-response surveys and public library services for children and young adults and work on a contract that we have with Westat on the Role of School and Public Libraries in the National Education Goals.
EMERSON ELLIOTT, Commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. I am happy to be present for this, the third, annual Forum.
GORDON GREEN, Chief, Governments Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census. We collect a lot of statistical information on libraries as part of our regular program and also for our sponsor, the National Center for Education Statistics. I think the challenge for us is to use the latest technology available to produce the very best possible statistics for the library community. I was here at the previous Forum, and I am looking forward to the one this year, as well.
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH, Acting Chief of the Science and Technology Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Working in the area of policy and information technology issues, over time I have seen a growth in interest in both the awareness of and policy attention to issues of access to information.
MARY ALICE HEDGE, Associate Executive Director, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. I have been with the Commission now for 28 years. We had a Planning Forum two years ago to plan for last year's Forum, and it is just so incredibly stimulating to go back, even now, and look at the results of that Forum. Just know that what you do here today will have a resounding effect as we go on and will help policy makers as they attempt to deal with today's trying times.
GLEN HOLT, Executive Director, St. Louis Public Library. Like, my colleague Marilyn, I am a "newey." I am involved in a couple of things in St. Louis that are relevant to what we are talking about here today. We have been trying to do true cost accounting within our operation, and it has been both exciting and frustrating. We have also been trying to actually measure the value of children's services. I am looking forward to the Forum. I am grateful to be here.
BARBARA HUMES, National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning. I have been there a short time, but during the past six months I have become keenly aware of the paucity of data that we do have on the diverse libraries and the communities that they serve, and the value of that service.
[David Boesel noted that Barbara Humes is the Team Leader working on libraries and library research issues in the Institute.]
NEAL KASKE, Office of Library Programs, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. I attended last year's Forum. I am a Program Officer dealing with Higher Education Act discretionary grant programs.
CARROL KINDEL, Head of the Library Statistics Unit, National Center for Education Statistics. I was here for the first policy Forum. My main interest is in participating and hearing about the changes that you see coming so that we can keep up with the data collections and be able to have the data that are really needed to not only inform but to give the information needed as we undergo these changes.
ROBERT KLASSEN, Acting Director, Office of Library Programs, U.S. Department of Education. We have seven library grant programs, and we hope there will be continued funding for those kinds of programs. In the past we have joined the National Commission and NCES in supporting these Forums. So, we are very much interested in the data that will be collected here in our discussions.
ROSLYN KORB, Director, Postsecondary Institutional Studies Unit, National Center for Education Statistics. We do Postsecondary surveys including part of the Academic Library Survey.
ELAINE KROE, National Center for Education Statistics. I help implement the library surveys at the National Center for Education Statistics. I was not at the first Forum.
KEITH CURRY LANCE, Director, Library Research Service, Colorado Department of Education. Last summer, in Olde Town, Alexandria, Virginia, I got into a carriage with a couple of colleagues who were from other distant states, and the driver turned around and asked us why we were all there together. I said, "We are here to meet for three days about library statistics." The driver looked on us with great pity, like she could not imagine a more deadly topic for three days of meetings. I just patted her on the hand and said, "You are going to have to trust me on this. It is a more exciting topic than you could possibly imagine."
JOHN LORENZ, Coordinator, Library Statistics Program, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. I have had about 30+ years of federal library service and there is one sentence that has sustained me throughout: "This, too, shall pass away."
MARY JO LYNCH, Director, Office of Research and Statistics, American Library Association. I have been at the previous Forums, and I have worked very closely with the National Center for Education Statistics on public library statistics, school library statistics, academic library statistics, and state library statistics. I am looking forward, a lot, to this day.
GAIL MAKINEN, Specialist in Economic Policy, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. I have been at the Research Service for 11 years. If I have to talk about the future, my basic belief is that we should keep funding libraries, or information services, in general! I will vote every time I have a chance to expand libraries and library facilities, either at the local level or at the federal level. Keep up the good work.
BETTY MARCOUX, Head Librarian of a dual high school campus in Tucson, Arizona, and Adjunct Faculty Member at the University of Arizona School of Library Science. Currently, I am Chair of the Visions Guidelines Committee for the American Association of School Librarians, which is in the process of developing, and will be writing shortly, new guidelines for school library programs.
I am delighted to be here. It is my first opportunity, and I am really excited to see what we come up with.
SUSAN MARTIN, University Librarian, Georgetown University. I guess I should also mention that I am President of the Association of College and Research Libraries (but that is only for another six weeks). In Emerson's terminology, I am new; I was not at the previous Forum. I have been involved in information technology and libraries since 1964, so I guess in that sense, I am "old."
I am particularly interested in statistics and measurement. As a former Member of the ARL Statistics Committee, we felt there was a good deal to measurement of access in terms of quality in addition to quantity.
MARILYN GELL MASON, Director, Cleveland Public Library. I have been there for eight years. Previously, I was the Director of the Atlanta Public Library, and way back, in another incarnation, I was Executive Director of the first White House Conference on Library and Information Services. I believe this meeting is extremely important as we are what we measure. I think libraries, right now, are ahead of what we are measuring and without accurate measurements we have no way to communicate what we are doing to the rest of the world. I am a "newey."
JOAN MICHIE, Westat. I am directing a study looking at the role of school and public libraries in support of Goals 2000 and school reform. We are currently in our survey development phase, and I hope this Forum will be a potential source of questions for us.
KIM MILLER, Special Assistant, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.
MEB NORTON, Director of Libraries, Metairie Park Country Day School, Louisiana. This is my first Forum. I am also on the Vision Committee of the American Association of School Libraries.
PAUL EVAN PETERS, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information. Before that I was in charge of systems for New York Public Libraries and Columbia University libraries. The Coalition is a vehicle of collaborative action in the networked information environment. I published an article in Library Journal in April entitled, "Information Age Avatars." The title conveys where I am coming from; in particular, I advance the view that a number of the major questions of the quality of life in the 21st century depend upon librarians beginning to think of themselves as in the vanguard of the information age. I offer, what I hope you will find entertaining, the metaphor of librarians being "birds in the cage" for the information age. . . being held forward by our communities as they progress forward trying to determine whether the environment ahead is toxic. I am pleased to observe that in this month's issue of the Harvard Business Review there is an article entitled, "Trust in Virtual Organizations," that advances the same view. . . that libraries, with health care and a couple of other "knowledge industries" are in the vanguard of coping with the real issues of the Information Age. I was at the original Forum, and I am glad to be here today.
BABETTE 'BABS' PITT, Media Specialist, Richard Montgomery High School, Montgomery County, Maryland. In fact, I taught a class there this morning, and I am right into the new technology using PC Globe, Info-Finder, and lots of other sources using Sailor, which is a wonderful Maryland Telecommunications System. So, I am into change. I have seen pupils every day. I have been in elementary schools, although now I am in a secondary school. I think I am a perfect person for looking at change since I work with students and teachers in partnership every day. This is my first Forum.
DENNIS REYNOLDS, President, CAPCON Library Network, Washington, DC. I was at the first Forum. I am interested in the role of libraries and publicly-funded institutions.
BOBBY ROBERTS, Member, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and Director, Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock. Our System is for about 300,000 people and it is a rather odd mixture. We are the only urban library in the state. We also serve one county that is probably one of the poorest counties in the South, which I can assure you makes it very poor. As far as statistical information, we have a problem in that the type of information that is collected and that works well for urban areas is not necessarily useful when I am trying to deal with the quorum court in Perry County, Arkansas, which is a very rural county. I am very interested in what kinds of statistics we are collecting and how you deal with a conflict with what you need in an urban area and what you need in a rural area. And, I am having to deal with both of them. So, sometimes I am not sure what kind of statistics I need and what works best.
ELEANOR JO RODGER, President, Urban Libraries Council. Prior to this position, I was Executive Director of the Public Library Association. Prior to that I was a hired pen on the early output measures. My interest at this point is in understanding libraries as 'means', not as 'ends', and in the statistical and research efforts we need to talk about those 'ends' significantly.
P. ROYAL SHIPP, Acting Chief of the Education and Public Welfare Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Our Division handles support for social policy questions, including Social Security, health care, Medicare, Medicaid, education problems, welfare reform, and so forth. So, very quickly, we get into social policy issues working with the Congress. It has been a very busy time for us working with the new majority in the House and Senate.
JOSEPH SHUBERT, State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner for Libraries in New York State. I have been at the New York State Library for 17 years. Before that, I was State Librarian of Ohio and, way back, State Librarian of Nevada for three years. I was at the Forum last year.
The New York State Library is a research library for the government, people, and libraries of the State. It is a member of the Association of Research Libraries. The State Library has a Division of Library Development, which has responsibility for the continuous improvement of New York's 7,000 libraries and the cooperative systems which support them. The Library Development program is supported by $81 million in state aid. We also administer the Federal Library Services and Construction Act in New York State.
Discussion of change and the future of library services is important because people's library and information service needs are changing. Statistics are important as libraries change to meet people's needs for information and education.
GARY STRONG, Director, Queens Borough Public Library. Previously, I was the California State Librarian. Prior to that I was the Deputy Director of the Washington State Library. I am very interested in being here. It is the first time I have been at the Forum, but I have been in and out of the National Commission's activities, it seems like, over a lot of years. I attended the first Commission hearings in 1967 in Seattle, so this view is one that is long in coming in terms of the collaborative nature of it. I am interested in that collaboration that is emerging as we look at the policy issues that really need to be answered. While I am interested in measurement in statistics, I am far more interested in the policy issues that are facing libraries today.
BETTY TUROCK, Director, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University. I have been there for about ten years. Prior to that time, I held administrative posts in eight states in school, academic, but mostly in public libraries. I am President-elect of the 57,000 member American Library Association (ALA). That number tends to move Congress when I speak to them. Fifty-seven thousand advocates represents a lot of votes.
The focus of my year as President of ALA will be insuring a major role for libraries in the evolving electronic national infrastructure. In fact, my theme is, "Equity on the Information Superhighway," equity for people, for libraries, and for Nations. One of the things I learned as a very active, traveling President-elect is that decisionmakers need facts about libraries. When I testified before Congress, or when I have had the opportunity to speak with Reed Hundt, the Federal Communication Commissioner, and to Members of Congress, they all gave me a variation on the same theme, "Show me the data. Give me the facts. What will libraries produce if they are active members of the information superhighway?" So, my interest in this Forum is keen.
ANN WEEKS, Director, School Division and the Young Adult Library Services Division at the American Library Association and the Coordinator of the National Library Power Program, which is a major initiative of the Readers Digest Fund. One of the things we are finding through that program is that school libraries can really serve as catalysts for change. I think that with a future characterized by change, kids have to have new opportunities for teaching and learning. I am delighted that school libraries are a part of this Forum this year. I was not here last year.
BARBARA WHITELEATHER, Special Assistant, Library Statistics Program, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.
ROBERT WILLARD, Member, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. I am in my second year as an NCLIS Member. In real life I work for a legal publisher and have been a fairly consistent advocate for the commercial marketplace as a primary means for meeting the library and information needs of the population. But, I also recognize the need for wise public intervention when the marketplace fails. I am interested in the topic of the future. I have three favorite quotations about the future. The first one is, "The future ain't what it used to be." Second, "If you do not know where you are going, then any way will get you there." And, the third is: "The best way to predict the future is to create it." Unfortunately, I cannot give proper attribution for any of those quotations; I have just heard them forever. However, as a student of Abraham Lincoln, I can give attribution for John Lorenz's quotation-that was actually presented by Lincoln in a speech in 1859 to some farmers in Wisconsin.
JANE WILLIAMS, Research Associate, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Last week I quoted to Chairperson Simon something that I had read recently talking about a person acting as though a moment's thought is a moment wasted. I think a Forum like this can be very important in giving us time to think. I think it is even more important given our political and fiscal climate.
JEFF WILLIAMS. National Center for Education Statistics, Library Statistics Unit, U.S. Department of Education. I am also Project Officer for the Academic Library Survey and the School Library Media Center Survey.
FRANK WITHROW, Director, Learning Technologies, Council of Chief State School Officers. I believe that the new Digital Library is essential to all education reform, and I will go so far as to say that we will not have education reform unless we have good digital libraries accessible to all of our citizens on a lifelong basis.
JEANNE HURLEY SIMON, Chairperson, U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Bob Willard, I think you are all wrong on that Abraham Lincoln quote. I think it is St. Theresa of Avila who said it a long time ago. (Laughter)
DAVID BOESEL: It is now time to turn to the presentations. We have three presentations of about 20 minutes each, and then one-half hour for discussion and general questions and comments. I ask you to hold your comments and questions until the end of the third presentation so we can maximize the opportunity for discussion.
We have three distinguished speakers here today from the Congressional Research Service.
Our first speaker is Gail Makinen, Specialist, Economic Policy, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
GAIL MAKINEN: Good morning. I would like to preface my remarks this morning with a "thank you" to all the librarians present.
Over the past nearly 30 years that I have been doing research, my success has, in no small measure, been due to the efforts of countless librarians. Yet, I seldom see these individuals whose tireless devotion to their job makes my job a lot easier. Just in case you are one of the individuals who have handled my numerous requests over the years, thanks again. You are truly the unsung heros of my life and I owe you a great debt of gratitude. It is a pleasure to acknowledge it.
This morning I have been asked to talk about the outlook for the U.S. economy for the coming five years. Let me begin by talking about where we are, right now. Our current economic expansion is 50 months old. As economic expansions go, this one is nearing middle age. If you take a look at the nine completed economic expansions since the end of World War II, their average age is exactly 50 months. So our current expansion of 50 months is average or middle-aged.
Averages, however, can conceal a great deal of variation. And so it is with business cycles. We have had two very-long economic expansions among these nine since World War II. One of them dominated the decade of the 1960's and it ran for 106 months. It is the longest economic expansion in American history. The second longest economic expansion dominated the decade of the 1980's and ran for 92 months.
We have also had some very short economic expansions, one of which lasted 12 months and another lasted 24 months.
We are now at a crucial point, I think, in the current expansion. The Federal Reserve has been attempting for the past 12 months to engineer what is termed in the newspapers, "a soft landing." Now, what exactly is a "soft landing?" Well, through interest rate hikes and decreased credit availability, the Federal Reserve has been attempting to slow the growth in aggregate demand to match the sustainable growth in our capacity to supply output. Our capacity to supply output is estimated to grow at about 2½ percent per year, and it is a combination of two factors. The estimated growth in our labor force and the estimated growth in our productivity. Our labor force is expected to grow over the decade of the 1990's by about 1 percent. Our productivity is expected to grow about 1½ percent per year.
The combination of the two, then, gives the long-run ability of the economy to grow on a sustainable basis; that is about 2½ percent. What the Federal Reserve is attempting to do through the interest rate hikes that we have had over the last 15 months and decreased credit availability is to slow the growth of demand to match the growth in our ability to supply goods and services.
The Federal Reserve will be successful if the growth of gross domestic product (GDP), which is our measure of total output, is cut to about 2½ percent. The GDP data are in for the first quarter of 1995, and what do they show? During the first quarter, GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.7 percent. While that number is going to be subject to some revision, it seems to indicate that the Federal Reserve is about on target.
During 1994, for example, GDP grew 4 percent, approximately. During the fourth quarter of 1994, it grew at an annual rate of 5 percent. So, it appears that these interest rate hikes that we have seen and the decreased availability of credit are, in fact, beginning to take hold since GDP growth has been reduced to a little under 3 percent. However, there is weakness in that growth rate number. The principal weakness has to do with the fact that about 35percent of the extra output produced in the first quarter of this year - I am not talking about the total output produced in the first quarter, but just the extra output produced over what we were producing in the fourth quarter - was not sold. It was added to inventories. Now, this is not necessarily bad. After all, the fourth quarter was a time of good sales, and you have to replenish the shelves a bit. But 35percent of the new (additional) output produced in the first quarter of this year was simply added to inventories, it was not sold.
If this continues on into the second and third quarters of this year, production will have to be adjusted downward to match the decrease in demand. When that occurs, the possibility looms of a recession. When we starting cutting back production to match demand, there is the possibility of a recession.
However, if a recession does occur later this year, and I will talk about the possibility of that, it should be a very short and shallow recession for one important reason. That being that inflation is not very serious right now. We have a very low inflation rate for this point in the business cycle. A primary reason for past recessions has been to deal with an inflation rate that policy makers believed was too high. The resulting recession with its decline in demand and rise in unemployment has been the traditional means for dealing with inflation. We create a recession. The purpose of the recession is to get the inflation rate down.
If we should have weakness in demand this time around, or a recession, it is going to be because of difficulties in fine-tuning an economy through monetary policy, not because we need to reduce an inflation rate that policy makers think is too high. I emphasize fine-tuning the economy through monetary policy. There is no magical formula for its executions. The Federal Reserve has raised the interest rate seven times between February 1994 and February 1995. There have been seven rate hikes. This has been done with a lot of judgment involved. There is no magic formula that says, "If you raise the federal funds rate from 3 percent to 8 percent you will slow economic growth down from 5 percent to 3 percent." There is no rule like that. A lot of these adjustments are based on historical evidence. Sometimes, the Federal Reserve does make mistakes. It tightens up too much.
If signs of weakness in the economy do occur, these signs will be of two types. First of all we will see GDP growth slowing down considerably; it will be below
2½ percent and, second, the unemployment rate will rise above 6 percent. If the unemployment rates rises above 6 percent, the Federal Reserve will realize that it has made a mistake. It has tightened too much. Because there is no serious inflation problem, it will be able to reverse its policy course immediately.
Had there been a substantial inflation problem, the Federal Reserve would have had to wait until the evidence showed that the inflation rate was down before it reversed policy. By this time around, since inflation is not a serious problem, if the Federal Reserve made a mistake by tightening too quickly, too much, it can reverse policy very, very quickly. It would not take much time to do so.
My discussion thus far raises the question, "What is the possibility of a recession coming in the next 12 months?" Or, put another way, "What is the possibility that the Federal Reserve will be successful in engineering a soft landing?" I can go to two sources for an answer to those questions.
First of all I can take a look at the economic forecasts that have been made. There are plenty of people making economic forecasts. They are in the academic community, in the financial community, and in the business community. These people make forecasts that are updated monthly. The most recent forecasts I have are for the month of May; they were prepared in April. These forecasts say that, almost to a person, (and I look at about 50 of them), the Federal Reserve is going to be successful, that is, it will be successful in engineering a soft landing. Almost all of the forecasts, if you look at the next 12-18 months, expect GDP growth to be 2-3 percent; that the unemployment rate will be kept close to 6 percent; and that the inflation rate will be low. That is the evidence from the forecasters. There is also other evidence. There are a lot of people out there who put money on the line and they put it into the stock market. The stock market may be a good indicator of whether the investing public thinks that the Federal Reserve will be successful. Well, what have we recently observed? Over the first five months of this year, the Dow Industrial Average has increased by nearly 20 percent; that is the investing public's confirmation that they think the Fed is going to be successful.
If the Federal Reserve is successful in engineering a soft landing, this does not mean that we, over the next three or four years, might not have some problems. Where will the problems come from? Well, there are a number of pitfalls that may occur. One of these has to do with foreign economic behavior. We are not the only country in the world and what happens in foreign countries has an affect on our economy. One of the ways that we are insulated from economic developments in foreign countries is through the use of flexible exchange rates. Flexible exchange rates tend to balance off what happens in foreign countries relative to what happens here. If their business cycles do not coincide with our business cycle, the foreign exchange rate helps to ensure that their business cycles do not have much of an effect on our business cycle.
However, there can be transitory effects, to be sure. And, those transitory affects can affect US GDP growth for a quarter or so. Foreign economic developments are, thus, one possible source of problems for us in the coming five years. Another source of problems is what are called, "supply shocks." And the most noticeable supply shock that you are familiar with are oil price disruptions. We had them in 1973, 1979, and the most recent one was associated with the Gulf War. Those supply shocks can have very serious affects on America's ability to produce. They can raise the price of oil dramatically, and that has an affect on production costs, and, through production costs, on the inflation rate. So, we have to worry about supply shocks. The biggest ones that we have noticed are oil price shocks. But, there are also food price shocks that come about every so often.
The final kind of pitfall that may affect the economy is the behavior of the American public. How optimistic are we about the future? How pessimistic are we about the future? This can influence how much we spend. That is, if the business community suddenly gets very optimistic about the future, outlays for business investments will likely go up. If the consuming public becomes optimistic about the future, they tend to buy more big ticket items. All of this helps to boost economic growth in the U.S. We cannot discount the fact that individual behavior varies over time and that individual behavior has an affect on the U.S. business cycle.
Thus, over the next five years, if the Fed is successful in engineering a soft landing, as the forecasting public tends to believe it will, there is still the possibility that the U.S. economy will be subject to shocks along the way. These are the events that we cannot forecast.
Suppose we are successful and there are not any shocks; and the Federal Reserve engineers a soft landing. What can we look forward to over the next four to five years? Remember, the longest economic expansion we have ever had in American history lasted 106 months, and that economic expansion came to an end because of the Vietnam War. If the Vietnam War had not occurred, one wonders how long that expansion would have lasted.
Given that the current economic expansion is now 50 months old, and if it goes on for another 50 months, that is almost to the year 2000, what can we expect in terms of growth ? We can expect an economic growth rate of about 2½ percent a year in real terms. That is not very high compared to our historic average, but it is about what we can expect.
Let me summarize by saying that the economic expansion now is middle-aged. There is no reason why it cannot go into old age if we manage to engineer a soft landing which market participants think we will be successful in doing. We can look forward to another four or five years of slow but steady growth. We will have a GDP growth rate of about 2½ percent, an unemployment rate that stays at about 6 percent, and an inflation rate that will probably be in the neighborhood of 2 percent. That is the consensus forecast for the remainder of this century.
Thank you. Let me just conclude by saying, "Who says that economists cannot be optimistic?"
DAVID BOESEL: Than you, Gail. Our next speaker is P. Royal Shipp, Associate Director, Office of Research Planning and Coordination, Library of Congress, on the topic of social and policy issues as they relate to changes in libraries over the next five years.
P. ROYAL SHIPP: My credentials as a supporter and lover of libraries are also strong. I have worked for the Library of Congress for 17 years. In addition, ten years ago we moved from the City of Alexandria to another Washington suburban community and, when we left, there was a nice article about our family in the local community newspaper in Alexandria which talked about the accomplishments of our children in school and their athletic, musical, and academic accomplishments. It talked about my wife and her community service; she was involved in community, school board, and church activities. And, when it got to me, it said that I was a well-known and valued customer of the Burke Branch of the Alexandria City Library, which, in fact, was the case.
I said earlier that we hope that the Library of Congress is spared during these cutbacks. It is not clear that it will be. In fact, on this very day there is a hearing before the Appropriation Committee in the Senate on the Legislative Branch, and, specifically, on the Library of Congress. One of the things that our Director has been doing is going around and talking with all of the Congressmen about how valuable the services of CRS are to the Congress. We have been heavily involved in the considerations leading to legislation during these months of the 104th Congress, and I expect we will continue to be.
Those of you who know the Congressional Research Service (CRS) know that one of the things which we claim we do that makes us most valuable to the Congress is our non-biased and non-partisan approach to issues. We work with both Democrats and Republicans in the same way and provide the same kind of information. While we say we are not biased, in one sense we probably are. That is, we value the institution of the Congress more greatly than the general public does, I suppose. That is one way to say it. Many of us have the view also that all of the many problems there are in democracy, the best cure for them is more democracy. That could be discussed I expect, but that is not the purpose here today. I am saying this just to give you an idea of how we have tried to approach the work of policymaking in the Congress.
In economics, which Gail described, there are many forecasters and forecasts. The idea of a social forecast is very complicated, and there are not many social forecasts. Most of them come about in the context of legislation; Goals 2000, the education program is an example. Most pieces of legislation indicate that things will get better as a result of enactment of this legislation. For one thing, a five-year period is not very long to think about changes in social conditions. At the end of five years, one would think that social conditions will not have changed much from what they are now. They will be driven by some factors and policies will certainly change, but the conditions, themselves, may not.
One of the things we do for the Congress in working with them is to provide a framework of analysis in thinking about issues. This is what I will try to discuss today, rather than make a specific forecast about how social conditions will change. I will start by talking about some pretty fundamental ideas, because that is how I think about this issue, but it is also the way this current revolution has been couched by its promoters. I looked up the word, "social" in the Oxford English Dictionary and it talked about it as "being capable of being associated with, or united through others. Characterized by mutual intercourse, friendliness, geniality, united by common ties. Living in communities. Desirous of enjoying the society of others. Connected by the society as a natural and ordinary condition of human life."
Social issues, following from this then, are those that result from such associations and connections. We think of them, and they are described often in common and political terms, as "freedom," "safety," "health," "prosperity," or "economic opportunity." A feeling about the future; a feeling of optimism; progress, particularly with regard to future generations. Indeed, one of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, couched it in these terms, "We are endowed by our creator by inalienable rights having to do with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And, in a shorthand way to think about all this, is the American Dream.
But, to make a social forecast, five years is a short time. Very quickly, then, you get into policy and legislative issues. To do this kind of analysis, you would want to describe where we are now; a baseline or starting point. And, there is substantial disagreement about that. However, there is substantial consensus that in terms of social policy we are not on the right track. These ideas were formulated during the last election as a breakdown in family values, societal problems with sex, drugs, violence. You will be familiar with the Speaker's formulation which he stated often, and which was picked up by other candidates, about 12-year old children shooting other 12-year olds; 14-year olds having babies; and 17-year olds receiving high school diplomas that they could not even read.
So, clearly, the discussion about social values and social policy moves very quickly into the social realm, which, in fact, is where questions of values are discussed in our country and are debated. Politics are about values; it is about other things, of course, too, including the distribution of public government benefits and jobs. The one thing about the political process is that it is the nature of politicians to act. And, indeed, the actions we are seeing results from the outcome of the election.
In conducting this debate, not only is there disagreement about where we are but about how we got to where we are, the root causes. What has worked and what has not worked. The debate has long been about the value of the Great Society programs. Now it may move even further back to discuss the New Deal and the value of those programs. Social Security, after all, was the first of the big entitlement programs. And, this debate is taking place in some very basic concepts having to do with individual freedom versus community; public versus private activities. The question about shrinking the government, market solutions to problems in terms of vouchers and choice for education, the question of public versus private, gets into most social debates. It did in the health-care debate last year and again this year, and I expect will again when the Social Security issue is debated sometime in the future.
Out of all of this, somehow, came the great push to balance the Federal budget by the year 2002. That idea and commitment, of course, is what is driving much of the policy today. This debate, also, is taking place within the context of what certain economists might call "exogenous variables." There are factors that affect the debate that are really outside of the policy makers to control. I think the sense of moral decline is one that is hard to get a handle on. It has already been mentioned the fact that this seems to be an age of great uncertainty. Great changes in terms of the globalization of the economy are taking place. It is a fact that we seem not to have a common purpose to unite us as much as we did during the time when we were fighting our way out of the Great Depression or winning the second World War or winning the Cold War. There are many factors that make this a particularly difficult time for people in thinking about the future and having optimism in the future. There is also the factor of the aging of the population. The first, depending on how you measure it, of the babyboom generation is reaching age 50 about now. This first wave of the babyboom generation will be 65 in the year 2010 and it is really at that time and for the next 20 years, that the great pressure of a retired and aging population will come strongly to bear.
The role and the size of the government almost become an exogenous variable (this is where I am not quite on target, Gail). Over the past several years, the expenditures of the federal government have been 22 percent of the GDP. The revenues coming into the federal government have been 19 percent. Around there, is where we have been since 1980, almost, and it is going to be very hard to move away from it. That is what the balanced budget debate really is, our deficit is 3 percent of GDP. That is what the debate is about, and coming to grips and dealing with that are difficulties we will see in the debates over social policy, and, particularly, the budget.
Another of these kinds of factors that are exogenous. It is a little bit like the Food Stamp Program. The Food Stamp Program really is not an entitlement program, but it acts just like one so it is always lumped together with the entitlement programs. The intractable rise of health care costs will make it difficult for us to deal with the questions of Medicare. Health care takes up 15 percent of the GDP in this country; that is substantially larger than other countries, including other industrial countries. That is about $1 trillion a year, but, of course, that is not all federal; the federal share of that amount is much smaller. That is the total expenditures in the economy on health care. And, you can see with $1 trillion at stake why the debate over health care is very passionate and very, very difficult. There are huge resources that come to bear.
And, finally, the intractable nature of some social problems - education reform might well be one. Another one I will mention also is welfare reform, because it has come to mean such a big constellation of issues. It used to be that when we talked about welfare reform (and remember this is not the first time we have talked about welfare reform) it was how to get people off of welfare rolls and into jobs. And this is still part of the debate. But, the debate has become more than that now. It has to do with our ideas about federalism; what the responsibilities of the state government vis a vis the national government's responsibilities. It has to do with how to deal with the question of out-of-wedlock births, which is a big problem in this country and in other industrial countries, too. The debate has to do with the nature of entitlement programs because welfare programs up until now have been entitlements. That is, if you were eligible for the benefits, then you got the benefits. Now, under the current proposal, that will no longer be the case. It is something that was raised at the beginning of the debate, not so much now, but it is still there. There is the matter of under what conditions do you take children away from their parents and have them dealt with in other types of institutional settings.
To demonstrate the hazards of the social forecasts, we need to keep in mind that the social agenda now is much different than it would have been had the election last November turned out differently. The social agenda could change again, but we do not know that, and I will not attempt to make any predictions about the election. The really smart people who follow this a lot were, in fact, a few months before the election predicting that the House of Representatives would go Republican in the last election, which is something that seemed almost impossible to think about a few months before that. But, the election did turn out a certain way, and the political debate is much different as a result of that election. Mr. Gingrich said, "If this is not a mandate, I would like to know what a mandate looks like." And, they have been acting very much as if it were a mandate, of course.
In talking about what the social agenda is and what the social policies are, it is often discussed in two different ways. One is the programs and legislation mostly having to do with economic growth, regulations, taxes, and the federal budget. And that is what the House of Representatives spent its first 100 days doing. However, there is a social agenda, as you all are aware. And, sometime during this week there will be a press conference by the Christian Coalition and other organizations to talk about a contract with the family. And, the social agenda is much different from the one that has been enacted so far in the House of Representatives, although it has some strong features, of course. The people who promote the social agenda are often referred to as social conservatives and their agenda includes abortion legislation, school prayer, sex education, and abolishing NEA, NEH, and even the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The economic issues have been divisive and will continue to be so. The social agenda is usually thought to be potentially much more divisive and difficult for the Congresss to deal with .
To sum up, the main elements, it seems to me, in this social revolution that we have seen underway in terms of our policy, and in watching the policy on through the rest of this Congress will be as follows. I have already mentioned welfare reform. That is an issue that, again, has changed and it is much broader now in what it is attempting to do and what it is attempting to accomplish, and what its promoters are advocating for it, and the way in which the debate is being couched. The big debate over Medicare spending simply pre-stages a bigger debate which will be coming sometime in the next several years over the question of generation equity. One can make the argument that the elderly part of the population is getting more of the largess of the government in some ways than other groups of the population. It seems to me that will be how the debate will be couched. The questions of racial equity, and class equity, will also be considered. But, generation equity will be a big issue. Many of the elderly population now are quite prosperous. They have good pensions, good Social Security coverage, and good health insurance. And, it is not clear at this point, that that will be sustainable, particularly when the big baby boom generation begins its retirement in 15 years from now.
The other basic idea behind this revolution is the shrinkage of the federal government. That is specific in the legislation dealing with balancing the budget without raising taxes. Now, you can balance the budget lots of ways. In order to shrink the federal government, though, you have the balance the budget without raising taxes. This will be a big part of the issue.
Well, after this revolution, what can we say about social conditions. Will social conditions be any better as a result? That is the intention, but will it actually be the case? That is an area, of course, where this is much disagreement and that is what the political debates come down to. One of the problems in trying to make such a forecast is that there is not much agreement in some of these areas about what will work as federal policy. This is particularly true, again, in the case of welfare reform. I think one of the attractive features of the current way that debate has been carried out has been a recognition of the fact that people do not have ideas about what will work in terms of getting the welfare recipients off the roles and into jobs. They do not have nearly as much confidence in their ability to do that as there used to be.
Let me just stop there.
DAVID BOESEL: Thank you for the very broad presentation. It will provide a lot of food for thought in our discussions. I think it covered a great many important subjects.
Our next speaker is Jane Bortnick Griffith, Specialist, Science and Technology, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Jane will be speaking about technology and technological changes over the next five years or so.
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: Technology forecasts, though interesting, are generally wrong in both directions: in the short term and in the long term, They are usually in the short term wrong because things just do not happen quite as fast as people think they will. They are usually wrong in the long term because things happen faster than people think they will. So, I always hesitate to make any kind of technology forecast.
In general terms, technology will indeed continue to develop at a very rapid pace, certainly in the area of computing and telecommunication information technologies, which is what I will focus on today. The indicators are that the price-performance ratio that we have seen (where price comes down and performance goes up) over time is going to continue to improve, and we can pretty much count on that. I do not think that the challenge is so much that technology will get better - we know that technology will get better. The challenge is really related to: (1) seeing how effectively we are able to use that technology; (2) how well it is accepted; (3) what kind of markets develop as a result; (4) what the impact will be; and (5) how technology will be applied. I think there are a lot of variables associated with this that I will get to. As I said, I do think that we can count on basic things. For example, computing power is going to continue to expand. Recently in an article in Computer World, Gordon Bell estimated that we will be getting 32 megabytes on a single chip and that will be the norm by the year 2000. In addition, the processor will be running about 400 megahertz to 1 gigahertz. So, if you take those kinds of projections you see a lot of capacity and a lot of power there. Another thing we can count on is increases in miniaturization which means that you can imbed computers in all kinds of devices which gives you a lot of capacity to do things in new kinds of ways. The miniaturization will also lead to the fact that some of the clumsiness associated with existing larger systems can be replaced with, perhaps, clusters of smaller computers working together to achieve the power of what today's large systems can do. So, as I said, the computing power as we know it is going to get better.
We also can anticipate that storage capacity is going to increase. Again, estimates are that 2½" magnetic disks will cost less than five cents. A megabyte can hold 200/bytes of information; that is equivalent to about 10 hours of video or 20,000 books. So, we have this capacity now to store a lot more information. And, when you add to that the advances that are being made in data-compression technologies, that again provides another mechanism for getting more and more information in smaller spaces. That also relates to the growth in the network bandwidth. In a recent article in Science Magazine where scientists were asked to look to the future and make projections across all fields of science, William Brinkman from Bell Labs projected that transmission of a terabit per second over a single fiber would be accomplished by the year 2000. So, we are seeing tremendous growth in terms of bandwidth capacity becoming available.
And, it is not just the telecommunication lines themselves. Additionally, the other components, like the switching technology, the routers, and all of the other elements of the network, are becoming more sophisticated, adding to the overall capacity of the network.
One of the other certain trends that we can count on is interconnectivity. We see linkages between all kinds of technologies; true multimedia in terms of different formats being brought together. Probably, the most visible example we have of great interconnectivity is the Internet. The Internet is growing at an incredible rate and is anticipated to continue to grow at a large rate.
The software involved is becoming much more sophisticated. We are getting greater ability to do more kinds of tasks; more integration of different kinds of functions. As a result, you get software that can do multiple things rather than having to get different software packages. And, increasingly user-friendliness capability has added tremendously in terms of the number of people that can use the system.
And, of course, linked to all of this is the greater amount of data. And, I will use the word 'data' for now rather than 'information,' or, particularly, 'knowledge." Everybody is a publisher today, or can be. Information is increasingly created in digital form. Actually, Paul Peters and I were in a meeting last week where he made an interesting statement trying to identify differences in terms of the kind of digital data that we are dealing with. In many cases, when people talk about digital libraries, they are really talking about taking things that have a paper analog and digitizing them. And, that becomes their digital library. In some cases, I think what people are talking about is that we are creating information in digital formats, but we are still talking about primarily text. I know this from our experience at CRS. All of our analysts have PCs on their desks and they sit there and develop their reports. When that report is done, it is already in digital form; we do not have to digitize it. So, there is that aspect of it, as well.
But, thirdly, there are new and unique digital objects that are being created. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has been creating a digital human body. You may have seen the digital frog on the Internet. But, these are new kinds of objects that do not have a paper analog. They do not have the same kind of attributes, and that, in and of itself, creates a lot of interesting challenges and opportunities, as well.
But what all of these trends also reflect is a greater distributed capacity. People have the ability to do things in a much more distributed mode, which means you have opportunities, for example, to create virtual libraries, virtual institutions, virtual meetings, and so forth. And, as I said, it has a lot of implications in terms of the whole globalization of activity.
It also has another implication that I deal with everyday; that is, the pace is getting faster all the time. We are getting more information, and it is coming in faster. We have more channels of information. Everyday when you come in you have to check your voice mail, your paper mail, your e-mail, and do not forget, you still have to check in with the person sitting next to you to find out what is really going on. We have all of these channels of information opening up to us, and in a sense what has happened is that we have less time to process that information and to transform it in ways that are important.
I would like now to talk about what the implications are for these kinds of trends. I think that just simply looking at the growth rate of the technology does not really tell the whole story. There have been a lot of different prognoses about what the indications will be. I do not know how many of you remember the 'Paperless Office' of the future. There actually was a model here in Washington, DC, several years ago. Well, I can go into any office in CRS, and I can tell you, there is no such thing as a 'paperless office'. In fact, it is getting worse and worse and worse all the time. Concepts of the totally electronic library are interesting, and I think there are clearly lots of opportunities to take advantage of the technology. But, I think, if we are talking about the coming five years, we still have to think in context of a mixed environment, and that, to me, is really the challenge. How do you integrate some of the traditional formats with the electronic formats? Where do you make your choices? I know myself, as a person who still does some research and as someone who has responsibility for managing a group of researchers, I am always trying to make decisions and asking the questions: Should we get this information on a CD ROM? Should I get it through an online subscription? Should I get it in paper? What is going to work best for the particular need and for the particular kind of information that it is? I think that it is a real challenge to try to figure out how to integrate and how to make use of the different formats in creating new information.
It also raises interesting thoughts about new opportunities for new types of documents. For example, at CRS we do an "Issue Brief" which gives a synopsis of key issues before Congress, and pending legislation, and presents a brief analysis of it. We have it available in the paper format and you can also get it by dialing into our online system. So, we have taken it to that next step. But, the reality is, why should I not be doing an issue brief that has in it a video clip, that has in it a segment of the speech that the President or the Speaker has made or that has in it, perhaps, in a dynamic way, some way of seeing different models manipulated. You can begin to think about possibilities for creating whole new kinds of documents.
Part of the problem is that most of the analysts at CRS are not fresh out of school (I will put it kindly that way), and most of us think in terms of paper documents. I think there is something to be said about new ways of thinking and approaching how we acquire information. We are getting better at acquiring information in electronic formats, but we have a long way to go before we start thinking in a truly multimedia way. How do we truly develop these new kinds of information products that can transfer information in really creative ways?
Another thing that I think is interesting to look at is that that many of these new opportunities in technologies are really a double-edged sword. There was an interesting article in the paper yesterday about people who travel all the time for a living. It made the interesting comment that the technology actually makes it possible for them to travel more because they take their office with them. It is portable. They are able to take their fax machine and their PC and their cellular telephone and they are able to literally go all over the place and take their office with them. This gives them a lot of mobility to then meet with people face-to-face which they find is the most important thing, after all.
Now, on the other hand, you have the growth of video-conferencing activities, and the concept that we do not have to travel as much and can use the technology instead. But, the article was an interesting way of talking about what the impact might be from both ends. And, interestingly, one of the examples used was Vint Cerf, whom you all know is President of the Internet Society, who apparently spends every day on the road.
I am always looking at how we are using the technology. By and large, a lot of it is still focused on personal communication. When they developed the original ARPANET, the idea was to enable computers to talk to one another. But what happened was that you had all of these scientists and engineers sending e-mail back and forth and the major use became e-mail. It is interesting to look at some of the statistics on things like America Online and CompuServe in terms of how much are people using it for data acquisition and how much people are using it to communicate with other people. A lot of the technology is to fundamentally communicate with other people.
One of the other things that is happening is that we are running up against a situation where people are deciding that the glories of the information superhighway might not be so glorious after all; maybe we oversold it. I must say that I find this interesting. Cliff Stoll has gotten a lot of publicity recently for saying that there is more to life than spending your life online. Which, to me, seems pretty obvious from the start. I think he has something like 12 e-mail accounts, and that says something. There are people who are now saying, "This is not the answer. This really is not the whole approach to life." We have to rethink the more appropriate role of technology within the context of other activities.
I used to be able to read the newspaper and not think about work. That has changed. You cannot read the newspaper anymore without information technology being in the forefront. There was an article yesterday about the shake-up in the CD-ROM business and, indeed, how a lot of these initial ventures into new technologies do not turn out to be as easy to market as people anticipated.
I think that while there are a lot of long-term growth rates that have a lot of potential, that many people are going to fail in the process of commercializing them for a lot of different reasons. For example, standards were mentioned as being a key problem. I think that points to a more general problem, which one of the participants raised as we initially went around the room introducing ourselves, and that is, the issue of quality versus quantity. There is a lot of stuff out there and for those of us who do get online and search, there is a lot of not very useful information out there. I think the information-glut problem is a real problem. More and more, I find that when I get online and know exactly what it is I want, I can find it. But, if I just want general information, I am more likely to go a different direction. All of us have seen the very fancy Web-Home pages where there is really nothing behind them; a lot of good graphics that take forever to get on your screen. There is much frustration when you have sat there and had it finally come on screen, and then there is nothing very useful in the way of information. I think that we have a way to go in terms of seeing that transition take place.
For all of these reasons, I think that there is a unique opportunity for people in the library and information science community to really be leaders. That is because finding useful information, verifying what is real and accurate, having people who are knowledge navigators, being able to index large volumes of material, providing some sort of peer review and synthesis kinds of functions - all of the traditional library functions married to the capabilities of the technologies - offer real potential. To rely solely on the technology without bringing those skills and that experience to bear, means that we will lose out a lot. And, there will be a lot of disappointed people who sign on and do not get very much. Or many will find that it is just too much to try to tackle this new world. If we can bring these skills to bear, then I think there are real opportunities here for realizing much of the potential of this information infrastructure; potential that can be realized for large segments of society.
Finally, I would like to say that when we talk about how various technologies might become widely integrated in society, one of the key components, of course, is the various policy issues. Right now on the Hill, there are a number of these being debated in various ways. Obviously the regulatory regime for the telecommunications industry is front and center on Capitol Hill. There is pending legislation in the Senate, with the expectation that it will be considered on the floor this month. There is legislation now on the House side as well. So, you have a lot of legislative activity. At the same time, of course, as has been the case in the telecommunications area for a long time, no one is waiting for Congress in this area and the courts are proceeding to make determinations and the FCC is moving ahead, as well.
Other key issues include the role of government. What is the government's role in terms of providing incentives; in terms of being a safety net? What about education and technical literacy? How do we assure that there is some kind of universal access? Intellectual property is a key issue that needs to be dealt with. Privacy: how much are we willing to give up, and for what? Security is clearly still a key problem. The encryption debate continues. The issue of law enforcement now has become more visible again because of the recent tragedy in Oklahoma City. The issue includes using the Internet for finding out how to build a bomb or for hate groups communicating. Pornography is another issue that is being debated on the Hill. All of these policy debates will certainly play a part in seeing how the technology proceeds in terms of its acceptance throughout society.
DAVID BOESEL: We have had three very good presentations. There are lots of ideas and lots of policy issues that we will want to discuss.
Let me just start with a few comments about the presentations and a few questions. These are not questions that I am presenting to the presenters, rather they are questions that I am throwing out for your consideration and as something to think about in framing your own questions.
Gail spoke about the economy and made some projections for the next five years. It was, generally, an optimistic forecast. One, that there is gradually expanding of the economy that may be followed by a 'soft recession.' At the same time, there are important questions of income distribution and what is happening to that distribution in this country. I think those are related to broader economic issues. We have seen a good deal of economic change and even dislocation in the last decade, much of it related to globalization.
Robert Wright has referred to what he calls the 'anxious classes' - people who are being displaced or feel they are in danger of being displaced: Economically, we see sort of an extreme manifestation of the political views of the 'anxious classes' in the militias. We need more information on these groups. But, I am beginning to get the impression that they are composed of displaced farmers, mechanics, industrial workers, certain small businessmen whose businesses are threatened by global forces that are difficult to understand. What Robert Wright called the 'anxious classes' take a generally dim view of government, of welfare, of social expenditures of one kind or another. Those expenditures might include the expenditures for libraries and library programs.
Royal mentioned the aging of the population as a major factor in changes that are occurring. Clearly, that is taking place and it has a major role in the debate over health care. In talking about generational equity, Royal could be referring to what may be the coming contest for federal dollars for health care, on the one hand, and education and younger people, on the other. And there may be implications there for libraries, as well as public expenditure and support for libraries.
On technology, Jane has mentioned the growth of interconnectivity and the globalization of technology. One issue that seems to be very important here - it will be a familiar issue to many of you - is the access by technology to the globalized network. I think we must consider what the role of libraries should be in this area. I am sure that Betty Turock is very engaged in that issue right now.
So, with that, let me ask for comments, questions, and discussion. The Forum is open for discussion for one-half hour, or so.
BETTY TUROCK: One of the issues that I think implicit on all of our agendas when we talk about changes in library and information services and the data we need to collect is that our Nation is becoming more and more diverse. What data on diversity will we need to design and implement services in 2001, and, particularly, how does that data figure into the preparation of libraries for an electronic future?
P. ROYAL SHIPP: One of the issues that seems to resonate in terms of the last election had to do with immigration policy, and there is legislation being discussed on that and it is one of those areas where the issue is very political. Earlier I mentioned some ideas about what politics is. One of the things that politics is about, is about winning, of course.
I was talking with someone over the weekend (this is a person who has been involved in the Senate for many years) and he was commenting that he had never seen a time when debates were more divisive and partisan than they are now. I expect immigration policy will get caught in that debate. I do not really have anything to add about the need for data for libraries. Jane, could you comment on that?
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: Actually, I think that technology provides some opportunities to acquire, in a distributed fashion, information from different communities that can be accessed by broader groups of people. From that standpoint, I think there are possibilities now to not simply rely on traditional collections of materials but to augment those with other kinds of information. Again, in different cultures you may have, not so much the written word, but other visual kinds of materials that may be equally as important, but the technology provides some opportunities there, as well.
There are certainly some challenges, but there is much that is being developed technologically that can provide avenues for addressing a variety of languages simultaneously so that users with different language backgrounds can access materials. I think it is a challenge that will require some positive action; it is not going to happen on its own. There has to be acknowledgment - whether it is at the state level, local level, and so forth., to make the investment to ensure that the diverse populations have access to important materials and that that information is shared. In fact, the advantages of having a multicultural society are that you have an awareness of the various benefits from these different cultures. And, the technology can provide an opportunity for doing this. But, I do not think it will happen automatically; it will require specific action.
PAUL EVAN PETERS: Would you say more about currency because academic and research libraries are very sensitive to currency fluctuations and the value of the U.S. dollar. That said, it has been very hard to understand, in traditional terms, why the U.S. currency is ravaging library budgets yet once again. And, on the other side of it, that is closer to the action agenda, what can we do with data that will allow library planners who are thinking about acquisition budgets over multiyear timeframes to look at indicators that would help them do a better job in anticipating fluctuation? What was that nice, elegant term you used - 'supply shock?' For certain kind of libraries, we are in a 'supply shock' period, and it seems to be related to currency.
GAIL MAKINEN: I do not have a ready answer to your question simply because I do not know why the dollar fluctuates as it does over time. I think the long run trend for the dollar is to depreciate - that is to become cheaper in terms of foreign currency which is going to increase your budgetary costs. That is because over the last ten years the United States has borrowed abroad more than a trillion dollars. More than a trillion dollars has come into this country in the form of foreign capital, and that amount has to be serviced.
To give you some feel for what this costs: in the early 1980's, our net earnings abroad on our foreign investments - were about $30 billion. In 1995, we will pay out money to foreigners, net. So, there has been a shift of more than $30 billion in just interest and dividends, alone. Well, in order to pay out that money, we have to earn more in exports. That means that the dollar, in the long run, will depreciate. And, we are still importing foreign capital at the rate of approximately $200 billion per year. So, the long-run trend for the dollar is downhill. That is as close as I can really come.
Actually, if you take a look at the fluctuations in the value of the dollar over the last five years, there has not been a trend; it has gone up and down. If you look at the Federal Reserve Foreign Exchange Index , you will see that, basically, over the last five years, there has been no trend. For example, from the middle point of last year to about right now, the dollar has fallen in value about 20 percent. Between 1991 and 1992, it fell more than 20 percent. Then, however, it recovered all of the lost ground. My advice is: Buy your subscriptions at the right time! (Laughter)
The basic long-run trend for the dollar has got to be in the downhill direction. We have been very fortunate to have been able to borrow as heavily as we have been over the years. If we had not borrowed, interest rates in this country would be much higher than they are. Rather than having a foreign-trade deficit, we would have had less investment expenditures and a lower rate of growth.
PAUL EVAN PETERS: I am eager to ask Gail a question of clarification.
You characterized the current cycle as middle-aged. But, if I understood what you told us, it is middle-aged against the longest ever. If we are 50 months into it, and 106 is the longest ever, and we are half-way through the longest ever, what percentage of the way through are we in the median cycle?
GAIL MAKINEN: The mean length for all nine cycles is 50 months, so we are at the mean right now. I do not know about the median, but we are at the mean right now.
PAUL EVAN PETERS: So, without creating a panic, it could be argued that if we are at 50 months - which is the mean - then we are at old-age.
GAIL MAKINEN: You might look at it that way. This expansion started slowly. It has only really gotten underway for about seven quarters now, but there is no reason why it cannot continue. The biggest thing we have going for us is a fairly low inflation rate. Usually that is the thing that gets us off track all the time. The inflation rate has been low, and it has been low since the expansion began. And, it does not seem to be accelerating. For example, the March number for the Comprehensive Wage Index, which is a big indicator of future inflation, was practically the lowest in 20 years. That is the good thing going for us. If we have a recession, it will be because policy made a mistake, but it can be easily reversed. This time we would not have to wait until the inflation rate falls before we reverse policy. The inflation rate is low, and we can reverse quickly.
DAVID BOESEL: Thank you. Since we are talking about economics and the economy, are there further comments on that subject?
JOEY RODGER: I guess this question is related to economics. Do you see that one of the things that is happening with the anti-government movement in this country is the pressure against using federal, state, and local funds to fulfill social needs?
I would like to ask all three of you to comment on the role of the private sector. Public libraries are now primarily supported by public sector money. I do not think that is the way it will continue. My question is, "What services besides libraries are going to have to make substantial changes from being considered totally funded by the public sector to much greater private sector support?"
GAIL MAKINEN: I will pass this on since I do not have a lot of information in this area. But what I do have is a confusion in the public minds about what it means to privatize functions, that is, in some particular cases, a privatizing function means that the private sector does it but the federal government pays for it.
That is what some people mean by privatizing. All they want to do is contract it out, but the government still pays for it. It is a line-item in the budget. It does not decrease the portion of the public expenditures. You mean that you want to totally privatize. If it were a formerly a public function, you think it should be totally privatized?
JOEY RODGER: No. I am talking about partnership responsibility to make sure that people living in America have the information resources they need when they need them and you can do that indirectly through pushing the money through your taxing structure and then back into the economy through publicly funded institutions. I simply do not think that is going to be viable much longer because the pressure on that system is going to be too great once the federal cut-backs really start taking effect. I think we have to look for substantially different kinds of models.
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: There has certainly been much discussion about this in the research and development area, the role of the federal government in funding research and development, what areas the government decides to move out of, and how they want to provide incentives for the public sector to get more involved. For example, if the federal government decides to no longer fund research facilities on university campuses - how do you get the private sector to invest in that?
One approach, which is currently being suggested, particularly by the Chair of the House Science Committee, is that you use tax credits or other types of tax incentives, to get the private sector to make investments. In other words, if a company will decide to build a research facility on a campus that they would get certain tax incentives for that. In addition, they get a guaranteed access to that facility which they share with the university. So, I think, that certainly in the research area there is a lot of discussion about what kind of models, different from some of the current federal funding models, might work and what are the pros and cons, because these ideas need a lot of analysis including looking at the pros, cons, and opportunities.
GAIL MAKINEN: Let me add one point to that statement. The problem with privatizing a lot of these functions is simply that the private sector simply cannot capture the rewards for it all. That is why the government has to be in the picture. That is, if a private company develops a technology and that technology is not patentable, or all of it is not patentable, everyone else has access to it. And, as a result, they do not reap the rewards from it. There is not any way to simply do that. And, for that reason, we in the economics profession, refer to these as sort of 'externalities.' And, these 'externalities' cannot be captured by the private sector; hence, I think there will always be a role for government, whether it realizes it or not. It has to be in the picture here; research and development in particular.
The model that Jane was talking about is a tax-credit subsidy. And, that still involves the government and it still is in the budget picture. Those subsidies have to be paid, whether they are paid through the expenditure side of the budget or through the text side of the budget, that is a subsidy being paid to private business, so there is still going to be an effect on the federal budget.
The basic reason why there is a role for the federal government, and, I think, for libraries in particular, is that a lot of this stuff cannot be captured by the private sector totally, and so the government has to subsidize this or else it will not be done.
DAVID BOESEL: Thank you. NCLIS Chairperson Simon has a comment.
JEANNE HURLEY SIMON: Last week, the House and the Senate came out with budget resolutions and they both project a balanced budget by the year 2002. If, by some weird chance, this should happen, would your predictions be a little more rosy?
GAIL MAKINEN: No, they would be a little less rosy because that will have a negative effect on total aggregate demand. Part of it will be offset because as the federal government borrows less in financial markets, the interest rate will fall. And, part of those funds that would have gone to the federal government will then go to the private sector. But it will not offset it totally, which means that the Federal Reserve will have to step in and be a little more accommodating. I think Mr. Greenspan has indicated that if the budget is, in fact, balanced, he will accommodate those demands so that you can smooth out the business cycle a little more.
But, clearly, this will be a decrease of about $200 billion a year in an economy that is now, roughly, a little over $5 trillion. So, we are still dealing with something that can have a substantial effect on aggregate demand and GNP growth. What will have to happen is that the Federal Reserve accommodates to some of this.
SUSAN MARTIN: I have a comment and a question. The comment is that in meetings like this where there are so many people who are solidly in the public sector - and some of us go back and forth between publicly funded and privately funded - there is a very small number of people who are in the so-called "private sector," so we have a tendency to talk to ourselves and say things that we all want to hear. I am very concerned that there is not enough representation from the private sector to gather a real sense of what their reaction and/or response would be.
Now my question. I appreciated the presentations, and I am looking at the draft questions for the focus groups. I am acutely aware that we only have a few minutes in a plenary session before we go into focus groups, which will continue tomorrow morning. I would like very much to hear what meeting organizers think we should focus on this afternoon and tomorrow morning to most effectively use the time to come out with a result, to come out doing something. I may be in the minority, but I am not clear on exactly what we are to do. On what do we focus our action items? For example, how do we do this so that what we discuss will work?
JOHN LORENZ: I think Neal Kaske, chair of your focus group, will be able to brief you on the discussion held by the moderators and recorders earlier this morning.
EMERSON ELLIOTT: This is an extension of some of the questions that have been raised, and I think it is one that cuts across all three of the speakers this morning. Jane has made the point that not only is there an enormous increase in the amount of information but that also getting that information requires a great deal more sophistication.
I would like to ask all three speakers if they have any more thoughts on the question of how people can effectively make use of what is there when, perhaps, not everyone has all of the sophistication. Is that going to have a consequence of age discrimination, educational achievement discrimination, or another type of discrimination in society?
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: Even as we have some advances in terms of user friendliness in software, I think, by and large, it does not meet what is required. I think most people who work with the technology will tell you that the major costs are not so much the hardware and the software but that the training and troubleshooting are ongoing costs that are very substantial in terms of bringing the technology into an organization. We are now expecting our CRS analysts to be able to explore the resources that are available electronically as well as explore the resources that they traditionally used in paper form, and that requires some skills that many of them do not have and that we need to deal with. When you take that and extend that to the general public, you can certainly imagine that there is going to be a lot of diversity in terms of the skill level involved. I think that is one place where the schools will come into play and linkages between libraries and schools will be very critical to insuring that: (1) the people get the training that is required, and (2) that you have the staff that has the sophisticated capability available to assist people.
JOHN LORENZ: Jane, can you give us your impression as to what degree the Congressional offices are now using the new technology?
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: It varies quite widely from some offices who have their own Web Page and are very sophisticated to other offices that have only dumb terminals. They are attempting now to upgrade the capacity across the hill, but as you can imagine, each Congressional office is its own little fiefdom, and it has its own characteristics. But, there is certainly an interest in upgrading the capacity, making more information available, and getting everyone connected. But, at this point, there is clearly a rather significant variation and much of it depends upon the individual office having somebody who turns out to be interested or having the expertise to take the lead and to bring the rest of the office up to speed.
NEAL KASKE: I have a question about the two kinds of literacy - the kind we think of basically and information literacy. I wonder if the three panelists can give us current information on the level of basic literacy and what skills one needs to be information literate.
GAIL MAKINEN: I want to comment briefly, not on Neal's question, but on the prior question asked. Whether you folks do anything or not, there is a financial incentive for people in the marketplace to know how to access these systems. The U.S. participates in international trade on the basis of human capital, basically. Education, that is the big thing that we export, in one form or the other, both physical capital and human capital. Part of the reason why the income distribution has been becoming so skewed in recent years is because of international trade. Our markets are far more open in 1995 than they were in 1980. We exported probably twice the amount of our GDP in 1990 than we did even 15 years ago. Well, when we export goods and services, we are exporting the resources that we have in this country. One of the resources that we export is education, in one form or another. It is in the form of management; it is in the form of skilled labor. It is, basically, a human capital form. That is the incentive for the people at the bottom-end of the income distribution to hustle. A friend of mine refers to this as, "The ultimate revenge of the Nerds." That is, it is the Nerdy folks that are doing well in the marketplace because they know how to operate all of these systems. And, it is soon going to dawn on some other folks that they have to become a little more Nerdy, and you folks are going to be there to supply a lot of the information for them.
DAVID BOESEL: That is a very important observation. Neal, would you like to repeat your question or comment?
NEAL KASKE: It was about the level of literacy in the country, and also about information literacy. Obviously, to use these kinds of tools you have to be a little Nerdy.
DAVID BOESEL: So, in effect, your question was addressed.
BARBARA HUMES: Royal spoke a bit about the social conservative movement, and Jane spoke about the broad capabilities of technology. Now, when we throw those two together in a mix, I am wondering whether libraries will probably experience even stronger attacks on intellectual freedom. We would want to know what librarians need to know and what data we need to prepare for this. I was wondering what your drumbeats are on the notion of intellectual freedom vis-a-vis the social conservative movement and the broad technology that we have at our fingertips. What do you all see as possibly happening?
P. ROYAL SHIPP: I will try to answer, and perhaps Jane will, too. It seems to me that questions of freedom of information and freedom of speech have been issues for as long as we have had a country. The changes in technology do not change this very much. It is a question of organization. The Christian Coalition and other groups are very well organized and very well focused. There has always been a debate about freedom of information and freedom of speech in this country. It has come up, of course, in the context of things that Jane mentioned earlier, for example, access to the Internet and the talk show hosts. But I do not see anything different in that.
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: I think there are people who believe that we need to revisit some of those principles in the context of a 'wired society.' Just last week, there were hearings over in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as I mentioned, about the use of the Internet and the terrorist-types of activities. I think that there will clearly be an emerging debate here that will require a lot of input from people who can provide perspective on how the electronic environment is the same in many respects in terms of fundamental principles, but may be different in other respects. There needs to be more analysis on how to apply those principles within the context of the electronic environment.
LAURA BREEDEN: This is partially in response to a question that was raised. I think one of the most important things that we can focus on this afternoon - and it has been touched on in a number of these remarks - is, "What is an appropriate role for the public institution?" And, that includes the public library, the public school, and the public university (many of which are represented here). Some of those issues may be ideological, but someone spoke very eloquently to the need for data. If you are going to convince the people who control the purse strings - whether it is the school board, the University Board of Trustees, the state legislature, or the city council - that public institutions are worth investing in, then you need a rationale that includes some data to back up the rationale. I would encourage the groups represented here to develop the needed rationale and because I think that is one of the fundamental needs. Right now, the country is going through a very critical reexamination of the role of public institutions, including the federal government and including all of these symbols of our government, such as libraries, schools, and universities.
BABETTE "BABS" PITT: I have a question. Maybe it is because of my naivete or maybe its is because I sometimes work with 15 classes a day, but frequently I have to fill out forms, and sometimes it is for the statistics that people collect. I know where the forms go on my desk; they go to the bottom of my pile because I am too busy teaching and managing to stop and fill out the forms. I know, here, that you see the importance of collecting these statistics, but in education (and maybe in the libraries) it is very hard measuring a lot of immeasurables and intangibles. Measuring education is not like measuring consumable goods or other things. I think it needs to be easier to collect statistics or, perhaps, we need better training in collecting and reporting. Then, at least, we can see report on results.
Unless we have education, access will not be very important. We are getting to be more and more "haves" and "have nots" when two and three-year olds are growing up with computers, and, then, we have children who do not see a computer until they get to school, if they are in a school that is lucky enough to have computers. Our diversity is growing, not only multiculturally, but within groups.
DAVID BOESEL: Do you think that information collection is interfering with education?
BABETTE "BABS" PITT: I do not think it is interfering, but I think the people who are in the trenches may not be the best collectors.
FRANK WITHROW: My question is to Jane. You mentioned that - for want of a better term there is a lot of 'junk' on the Internet. Ray Kurzweil talked some about this when he was discussing libraries, and he said that as we move to the 'digital world' everyone, in effect, can be a publisher. One of the greatest things about publishing in libraries is that we have editors who screen things out in scientific journals and we have peer review. Do you see in the electronic world, in the Digital Library, new pathways that enable us to have some degree of accountability? If I go down to the library, and certainly to the Library of Congress, I have some idea that a process is in place to prevent me from receiving pure propaganda.
Another comment along these lines is related to the Nicholas Negroponte's book, "Being Digital." He views the library by saying, "We are in a world of bits, and not a world of atoms." And, that radically changes the way we store and retrieve information. How will it all work out?
JANE BORTNICK GRIFFITH: A number of ideas have been floated around regarding different ways to provide, in effect, peer review or some type of quality control. For example, there have been proposals that government agencies who provide information to others, who then repackage or redistribute it, can have some sort of seal of approval that this is verified information. There have been cases where professional societies have decided on what the mechanisms are to provide that kind of peer review online as compared to traditional ways. There are certainly ways of saying this information has been reviewed by such and such organization, institution, or individual. There are times when people do it on the basis of what they like. In other words, there is some quality control in the sense of you distributing information and a lot of people like it and use it. There are different mechanisms, it seems to me, that are going to be employed. I think it is going to be a variety of things that people will use to do that. People will identify what information is fundamentally good information to use.
While there is a lot of junk out there, there is also a lot of very useful information. We get many requests from Congress and in the last couple of days I, personally, answered two requests on the Internet and one using our Division's CD-ROM that saved me a lot of time. There is some very useful information that has certainly facilitated access to materials for people, like me, who have to get access quickly.
DENNIS REYNOLDS: I have a question for Gail about the 1½ percent growth and productivity forecast. Do these figures take into account changes in multi-cultural demographics? Do they take into account changes in the technology and adapting to technology among the work force, retraining, and keeping up to date with what seems like very fast changes? Does the 1½ percent forecast take such factors into account, or are they based on historical factors - assuming nothing changes faster than it has?
GAIL MAKINEN: Basically historical. The growth rate of the population comes from demographics. The Census Bureau actually makes these forecasts, and that is where the growth rate of the labor force comes from; you can tell how many people will become
18 in each of the years and enter the labor force.
The productivity numbers are very hard to come by; they are guesses. We used to have productivity at about 3 percent a year and around 1993 the productivity rate dropped by ½ percent, and economists still cannot explain why it dropped, but it did. So, the numbers we are looking at for the 1990's are guesses. You must also remember that many of the changes being discussed are marginal changes, in the sense that we have a labor force now of more than 120 million people. There will be more than 120 million people working over the course of the next five years, and the changes to this figure will be quite small. While the things you are talking about are going to be insignificant; they will be quite small relative to the size that we are dealing with and probably not have much of an affect.
MARY LEVERING: I would like to add a note to your comments, Gail, and highlight some of the economic issues. The total U.S. copyright industries are a critical component of the U.S. economy. They represent 5.6 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, and they employ more than 5.5 million people, roughly 4.8 percent of the U.S. work force. Moreover, in a time of large trade deficits, the core copyright industries have extensive foreign sales. These core copyright industries (including newspapers and periodicals, book publishing and related industries, radio and television broadcasting, cable television, records and tapes, motion pictures, theatrical productions, advertising and computer software and data processing) contributed at least $36.2 billion in foreign sales to the U.S. economy in 1991 and preliminary data indicated that foreign sales would exceed $39.5 billion in 1992, according to