    [Senate Hearing 114-177]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

             LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016

                                  ----------

                            TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

                                           U.S. Senate,
               Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The subcommittee met at 3:05 p.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen
    Senate Office Building, Hon. Shelley Moore Capito (chairman)
    presiding.
        Present: Senators Capito, Schatz, and Murphy.

                              LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

    STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES H. BILLINGTON, LIBRARIAN OF
                CONGRESS
    ACCOMPANIED BY:
            DAVID MAO, DEPUTY LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS
            ROBERT NEWLEN, CHIEF OF STAFF
            MARY KLUTTS, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
            MARK SWEENEY, ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN FOR LIBRARY SERVICES
            ELIZABETH SCHEFFLER, INTERIM CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER AND
                ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
            DR. MARY MAZANEC, DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
            MARIA PALLANTE, REGISTER OF COPYRIGHTS
            LUCY SUDDRETH, DIRECTOR OF SUPPORT OPERATIONS
            KAREN KENINGER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL LIBRARY SERVICE FOR THE
                BLIND AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO

        Senator Capito. Good afternoon. The subcommittee will come
    to order, and I would like to welcome everyone to the third of
    our fiscal year 2016 budget hearings for the Legislative Branch
    Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations.
        The ranking member, Senator Schatz, is in the Commerce,
    Justice, and Science (CJS) Appropriations hearing at the
    minute. He's in a holding pattern of 7 minutes before he gets
    to question, and I asked if he didn't mind--he actually
    encouraged me to go ahead and go forward with the testimony.
        So with that in mind, I just would like to welcome
    everybody. Today we will have two panels of witnesses. The
    first panel will be Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of
    Congress, accompanied by the Deputy Librarian, Mr. David Mao,
    and the Chief of Staff of the Library, Mr. Robert Newlen.
        At the completion of Dr. Billington's testimony and the
    subsequent question-and-answer session with the Library, we
    will then turn to the Architect of the Capitol, the Honorable
    Stephen Ayers, for our second panel.
        I would like to begin by welcoming Dr. Billington, who this
    past September marked his 27th year as the Librarian of
    Congress, quite an achievement. That's a wonderful
    accomplishment, and we thank you for your dedication to the
    Library and for your many years of public service.
        I would also like to welcome the newest members of Dr.
    Billington's team, your leadership team, who together with the
    combined 75 years of service to the Library of Congress bring a
    wealth of knowledge to these new leadership positions: Mr.
    David Mao, the Deputy Librarian of Congress; Mr. Robert Newlen,
    the Chief of Staff; and Mary Klutts, the Chief Financial
    Officer. We congratulate you on these new responsibilities and
    wish you all the best in helping to lead the Library through
    the next chapter of its life.
        I understand that there are several other members of the
    senior leadership team here today. I did get a chance to meet
    them all, so I appreciate all of you coming and I want to
    extend to you the subcommittee's appreciation for all the
    tremendous work that you do in supporting the Congress in
    keeping the Nation informed and maintaining the history of our
    Nation, as well as others around the world.
        So again, thank you all for being here with us today for
    this important discussion on how the Library is planning to
    move forward in the coming fiscal year.
        I note that the Library's total fiscal year 2016 budget
    request is $624.5 million, or a $33.5 million or 6 percent
    increase above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level. Given the
    continued budget constraints within which we must operate, it
    will be important to hear from you what the most critical
    priorities are for the Library because we may not be able to
    fund all of the requested increases.
        So now I would like to turn to my ranking member, but he's
    not here, so I'll turn to him in a few minutes.
        I would like to ask Dr. Billington to give a brief opening
    statement of approximately 5 minutes. The written testimony you
    submitted to the subcommittee will be printed in full in the
    hearing record.
        Dr. Billington.

                  SUMMARY STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES H. BILLINGTON

        Dr. Billington. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of
    the subcommittee. Thank you for the honor and pleasure of
    providing testimony in support of the fiscal year 2016 budget
    request of the Library of Congress. We're grateful for the
    support that this subcommittee has given to the Library, and we
    look forward to working with you as public servants, living in
    a time of both continuing budget constraints and an ongoing
    revolution in how knowledge is generated and communicated and
    used.
        You have already mentioned several of the new management
    colleagues appearing for the first time before the
    subcommittee. I would just mention in addition to the three you
    mentioned are Mark Sweeney, Associate Librarian for Library
    Services; Elizabeth Scheffler, Interim Chief Information
    Officer and Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives; Dr.
    Mary Mazanec, Director of the Congressional Research Service;
    Maria Pallante, the Register of Copyrights; and Lucy Suddreth,
    Director of Support Operations; and as well another member of
    the Library's management team, Karen Keninger, Director of the
    National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
    Handicapped.
        The Library of Congress fiscal year 2016 budget request is
    for approximately $660 million and represents a 5.7 percent
    increase over the Library's fiscal year 2015 funding level.
    Nearly two-thirds of this requested increase, $21.9 million, is
    needed to cover mandatory pay increases and unavoidable price
    level increases anticipated for fiscal year 2016. The
    remainder, $13.9 million, makes key investments in
    infrastructure of our aging physical plant and information
    technology and addresses gaps in critical areas of expertise
    that we've lost to attrition, a particularly acute need in the
    Congressional Research Service (CRS).
        In recent years, the Library has operated with
    progressively fewer resources. The total Library appropriation
    has decreased by more than $53 million--almost 8 percent--since
    fiscal year 2010. We're doing much more with many fewer
    employees. Since 1992, the Library has added its massive
    digital programs to its still growing traditional analog
    collections and services despite losing 1,429 full-time
    equivalents (FTEs). Our fiscal year 2016 budget request will
    further reduce the number of authorized FTEs across the Library
    by 405, or 11 percent, because we simply cannot support them
    with current funding.
        We are deeply concerned also about moving into fiscal year
    2016 with the prospect of another sequestration, which would
    require making additional cuts to our programs and would
    prevent us from making necessary investments in infrastructure
    and in staff with critically needed skills and expertise.
        The Library continues to serve the Congress and the
    American people in ways that no other institution anywhere can
    match. The Congressional Research Service is the research arm
    of the legislative and oversight work of the Congress, and we
    also serve Congress through the Nation's largest law library.
    As the de facto national library of the United States, the
    Library now acquires, preserves, and makes accessible free of
    charge the largest, most wide-ranging collection of humanity's
    recorded knowledge ever assembled anywhere in the world by any
    one institution.
        The U.S. Copyright Office encourages, protects, and
    preserves the work of America's innovative curators. The
    Copyright and Library Services staff work hand in hand to
    ensure that the copyright of intellectual culture of the
    American people is preserved, continuing to fulfill the
    original mandate of copyright when it was brought into the
    Library in 1870.
        The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
    Handicapped provides the only free public library reading
    service for these Americans, wherever they live.
        We are taking steps to maximize efficiency, minimize the
    cost of the Library's services, and placing a much greater
    emphasis on shared services both within the Library and across
    the entire Legislative Branch, such as the Legislative Branch
    Financial Management System, which is hosted by the Library. We
    recognize that there is much congressional discussion at the
    moment about the important work of updating copyright law for
    the 21st century, and as the Act is updated, Congress' Library
    needs to be sure that the concept of building, preserving and
    protecting this key part of the national memory for the benefit
    of the American people is not lost.
        There are two unique characteristics of the Library of
    Congress that make it an increasingly valuable resource for
    sustaining American leadership in the information age. First,
    both our security and economic competitiveness globally are
    increasingly dependent on the acquisition and the use of the
    world's knowledge, for which the Library is the entire world's
    preeminent resource. Secondly, America's special capacity for
    creative innovation is sustained and advanced by America's only
    comprehensive storehouse of our citizens' copyrighted
    intellectual and cultural creativity.
        Madam Chairman, the Library of Congress is the world's
    largest reservoir of knowledge. The Library embodies and
    advances the distinctive American ideal of a knowledge-based
    democracy. We will be grateful for your consideration of our
    fiscal year 2016 funding request.
        To the subcommittee, Madam Chairman, all of you, I wish to
    thank you all again for your support of the Library.
        [The statements follow:]
                 Prepared Statement of Dr. James H. Billington
        Madame Chairman, Ranking Member Schatz, and members of the
    subcommittee:

        Madame Chairman, thank you for the honor and pleasure of providing
    testimony in support of the mission and fiscal 2016 budget request of
    the Library of Congress.
        The Congress of the United States created in 1800, and has
    generously supported ever since, this amazing one-of-a-kind
    institution. We who work with and for you at the Library of Congress
    are deeply grateful for the annual appropriation you entrust to us. We
    are in continuing awe of the enduring mission you have shaped for us
    through a series of historic mandates. We are, at the same time, public
    servants living in a time of both continuing budget constraints and an
    ongoing revolution in how knowledge is generated, communicated, and
    used.
        I come before you today in the midst of an extraordinary year of
    unprecedented, purely internal, library-wide self-examination from the
    bottom up and top down. This collaborative process is preparing us to
    produce by the end of fiscal 2015 an altogether new strategic plan for
    fiscal years 2016-2020. It will be designed both to maximize efficiency
    and minimize cost. We will build on the Library's already proven
    strengths and make the Nation's oldest Federal cultural institution one
    of its most innovative.
        Congress's library now acquires, preserves, and makes accessible
    free-of-charge the largest and most wide-ranging collection of
    humanity's recorded knowledge ever assembled anywhere in the world by
    any one institution. We also house an unparalleled collection of the
    multi-media cultural and intellectual creativity of the American
    people.
        For fiscal 2016, we are asking for $666.629 million, a 5.7 percent
    increase over our 2015 budget. Because of the unique skills of so many
    of the Library's staff, we have kept to a minimum cuts in our pay
    budget. But irregular funding for mandatory pay raises and price
    increases, attrition in our aging workforce, and limitations on new
    hirings have already weakened key areas of our expertise, and they can
    no longer be replaced by redeployments from base funding. Therefore,
    the Library's budget request for fiscal 2016 is needed to cover a few
    critical resource additions ($13.9 million), but mostly just mandatory
    pay and price level increases ($21.9 million).
        The unique services performed by the Library's dedicated and multi-
    talented staff include:
        1.  Our highest priority of providing all congressional members and
    committees with authoritative, timely, and non-partisan research and
    analysis to support the legislative and oversight work of both houses
    of Congress, through the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the
    world's largest Law Library (LAW).
        2.  Encouraging, protecting, and preserving the work of America's
    innovative creators through the U.S. Copyright Office (COP), which
    registers these works, records copyright documents, and administers the
    Nation's copyright law.
        3.  Providing the only free public library reading service for
    blind and physically handicapped Americans wherever they live, thanks
    to the Library's National Service (NLS) and its home delivery of
    braille and talking books through local libraries.
        4.  As the de facto national library of the United States,
    providing multiple and unique services that almost invariably could not
    be done as well or better by any other existing institution. Library
    Services (LS) supports the entire library system of America through our
    cataloging standards and services and our multi-formatted preservation
    research and practices. And for 20 years the Library has been providing
    massive, curated, primary documents of American history and culture
    online for the education and inspiration of K-12 teachers and students
    and for life-long learners of all ages.
        Congress's Library is in many ways America's strategic information
    reserve: a unique multi-media resource of growing importance for
    America in the turbulent information age. At the beginning of the
    current fiscal year on October 1, 2014, the Library contained more than
    160 million analog items in virtually all languages and formats and 5
    petabytes of stored digital content. The Library also continues to
    receive, index, and store copies of half a billion Twitter messages a
    day.
        We have put in place an entirely new and collaborative top
    management team to bring our traditional analog and digital services
    closer together. We now have an outstanding new Deputy Librarian of
    Congress, Chief of Staff, and Associate Librarian for Library Services.
    All three have already successfully exercised multiple responsibilities
    within the Library of Congress and in the broader library community.
        We have also made four additional new appointments to assure the
    highest quality for future core Library services: a former Dean and
    President at two leading universities as the director of all of the
    Library's Scholarly Programs; two widely experienced technologists as
    the Interim Chief and Acting Deputy Chief Information Officers of the
    Library; and a deeply experienced new permanent head of the Library's
    financial services division, which also does work for other legislative
    branch services.
        This new leadership--as well as our year-long, staff-level Futures
    Program--has been added from within the Library without any additional
    expenses. We are doing much more work with far fewer employees. Since
    1992, the Library has added its massive digital programs to its still
    growing traditional analog collections and services despite losing
    1,429 FTE's, about 30 percent of our workforce.
        Last year, the Library provided reference services to more than
    467,000 individual researchers, recorded more than 78 million visits to
    our Web sites, and provided more than 23 million copies of braille and
    recorded books and magazines to more than 890,000 blind and physically
    handicapped reader accounts.
        In recent years, the Library has operated with progressively fewer
    resources. The total Federal appropriation has decreased in excess of
    7.8 percent: from $684.3 million in fiscal 2010 to $630.9 million in
    fiscal 2015.
        Our fiscal 2016 budget request will further reduce the number of
    authorized FTE positions across the Library by 405--11 percent--because
    we cannot support them with current funding. We have cut critical
    infrastructure, deferred important investments, consolidated broad
    program areas, and strengthened governance processes.
        We will need in the near future more flexibility in hiring an
    expert staff--not just for this Library, but for our country. The
    erosion of basic funding is already compromising our ability to deliver
    high-quality knowledge resources to the Congress and the American
    people. And we must make key new investments in the critical
    infrastructure of our aging physical plant and information technology.
        The following are some of the most pressing challenges that the
    Library faces if it is to avoid unintentionally slipping into a decline
    that might be easy to overlook but impossible to reverse.
        The Library's Congressional Research Service provides objective,
    nonpartisan information and analysis solely in support of the Congress.
    Last year, in the 100th year of its founding, CRS served 100 percent of
    Congressional Members and standing committees through tailored
    briefings, varied programs, and confidential memoranda. The Service
    supported Congress with a full range of written analyses and personal
    consultations for which the Director's testimony provides a detailed
    chronicle. CRS must often move quickly to marshal resources from a
    variety of disciplines across and beyond the Service to provide members
    and committees with legal and policy options to confront complex and
    fast-moving national and international problems.
        CRS has lost senior expertise in areas that cannot easily be back-
    filled: trade, defense, natural resources, social policy, and public
    finance--and continues to need dynamically to reshape its workforce, to
    continue to provide the authoritative and objective research and
    analytical support that have been the Service's hallmark for the last
    100 years.
        Storage Space: Delays in executing the Ft. Meade master plan have
    left the Library's existing facilities functionally beyond capacity.
    Nearly a million books are currently stored on the floor or on book
    trucks in the Jefferson and Adams buildings, with more than 250,000 new
    volumes arriving every year. Continuous growth of the collections
    without a commensurate increase in acceptable storage space has led to
    a crisis of significant proportion, posing threats to the safety and
    well-being of Library staff; the preservation and security of
    collections; the ability to serve the Congress, researchers, and the
    Nation through free interlibrary loans; and preserving the structural
    integrity of the book stack areas of the Jefferson and Adams Buildings.
    We urgently seek $4.8 million to expand collections storage capacity
    through the installation of compact shelving and lease of interim
    collections storage space until planned Ft. Meade modules are
    available. We are grateful for fiscal 2014 funding for the construction
    of Ft. Meade Module 5; however, even when Module 5 is fully built and
    available in fiscal 2018, we will still be unable adequately to meet
    our storage needs and unable to mitigate the issues of overcrowding and
    safety violations. In the long run, completion of the storage modules
    at Ft. Meade will be vastly more cost effective.
        The Law Library is a small enterprise with a critical mission. The
    Law Library currently is unable to address fundamental collection needs
    after multiple years of unfunded pay increases and direct budget cuts.
    Additional funding is essential to ensure that the Law collections are
    cataloged in compliance with accessibility and classification standards
    widely accepted by all researchers. As of September 30, 2014,
    approximately 408,000 volumes remained unclassified.
        Skill Gaps: Over the last 5 years, the Library has developed
    significant skill gaps that have opened up serious holes in word-class
    expertise, many of which are caused by the Library's inability to back-
    fill. Holding positions vacant is one of the few means available to
    accommodate mandatory pay raises in the absence of new funding.
    Identifying and filling skill gaps was one of the strongest
    recommendations of the staff in the Library's Futures Program.
        Library Services, the largest unit of the Library, recently lost
    the language and subject matter expertise and technical skills of its
    sole South Asian expert, seriously reducing the servicing of
    collections and reference questions about India. We also lost our
    Turkic language expert, radically diminishing our acquisitions and
    reference service for material from the many different Turkic-language-
    speaking countries. The Manuscript Division now lacks high-level
    subject matter expertise in legal, military, science, and technology
    areas. And many Library Services divisions, as well as the Law Library,
    need more skilled technologists to work with our growing digital
    content.
        The U.S. Copyright Office: A Scholar in Residence recently
    delivered to the Register a comprehensive report with recommendations
    for transforming the operation of publicly recording copyright-related
    documents, including copyright assignments and licenses. It was the
    first substantive analysis of document recordation in several decades
    and will assist the Register in planning activities necessary to
    bringing recordation online in fiscal 2015 and 2016. The Copyright
    Office also recently published a major policy study on the current
    music licensing system, Copyright and the Music Marketplace, which one
    leading industry publication called a ``rare instance of government
    getting out in front of moving technology.'' The many challenges of
    copyright in the digital age are discussed in detail in the separate
    report of the Register of Copyrights to the committee.
        The Library recognizes there is much congressional discussion at
    the moment about updating the copyright law for the 21st century. This
    work could not be more important when the economic, social, and
    intellectual value of copyrighted works is so significant to America
    and the world. As the Act is updated, the Library wants to be sure that
    the concept of building, preserving, and protecting a ``national
    collection'' for the benefit of the American people is not lost.
        Fifty or 100 years from now, members and constituents will turn to
    the national collection to read, learn from, and build upon the
    creative output of American authors, composers, filmmakers, artists,
    and others--just as citizens today are reaping the value of creative
    works that were added to the collections in 1965 and in 1915.
        Copyright deposit built much of the national collection. Congress
    has made the Library the sole repository of copyrighted works. New
    works must continue to be added to the national collection at the
    Library--especially in the Internet age, when the nature of information
    itself undergoes so many changes. This is a commitment that the
    Congress, the patron of the national collection, and the Library, its
    steward, have made to current and future generations of Americans.
        Despite our many challenges, this is a time of great promise for
    the Library. Digital technology is transforming in all areas of our
    work to deliver services to the Congress and its constituents.
        We are asking for $2 million to fund the Digital Collections
    Center, to provide proper stewardship of the Library's rapidly growing
    digital content. Over the last 5 years, the Library's traditional
    analog collections have averaged 3.6 million added pieces per year.
    During this same period, archived Web content has grown exponentially
    from roughly 125 to 582 terabytes, an annual average increase of more
    than 73 percent. The development of a dedicated Digital Collections
    Center, with the capacity to manage and sustain all this digital
    content, is an essential investment to fulfill the Library's
    collections stewardship mission now and into the foreseeable future.
        The Library's strategic management of its information technology
    assets and operations is a significant issue addressed in the report
    language of this subcommittee last year and in recent findings of the
    GAO. Management of recommendations in strategic planning, enterprise
    architecture, human capital management, investment management, system
    acquisition and development, security, and service management are all
    challenges that our Interim Chief Information Officer and her Deputy
    are now moving aggressively to address; and the Library is conducting a
    national search for a permanent Chief Information Officer, whom we
    expect to have in place by the end of this year.
        Last year I spoke of the Futures Program that will inform the next
    strategic plan. Library staff from many different programs and levels
    below the Executive Committee suggested new 21st century approaches to
    fulfilling the Library's historic service missions. The Futures
    Program's recommendations have generally built on the Library's unique
    strengths and required minimal new resources. They reaffirmed the
    historical integrity and objectivity of all Library of Congress
    services--keeping the Library free from any commercial or political
    advocacy agendas and demonstrating the Library's importance for
    sustaining American leadership in an increasingly knowledge-dependent
    world, while launching new initiatives.
        The Library is also meeting the challenges of minimizing
    duplication in performing its services--placing a much greater emphasis
    on shared services both across the legislative branch and within the
    Library. Currently, the Legislative Branch Financial Management System
    (LBFMS) resides at the Library, which holds the financial system not
    only for the Library but also for four other legislative branch
    agencies. In fiscal 2016, the Architect of the Capitol will become the
    fifth cross-serviced agency.
        The Library collaborated with the House and Senate and other
    legislative branch agencies to more effectively exchange and present
    legislative information by adding new online features and data to
    Congress.gov and by contributing to the Speaker's Bulk Data Task Force.
    Internally, the Library is moving forward with a range of shared
    service initiatives, such as implementing a Library-wide geospatial
    information system to address the mutual needs of staff in CRS, Library
    Services, and the Law Library in responding to congressional requests.
    Other examples of service and economy-motivated joint opportunities are
    the execution of a Library-wide plan for the contract and use of mobile
    devices, development of a business case for Library-wide performance of
    IT security certification and accreditation requirements, and forming
    the requirements for a single authoring/publishing system for research
    performed at the Library.
        The Library's Veterans History Project (VHP), unanimously mandated
    by both houses of Congress, is now the largest oral history project in
    America. VHP will celebrate its 15th anniversary in October and will
    soon reach 100,000 recorded oral histories. Over the last year this
    program has collaborated with more than 150 congressional offices,
    providing constituent services, briefings, and volunteer training
    sessions for interviewing those who served in the military in all
    America's wars during the last century.
        In 2014, the Library continued its very popular evening services of
    Congressional Dialogues on Great American Presidents, provided
    exclusively for Members of Congress. The Library's new James Madison
    Council Chairman, David Rubenstein, skillfully interviewed renowned
    experts like David McCullough, Scott Berg, and Doris Kearns Goodwin
    about the challenges and accomplishments of seven iconic Presidents:
    George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Abraham
    Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Members then asked
    questions and made off-the-record comments, having previously studied
    key original documents from each President's collections in the
    Library's vast holdings of early Americans. We are continuing this
    series into 2015, expanding it to include great Americans. These unique
    events regularly attract at least 120 Members of Congress, and this
    year's series opened on February 3 with a well-attended dinner and
    dialogue on Benjamin Franklin.
        The Library has presented a particularly rich array of public
    exhibitions and special events over the past year. More than 112,000
    visitors viewed the Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor exhibition at the
    Library from November 6, 2014 to January 19, 2015 in honor of the 800th
    anniversary of this document. The King John 1215 Magna Carta, loaned by
    the Lincoln Cathedral, was its centerpiece, and rare items from the
    Library's rich collections showed the Magna Carta's importance to the
    development of constitutional law in the United States. Seven United
    States Supreme Court Justices took part in the celebratory events along
    with a former Chief Justice of the United Kingdom, and HRH The Princess
    Royal, the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
        Other new Library exhibitions last year included Mapping a New
    Nation: Abel Buell's Map of the United States, 1784; A Thousand Years
    of the Persian Book; and The Civil Rights Act of 1965: A Long Struggle
    to Freedom, including Martin Luther King, Jr.'s original copyrighted
    ``I Have a Dream'' speech.
        The Library of Congress had an unusually rich year of free poetry
    readings and concerts. Particularly memorable was a program led by the
    great baritone Thomas Hampson celebrating the different historical
    stages and versions of our national anthem. A star-studded program at a
    packed Constitution Hall honored Billy Joel with the Library of
    Congress Gershwin Prize for Lifetime Achievement in American Popular
    Song. PBS extended the length of its nation-wide television broadcast
    from its customary hour to a first-ever 90 minutes.
        On February 4, 2015 the Library formally opened to researchers the
    Rosa Parks collection of approximately 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500
    photographs. On loan to the Library for 10 years from the Howard G.
    Buffett Foundation, the collection includes personal correspondence and
    photographs, and letters from Presidents. A small display of items from
    the collection will subsequently be on public exhibit.
        During March 4-7 we celebrated the 150th anniversary of Abraham
    Lincoln's great speech at his second inaugural with a rare public
    display of the President's original reading copy. The 15th annual
    National Book Festival will take place this September.
        The Library of Congress is the world's preeminent reservoir of
    knowledge. The Library embodies and advances the distinctly American
    ideal of a knowledge-based democracy. We will be grateful for your
    consideration of our fiscal 2016 funding request.
                                     ______

    Prepared Statement of Mary B. Mazanec, Director, Congressional Research
                                    Service
        Madame Chairman, Senator Schatz and members of the subcommittee:

        As the Congressional Research Service (CRS) begins its second
    century of service to Congress, it is a pleasure to appear before you
    today to present our fiscal year 2016 budget request. Two thousand
    fourteen--our centennial year--was a time of celebration, reflection,
    and activities that drew our staff together. We also engaged present
    and former members in discussions concerning CRS, the evolution of the
    institution and its support for the Congress, and what the future may
    hold for both the Service and Congress.
        I hope you have had the opportunity to read the history we prepared
    of CRS's first one hundred years, ``CRS at 100: Informing the
    Legislative Debate Since 1914''. It not only highlights the
    accomplishments of CRS in support of the Congress but also shows the
    breadth and depth of expertise embodied in our staff and their
    commitment to our mission of helping provide for a more informed
    legislature.
        We are also very proud of another special centennial publication,
    the Senate Rules Committee Print, ``The Evolving Congress'', which
    features a series of essays analyzing important trends in the evolution
    of congressional organization and policy making over the last many
    decades. Next month, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, we are
    continuing that important discussion at a special event with E.J.
    Dionne, Michael Gerson, and Frances Lee. I hope you will be able to
    join us for what should be a fascinating evening delving into the
    history of Congress and its future development.
        Last year also marked the 100th anniversary of the Constitution of
    the United States of America Annotated, which we celebrated with a day-
    long program in September. Popularly known as CONAN, this Senate
    Document is prepared by attorneys in the CRS American Law Division and
    tracks the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States. The
    program brought together prominent legal scholars and commentators and
    included a dialogue about the Supreme Court with Justice Ruth Bader
    Ginsburg.
        It was truly an honor to serve as the Director of CRS during this
    important milestone in our history.
                              support for congress
        While we celebrated our centennial, CRS also provided research and
    analysis, expert consultation, and an enhanced Web presence to support
    the full spectrum of congressional policy deliberations. In the last
    year, CRS experts worked with every member office and congressional
    committee to help you and your staffs navigate the wide range of
    complex and controversial issues that confronted Congress. We answered
    over 61,000 individual requests; had over 7,500 people attend CRS
    seminars, trainings, and briefings; and provided more than 3,500 new or
    refreshed CRS reports and other products. CRS.gov is now the repository
    for nearly 10,000 reports and other information that is accessible at
    all times.
        Two high-profile issues that were addressed by the 113th Congress
    help illustrate both the depth and flexibility of CRS work for
    Congress:
        The 2014 Farm Bill is a good case study of how the Service assists
    in the regular, deliberative process of reauthorizing major, complex
    legislative programs. From the very start of deliberations to replace
    the expiring 2008 Farm Bill, CRS food and agriculture policy analysts
    provided in-depth analysis of various legislative proposals across a
    broad spectrum of policy areas that included farm commodity support,
    conservation, trade, rural development, nutrition, credit, bio-energy,
    livestock, horticulture, and research.
        Authorizing committees, individual members, and congressional staff
    called on CRS to explain the intricacies of current farm and food
    policy and to help identify and analyze policy options for revamping
    the Federal farm safety net. As the legislation moved forward, CRS
    experts continued to provide individualized support, including
    preparing committee staff for legislative markup, analyzing proposed
    committee and floor amendments, briefing individual members and their
    senior policy staff, and evaluating a slate of legislative options.
        As a group, CRS analysts conducted several well-attended seminars
    for congressional staff on the various farm bill titles, with
    consideration of how farm bill spending is affected by pressures for
    deficit reduction. These seminars were so popular that CRS needed to
    schedule additional sessions to accommodate interested congressional
    staff.
        With many provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill expiring before the new
    legislation could be finalized, CRS also fielded many questions about
    the effects on issues of concern for members' districts. CRS staff
    responded with authoritative reports and tailored briefings to help
    members manage the evolving situation.
        The overall support to Congress was a testament to the
    interdisciplinary nature of contemporary policy deliberations, as
    agriculture and budget analysts at CRS collaborated with attorneys to
    provide comprehensive coverage of the issues.
        Of course, CRS support did not end with enactment of the
    legislation. After passage, Congress shifted to their oversight role,
    closely monitoring the Department of Agriculture's implementation of
    the new law. CRS analysts continue to play an integral role in the
    oversight process, responding to numerous requests on the implications
    of the new farm bill, and have conducted a number of ``Agriculture
    101'' briefings for member offices and committee staff about the law.
    In addition to multiple informative reports on the farm bill, CRS
    developed a side-by-side analysis of the new law compared to its
    predecessor and the Senate and House bills.
        The Ebola Virus Outbreak highlights the flexibility of the Service
    to provide in-depth research and analysis for the unanticipated, fast-
    breaking global challenges that can suddenly find their way onto the
    legislative agenda.
        Last summer, reports of the rapidly spreading Ebola Virus Disease
    (EVD) raised serious concerns among U.S. and international government
    officials and lawmakers. At one point in early August, the Centers for
    Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there could be over one
    million cases of EVD globally by 2015 if the rate of transmission was
    not dramatically curbed. Those concerns, which became heightened and
    accelerated once the first U.S. case was reported, triggered a large
    number of inquiries from congressional offices, along with hearings on
    the public health, legal, and international implications of the
    disease, as well as the U.S. Government response to the crisis.
        The CRS response to this public health crisis was swift,
    thoughtful, multi-disciplinary, authoritative, and timely. CRS analysts
    from across the Service supported ongoing congressional hearings and
    investigations into the response to EVD. To provide a broad spectrum of
    information, CRS experts from multiple divisions used the full range of
    CRS products--from traditional reports to newer short-form documents,
    including Insights, Legal Sidebars, and FAQs--to examine the crisis
    from a variety of perspectives, including public health, legal,
    international health and relations, transportation and commerce,
    immigration, homeland security, and clinical research and product
    development.
        Analysts also conducted in-person briefings and hosted a ``Question
    and Answer'' event that was made available to all members and staff in
    person and through video on the CRS Web site.
        By having deep in-house expertise on a wide range of issues, and
    the ability for CRS experts to work collaboratively, the Service was
    able to quickly develop the information Congress needed on EVD. That in
    turn helped members and their staff develop appropriate courses of
    action to respond to a rapidly changing situation with broad health and
    national security implications for the country.
        Other Legislative Topics: While the Farm Bill and the Ebola
    outbreak provide a snapshot of how CRS works, over the last year, CRS
    provided similar support on the entire range of issues before Congress.
        CRS analyzed multiple economic, financial, and budget issues,
    including tax reform, oversight of the implementation of the Dodd-Frank
    Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Export-Import Bank
    reauthorization, and Bitcoin, just to name a few. Experts also helped
    congressional offices understand the impact of the Government shutdown
    and tracked and analyzed the fiscal year 2015 budget request and
    appropriations process throughout the year. Congress looked to CRS for
    support on many complex domestic issues, including unaccompanied
    immigrant children, veterans' health, human trafficking, child welfare,
    violence against women, and sexual assault in the military. CRS experts
    also supported the congressional debate on the Keystone XL pipeline,
    hydraulic fracturing, re-authorization of Federal highway and public
    transportation programs, and cybersecurity.
        On the foreign affairs front, CRS staff analyzed policy options to
    address the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the Ukraine; and
    relations with Russia, North Korea, and China. In addition, CRS
    supported the Congress on pending international free trade agreements
    and monitored the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and
    the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
        CRS also presented a symposium on Senate rules changes last year.
    CRS experts, a former parliamentarian, and past Secretaries of the
    Senate discussed the impact of these changes with senior Senate staff
    in attendance. The program was followed by numerous briefings and
    seminars tailored to member and staff needs.
                             budget considerations
        Over the last year, the Service has been able to fill some critical
    gaps in our analytical and information professional ranks. We also
    hired research assistants to support analysts and contribute to a
    broader mix of products and services and we continue to improve the CRS
    Web site and technical capabilities. With the additional staff, we have
    replaced about one-third of the decreases in personnel that occurred
    over the past few years due to budget reductions. While we are thinner
    than we would like in some areas, we are constantly monitoring our
    staffing across the service to ensure that we have the skill sets and
    expertise needed to support Congress.
        The CRS fiscal year 2016 budget request is $111,956,000 to fund
    mandatory pay and price level changes as well as a program increase to
    enhance research capacity on healthcare policy.
        Health Experts. The budget request includes a program increase of
    $1,087,000 and six FTEs to add six health policy analyst/attorney
    positions and $250,000 of contractor technical and programming support
    for large health data systems. This increased analytical capacity is
    needed to meet the high client demand and fully support the work of
    Congress on healthcare issues. As the healthcare industry is becoming
    increasingly complex, additional expertise is needed to analyze for
    Congress recent changes in the financing of health insurance and the
    delivery of healthcare services. Extra analytical support is also
    needed to support Congress as it confronts emerging issues under
    Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and
    employer-based and private health insurance. In addition, the
    regulatory framework has become more complex, and provision of
    healthcare to veterans has come under recent scrutiny. That increase in
    demand and complexity is putting real pressure on CRS health experts,
    some of whom are shouldering two to three times the average number of
    requests as other CRS staff. The six requested staff positions would
    help relieve that pressure and add expertise in evaluating health
    industry trends and availability, tax and legal issues, veterans' care,
    and data evaluation.
        Workforce Initiatives. We are continuing to examine the composition
    of our workforce to ensure that we have the right mix of skill sets and
    expertise to best serve the Congress. Last year, we hired 11 research
    assistants to assist analysts and diversify areas of specialization. We
    also increased our editorial capacity to support authors in the
    preparation of products for Congress and have expanded our graphics
    capabilities to enhance the visual presentation of CRS research and
    analysis. Our information professionals utilize digital librarianship
    skills, and recent hires have reflected changes made to these
    positions. We plan to critically assess these initiatives to determine
    how these positions and skill sets best fit into the organization and
    what other modifications to our workforce may be needed.
        Product and Service Enhancements. CRS continues to seek new and
    innovative ways to deliver information and analysis to Congress. In
    fiscal 2014, CRS increased the diversity of its product line by
    establishing a new product type, the CRS Insight, a short, Web-only
    product designed to present timely information, research, data, and
    analysis in an easily accessible format. Along with the earlier
    launched Legal Sidebar, the Insight responds to client demand for
    succinct products that are published quickly in response to fast-moving
    public policy issues.
        CRS is participating in a Library-wide project to develop a
    geospatial infrastructure that will enable the Service to offer
    interactive maps to Congress. The goal is to make available to Congress
    fully interactive maps that allow clients to view details of interest
    and toggle data layers to visualize the resulting differences. We have
    a small team of geographic information system (GIS) analysts and
    information professionals that provide GIS services to congressional
    clients. GIS uses visualization for the focused analysis of complex
    concepts.
        CRS established an infographics working group in 2014 to consider
    methods to improve delivery of image-based content in our written
    products and on our Web site. The use of this content to convey
    information and analysis is widely recognized as an effective form of
    communication. Although image-based content (e.g., tables, graphs,
    maps) produced by CRS is typically embedded into written products,
    users of CRS products could benefit from the creation of a new product
    line devoted to stand-alone, high-quality ``infographics,'' which
    present complex information in a condensed visual form that may be
    easily understood without the need for an accompanying written product.
    A pilot study has begun with the goal of displaying infographics
    products on CRS.gov this year.
        CRS enhanced its Web site home page last year with a modern
    appearance with more space for content and for expanding product lines.
    The home page is also stylized to the modern user's preference for
    mobile access. Other new features of the website include graphic images
    to accompany highlighted reports and icons to help the user distinguish
    the different types of products. A video carousel at the foot of the
    home page highlights CRS videos, and a similar display on issue pages
    highlights CRS experts who have authored products on selected issues
    and who are available for consultation.
        As part of the Library's multi-departmental team, CRS contributed
    to continuing development and daily operations of the next generation
    legislative information system platform and services. Congress.gov will
    replace two legacy legislative information systems (LIS and THOMAS)
    with a single, modern one. CRS provided data analysis, subject matter
    expertise consultation, system testing, user testing, coordination of
    data partner relationships, and support for congressional users and
    data partners. CRS also continues to support the use of the Congress-
    only LIS until equivalent capability is fully developed for the new
    Congress.gov. Since late September, 2014, Congress.gov has been the
    official website for U.S. Federal legislative information.
                                   conclusion
        As CRS begins its second century, we remain committed to our core
    values and mission: providing comprehensive, authoritative, objective,
    timely and nonpartisan research and analysis on all legislative,
    oversight, and representational issues of interest to Congress.
        The entire CRS staff works hard every day to ensure that you, your
    staffs, and committees have the information, analysis, and support you
    need as you do your jobs.
        We are very proud of the work we do. But we know we could not have
    achieved all we have in our first 100 years without this subcommittee's
    support. I appreciate your continued support and look forward to
    working with you to ensure that CRS is a state-of-the-art research
    service responsive to the information and analytical needs of the 21st
    century Congress.
                                     ______

      Prepared Statement of Maria A. Pallante, Register of Copyrights and
                 Director of the United States Copyright Office
        Madame Chairman, Ranking Member Schatz, and members of the
    subcommittee:

        Thank you for the opportunity to present written testimony in
    support of the budgetary needs of the United States Copyright Office.
        As always, I am grateful to the Librarian for putting forward the
    request detailed below. While it does not reflect the entirety of
    Copyright Office needs, it is a reasonable request put forward in a
    difficult budget environment, and one of many that the Librarian has
    sought to balance. As stated in more detail in the Librarian's written
    request, the agency is also seeking funding for library acquisitions,
    storage, preservation, and staffing relating to the singularly
    important national collection.
        The Copyright Office is a congressionally-created department within
    the Library of Congress and is vested with the statutory responsibility
    of administering the Copyright Act and other provisions of title 17,
    including the national copyright registration and recordation systems
    and several statutory licenses. Today, the Copyright Office sits at the
    center of a complex and dynamic legal and regulatory system. Its work
    is vital to all types of businesses, the Congress, courts, and the
    digital economy.
        Copyright industries create jobs, invest in content, and bring to
    market important works of authorship, from films to video games to
    business software to books to musical works. The technology companies
    with whom they partner also create jobs, drive innovation, and bring to
    market a variety of platforms and mobile devices that have defined the
    digital economy. It is no surprise that copyright issues are so
    essential to trade agreements and the global marketplace.
        In past couple of years, the House Judiciary Committee has held
    extensive hearings on the copyright law, including, for example, the
    exclusive rights of authors, enforcement issues, fair use, and
    voluntary agreements. The Copyright Office has supported Congress in
    these efforts, including by testifying, assisting with interpretation
    of the law, and conducting major policy studies. Last year, the
    Copyright Office issued a major report recommending the creation of a
    small claims system. This year, the Copyright Office published a
    comprehensive report on the music marketplace and is finalizing
    additional reports on orphan works and the ``making available'' right.
        Congress is also reviewing the Copyright Office. On September 18,
    2014, the House Judiciary Committee held an oversight hearing on the
    Copyright Office, at which I testified. On February 26, 2015, it held a
    hearing entitled, ``The U.S. Copyright Office: Its Functions and
    Resources,'' at which external witnesses testified.\1\ During these
    hearings, Members of Congress covered a range of questions including
    budgetary and resource needs, efforts to upgrade and improve Copyright
    Office services, and the Copyright Office's current statutory and
    constitutional structure within the Library. We are respectful of these
    proceedings and are ready to respond to inquiries or otherwise
    participate, as appropriate.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Witnesses included Keith Kupferschmid (General Counsel for the
    Software & Information Industry Association), Lisa Dunner (Partner at
    Dunner Law PLLC, on behalf of the American Bar Association's Section on
    Intellectual Property Law), Nancy Mertzel (Partner at Schoeman Updike
    Kaufman & Stern LLP, on behalf of the American Intellectual Property
    Law Association), and Robert Brauneis (Professor at the George
    Washington University Law School).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Since I was appointed Register in June, 2011, I have focused the
    Copyright Office on projects that are self-evaluative, including how to
    upgrade our current practices and whether to create entirely new
    paradigms for certain processes. This might include, for example, the
    ways in which we register works of authorship or record documents such
    as assignments, licenses, security interests, and other forms of
    ownership. Most would agree that the Copyright Office must be more
    interoperable with the technology of its customers, and must offer
    timelier and more innovative services, including business-to-business
    data exchange and applications that work on mobile devices.
        As I explain further below, the Copyright Office has spent the past
    few years engrossed in foundational work, including rebuilding and
    rethinking staff positions, updating registration practices, assessing
    legal and business issues related to recordation, and conducting a
    variety of public-facing projects to engage our customers as to the
    future Copyright Office. We have undertaken this work to ensure that we
    make plans that will have a meaningful impact on our customers, and
    make IT and staffing investments that are both responsible and prudent.
    We are now at the point where we are compiling research, coordinating
    conclusions from reports, and engaging in cost and other business
    analysis. This work will proceed in accordance with available funding.
        This Committee--the Senate Subcommittee on Legislative Branch
    Appropriations--is also interested in the ability of the Copyright
    Office to evolve. In 2014, the Report language that accompanied the
    fiscal year 2015 appropriation stated:

            The Committee recognizes that the digital revolution has
            transformed the copyright marketplace and, as a result, the
            role of the Copyright Office in our economy. The Committee
            finds that Copyright Office will also need to evolve and adapt
            to the challenges of these new realities. In fact, the
            Committee notes that public comments recently submitted by the
            copyright community indicate that the Copyright Office is
            currently in need of significant IT and related upgrades in
            order to be fully interoperable with the digital economy it
            serves.

        The Report also included a directive to the Government
    Accountability Office (GAO) ``to examine the Copyright Office's current
    information technology infrastructure and identify any deficiencies or
    obstacles to serving the copyright community in a modernized
    environment.'' We have responded to GAO's questions regarding IT
    management during the past several months and hope the subcommittee
    will find this information helpful.
        I would also note that on February 18, 2015, we released a report
    of the Technical Upgrades Special Project Team. This team was charged
    with assessing the concerns and suggestions of the Copyright Office's
    customers during the past few years, and has made a number of
    recommendations regarding future services that would require sound
    enterprise architecture and a robust IT infrastructure. I am grateful
    to the Project Team for this valuable contribution, which will serve as
    an important resource for the Copyright Office, the Library, and the
    Congress. The Report, notice of public inquiry, and public comments are
    available at http://copyright.gov/docs/technical_upgrades/.
        Thank you for your support of the Copyright Office and for
    considering the appropriations request put forward today.
                        fiscal year 2016 budget request
        The Copyright Office is funded through a combination of fees for
    services and dedicated appropriated dollars. The Copyright Office
    administers funds through three separate budgets or program areas: (1)
    Basic Budget, (2) Licensing Budget,\2\ and (3) Copyright Royalty Judges
    Budget.\3\ Together, the requests for these total $58.875 million for
    fiscal year 2016.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ The Licensing Budget request is $5.388 million, all of which
    derives from licensing royalty and filing fee collections paid by
    private parties (copyright owners as well as cable and satellite
    licensees) pursuant to statutory licenses administered by the Copyright
    Office. The requested increase is for mandatory pay and price-related
    increases.
        \3\ The Copyright Royalty Judges report by statute to the
    Librarian, but the Register administers their budget as an
    administrative courtesy. The budget request for the Copyright Royalty
    Judges is $1.584 million to support mandatory pay-related and price
    level increases, of which $389,000 (for non-personnel-related expenses)
    derives from licensing collections. The remainder, $1.195 million in
    appropriated dollars, is to cover the personnel-related expenses of the
    Judges and their staff.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The focus of this statement, however, is the Basic Budget, which
    funds most of the Copyright Office's core work and operations. The
    Basic Budget request this year is $51.9 million. Approximately $30
    million of this is derived from fees for which the Copyright Office is
    seeking spending authority. The Copyright Office is also requesting
    $21.9 million in appropriated dollars.
        This request calls for an increase of $2.705 million dollars and
    the reinstatement of 25 FTEs. Fees would fund about $2.029 million of
    the total; we would use the fees to backfill 20 vacant positions in our
    registration program. As discussed below, the Copyright Office
    implemented a revised schedule of fees on May 1, 2014, following an
    extensive public process. Putting this money back into registration
    services is a fitting investment.
        The remaining $675,825 is a request for appropriated dollars; we
    would use this funding to add five new hires to our recordation staff.
        It should be understood that some of the Copyright Office's
    operational costs are offset by services provided by the Library of
    Congress through appropriations it receives as the parent agency. These
    costs are not itemized or tracked, and they are not taken into account
    when the Copyright Office analyzes and implements its fee schedules.
                        administering the copyright law
    Registration
        If the subcommittee approves our request for additional spending
    authority, most of the 2 million dollars would go to strengthening the
    registration staff under the expert guidance of Robert Kasunic,
    Associate Register and Director of Registration Policy and Practice. In
    fiscal year 2014, the Copyright Office approved and registered claims
    in approximately 476,000 creative works, including 219,000 literary
    works and 65,000 sound recordings. Since fiscal year 2012, however, the
    Copyright Office has been experiencing an upward trend in the backlog
    of claims and average processing time for applications. In 2012, the
    average processing time for claims filed on paper applications was 4.8
    months; the current processing time is 13.5 months. The average
    processing time for claims filed online electronically has also
    increased, rising from 3.1 months to 4.4 months over the same period.
    These increases are mostly attributable to the loss of registration
    staff, which has declined by approximately 50 FTEs.\4\ (In the case of
    electronic claims, some of the delay stems from ongoing problems with
    technology systems, as well.)
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \4\ This number tracks losses since 2010. The Copyright Office
    today has 76 professionally trained examiners to handle approximately
    half a million copyright claims involving millions of works of
    authorship; we had close to 130 examiners in 2010. Assuming we can hire
    12-32 examiners in 2015 and 2016, the Copyright Office will still be
    below capacity, particularly given the increasing complexity of
    addressing digital works and new practices.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As we hire new registration experts, the Copyright Office must
    train them in the copyright law, regulations and practices, and prepare
    them to address a constantly changing world of content and business
    models. The lengthy training schedule, coupled with the fact that the
    backlog continues to grow, provides a sense of urgency to reverse staff
    losses in this critical division. It is also the case that practices
    are becoming more complex than before, as authors, publishers, and
    producers continue to change the ways in which they create and
    disseminate works of authorship.
        In December 2014, we completed a major, multi-year special project
    by releasing the Compendium of Copyright Office Practices, Third
    Edition. The first major revision in two decades, the Compendium is a
    comprehensive guidebook regarding registration and other Copyright
    Office practices. It is relied upon by Copyright Office staff but also
    serves as a recognized authority consulted by copyright owners, legal
    practitioners, and the courts, which frequently give the Copyright
    Office deference in registration policy and related issues. This was an
    important and necessary accomplishment for the Copyright Office, and
    one that we announced publicly in our 2011-2013 work plan, entitled
    Priorities and Special Projects of the U.S. Copyright Office.
        Notably, the Compendium is just the beginning of a digital makeover
    for registration. It provides the necessary legal foundation by which
    the Copyright Office may now pursue regulations and practices that
    recognize and serve the digital economy. For example, the Copyright
    Office will need to determine the rules and standards by which it
    registers: works that change routinely (like news Web sites); works
    that are disseminated by streaming instead of copies (like on-demand
    film, television, and sports programming); works that contain valuable
    and proprietary source code (like business software); and works that
    contain copy controls and other anticircumvention measures (like video
    games).
    Recording Assignments, Security Interests, and Other Copyright
            Documents
        Regarding the recordation provisions of the Copyright Act, the
    Copyright Office also needs resources. The requested increase of
    $675,825 in appropriated dollars for fiscal 2016 would fund five new
    hires in the Recordation section. The Copyright Office has a very lean
    permanent staff of 13 dedicated to this function at the moment. In
    2014, this staff recorded 8,146 documents pertaining to copyright
    interests in more than 144,376 identified works. This function remains
    a paper process, however, in which staff manually index the materials
    received.
        In fiscal 2015, the Congress allocated $1.5 million to the
    Copyright Office to conduct planning and business analysis related to
    updating the recordation function. The long-term objective is to
    automate the document submission and review process to include an
    online filing capability for customers. Significant changes are also
    contemplated regarding service options and the content and format of
    the public record. As noted below, the business analysis we are now
    engaged in follows 2 years of research regarding the overall technology
    of the Copyright Office (relevant to its customer base) as well as the
    relevant legal and business issues related to recording documents in
    the online environment. The additional FTEs we are requesting for
    Recordation represent new positions with skills that will be more
    appropriate to an online function.
        The future of the document recordation function has been an intense
    focus of the Copyright Office for several years, and it too was
    publicly announced in the 2011-2013 Priorities work plan. In the past 2
    years, the Copyright Office engaged stakeholders through multiple
    public roundtables on potential changes to the legal and administrative
    aspects of document recordation and published a major report. We were
    able to staff this work by making targeted appointments and leveraging
    research partners.
        In 2014, with the Librarian's support, I established a dedicated
    Office of Public Records and Repositories. For the first time, as of
    March 2014, these functions are now headed by Ms. Elizabeth Scheffler,
    a senior level officer reporting directly to the Register. (As of
    January, 2015, Ms. Scheffler has been temporarily reassigned to the
    Librarian's Office where she is serving as the Interim CIO for the
    Library until a permanent CIO can be recruited.)
        I also appointed the first Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in
    Residence, Professor Robert Brauneis of George Washington University.
    In addition to his own independent research, Professor Brauneis
    completed an in-depth study of the relevant legal issues related to
    updating the business and legal issues related to recording copyright
    documents. Similarly, through Jacqueline Charlesworth, the Copyright
    Office General Counsel, the Copyright Office engaged with Stanford
    University Law School in an academic partnership. Working with
    Professor Paul Goldstein, the Copyright Office considered recordation
    questions from the perspective of students in Silicon Valley. In
    January 2015, we released the report of the Kaminstein Scholar,
    entitled Transforming Document Recordation at the U.S. Copyright
    Office, which in turn references the work of the Stanford students.
    Statutory Licenses
        The Copyright Office administers several statutory licenses that
    require the Copyright Office to manage and distribute royalties,
    including those collected on behalf of copyright owners of broadcast
    television programming that is retransmitted by cable and satellite
    operators. The disposition of these private monies is determined by the
    Copyright Royalty Judges (together, the Copyright Royalty Board or
    ``CRB'') in distribution proceedings. The work of the CRB is reviewable
    by the Register for legal error, but for constitutional reasons the CRB
    reports to the Librarian as head of the agency. In fiscal year 2014,
    the Copyright Office collected approximately $318 million in royalties
    and made disbursements in accordance with CRB's decisions.
        In fiscal 2014, the Copyright Office completed a second pilot of an
    electronic licensing system to facilitate its administration of
    statutory licenses. The end goal is to launch a system that supports
    online filing and processing of statements of account by statutory
    licensees. As with all Licensing Division operations, this
    administrative initiative is being funded by private funds collected
    under the relevant licenses.
                  supporting the congress and federal agencies
    Copyright Policy and the Digital Economy
        With respect to policy, the Copyright Office has been at the center
    of discussions regarding potential updates to the Copyright Act,
    working closely with Members of Congress and, in particular, the House
    Committee on the Judiciary. As mentioned above, the House Judiciary
    Chairman convened twenty copyright hearings in the past 2 years, with
    the clear mission of comprehensively reviewing the law to assess how
    well it is working in the digital age. As Register, I have both
    testified on these issues and lent the impartial expertise of my Office
    to assist the process. Associate Register Karyn Temple Claggett, and
    her policy and international affairs staff, were of particular
    assistance during these proceedings.
        It would be an understatement to say that the copyright law is
    complex. Indeed, in the context of the digital economy, the entire
    copyright ecosystem is in a state of ongoing transformation and
    innovation. While challenging, this is also an exciting development for
    the United States, which has long championed a strong but balanced
    intellectual property framework to the benefit of both the content and
    technology industries.
        In addition to its service to the Congress, the Copyright Office
    supports the work of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. Department
    of Justice, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Department of
    Commerce. This work involves major trade agreements, treaty
    negotiations, Supreme Court briefs, and other interagency and
    intergovernmental matters. The Copyright Office has relationships with
    copyright and other intellectual property offices around the world, and
    is frequently involved in intergovernmental and bilateral meetings, as
    well.
    Policy Reports of the Copyright Office
        In February 2015, the Copyright Office published an in-depth study
    and legislative recommendations entitled Copyright and the Music
    Marketplace. This report, which analyzes the statutory framework and
    business environment of the music industry, is indicative of the
    Copyright Office's policy role. The report has been recognized by
    Members of Congress, songwriters and composers, music publishers,
    performing rights organizations, record labels, and digital delivery
    services. The expertise comes from the Copyright Office's daily role in
    administering the Copyright Act, and the legal and cultural
    significance of issues such as these is an important factor we use to
    recruit talented lawyers. Nonetheless, the lack of resources, including
    insufficient staff and travel budgets, makes for a challenging
    environment for even the most dedicated of public servants.
        In addition to the music study mentioned above, the Copyright
    Office is currently preparing to issue reports on orphan works and mass
    digitization issues, as well as the application of authors' ``making
    available'' rights in the online environment under U.S. law. Beyond
    studies, the Copyright Office works closely with congressional offices
    every day to provide assistance on complex issues.
        Through its work with the Intellectual Property Enforcement
    Coordinator, the Copyright Office is also nearing completion of an
    online index of fair use cases to serve as a resource for authors and
    others.
                  challenges of the current fiscal environment
        The Copyright Office carries out a significant workload for the
    benefit of the Nation. It is doing so, however, with reduced staffing
    and technology deficiencies. These challenges are part of broader
    discussions throughout the Library, but I will note them here briefly.
    Staffing and Appointments
        The Copyright Office's total staff is smaller than it should be to
    perform its complex and important statutory assignments. We currently
    have approximately 360 filled positions under the Copyright Basic
    Budget, a number that will improve somewhat if fees remain steady and
    we can make the 25 requested hires in Registration and Recordation in
    fiscal 2016. Internally, staff reductions are felt as a workload
    distribution increase on already over-burdened employees. And over time
    the Copyright Office will be at a disadvantage if it cannot attract and
    retain experts, particularly in the legal and technology fields.
        To compound the stress, our authorized FTE ceiling will be reduced
    to 411 (for the Copyright Basic Budget including the 25 FTEs mentioned
    above) following recent congressional direction to the Library to
    reconcile and eliminate unfunded positions. This is a considerable
    reduction at a time when the Copyright Office needs staff and would in
    fact hire them if it had funding. In 2005, by comparison, the FTE
    ceiling was 492 (again, for the Copyright Basic Budget).
        On a positive note, the Copyright Office completed the first phase
    of reorganizing its departments and resources in 2014 and has begun
    filling senior-level positions as a foundational step toward a fully
    modernized Copyright Office. Among other things, with the Librarian's
    support, I established the first Copyright Office Chief Information
    Officer (CIO). Doug Ament was appointed to the position in March 2014,
    after serving several years of heading the Copyright Office's small
    technology office. As CIO, Mr. Ament advises the Register on strategic
    IT issues and engages regularly with our customers, as well as
    technology experts in the government and private sector. He, in turn,
    appointed a new Director of the Copyright Technology Office, who
    reported for duty this January, and is responsible for managing day-to-
    day activities of the Copyright Office's IT team and overseeing
    compliance issues with Federal law, regulations, information technology
    standards, and best practices.
        Although these are positive first steps, the reality is that
    Copyright Office has a very small technology office that as of this
    writing has approximately 23 FTEs. This office has always functioned as
    a liaison office to the parent agency, which manages the agency IT
    resources and has more than 200 IT staff. I believe that engaging in
    the kind of IT development activities the Copyright Office needs to
    achieve in the coming years--including building the next generation
    online registration system, achieving interoperability with private
    databases, accommodating mobile technologies, and more--will require
    the agency to reassess this management paradigm.
        The Copyright Office also has a new Office of Public Records and
    Repositories, headed by an experienced senior-level official who
    reports directly to the Register. Similarly, I appointed William
    Roberts, an experienced copyright lawyer and long-time public servant,
    as the first Associate Register and Director Public Information and
    Education. As with other positons mentioned here, this position carries
    out significant responsibilities, including managing the substantive
    content and protocols of www.copyright.gov, the portal through which
    customers access legal materials, participate in rulemakings, register
    claims to copyright, and record licenses and other copyright documents.
    Government Accountability Office
        The agency's IT systems and infrastructure are of paramount concern
    for the Copyright Office, and it has been working with the Library, the
    public, and the Government Accountability Office (``GAO'') to assess
    IT-related issues in the past year. Last year, the House Appropriations
    Committee directed the GAO to conduct a Library-wide audit of IT
    management and governance. Copyright Office staff provided information
    for the audit and were interviewed by the auditors.
        Moreover, this subcommittee directed the GAO to review the
    technology issues relating specifically to the Copyright Office. GAO
    was instructed to identify ``any deficiencies or obstacles to serving
    the copyright community in a modernized environment.'' The subcommittee
    also directed the GAO to ``provide a legal and technical evaluation of
    the information technology infrastructure that the Copyright Office
    shares with the Library of Congress.'' These directives followed from
    the subcommittee's recognition that ``the digital revolution has
    transformed the copyright marketplace and, as a result, the role of the
    Copyright Office in our economy.'' The subcommittee report also cited
    comments and concerns submitted by a variety of actors throughout the
    copyright community indicating that the Copyright Office needs
    significant IT upgrades to become fully interoperable with the digital
    economy that it serves.
        Copyright Office staff has been responsive to GAO's team, which
    included some of the same auditors assigned to the Library audit. We
    appreciate the work of the auditors and look forward to their findings.
    Having completed several years of core foundational research, the
    Copyright Office remains extremely concerned about recommending major
    IT investments while continuing to utilize the singular enterprise
    architecture and IT infrastructure of the Library, which is under
    considerable strain. Service from the Library has been inconsistent at
    best, as the Library's IT staff manages multiple projects and systems
    from across the agency. Indeed, although the Library has more than two
    hundred IT staff, none are devoted exclusively to the Copyright Office.
    It is difficult to see how this kind of paradigm is sustainable. In
    short, the Library is faced with multiple missions and an array of
    equally important but competing concerns, in some ways adding up to an
    impossible job.
    Technical Upgrades Special Project
        During the past few years, the Director of the Copyright Technology
    Office, who has served as the Copyright Office's first CIO since last
    February, chaired a special project designed to assess the areas in
    which the Copyright Office needs to modernize, which included
    soliciting the talent and expertise of the Copyright Office's customers
    and stakeholders. In February 2015, the project team delivered its
    findings and recommendations to me, and I have in turn released them to
    the public. This document, Report and Recommendations of the Technical
    Upgrade Special Project Team, will be a very helpful resource as we
    consider future strategies for the Copyright Office. The report
    acknowledges challenges with the current user experience and with
    access to the public record, while offering recommendations for
    improvement, such as developing a more dedicated IT infrastructure to
    support the registration and recordation functions, and deploying
    Application Programming Interfaces (``APIs'') to provide for data
    exchange with the rich data of private copyright databases. The Report
    is available on the Copyright Office Web site.
                        statutory authority to set fees
        The Copyright Office appreciates the subcommittee's dedicated
    appropriation in fiscal 2015 of $2.25 million, with $750,000 to fund
    backlog reduction in registration and $1.5 million for year one
    planning and analysis for the reengineering the document recordation
    process.
        More globally, as Register I have concluded that we should
    reconsider the funding process for the Copyright Office as it relates
    to fees. For business planning, including expenditures for IT and
    related issues involving multi-year contracts, the Copyright Office is
    constrained by the inability to spend across multi-year budget cycles.
    In addition, the Copyright Office would benefit from more flexibility
    in both its retention and spending of fee revenues, particularly in
    relation to longer-term capital improvements. This would require a
    review of the statutory provisions for fees in Chapter 7 of the
    Copyright Act.
        I would like to thank the subcommittee members for your support of
    the Copyright Office and national copyright system. Our fiscal 2016
    budget request, if approved, would address some immediate, high-
    priority needs, primarily through the authority to hire staff and use
    fee revenues received for services rendered.

        Senator Capito. Thank you so much.
        I'm going to begin with a question about--and this will go
    to the posters, I believe, and thank you for visiting my office
    and helping me understand some of the challenges.
        In your budget request, you've asked for $4.8 million and
    nine new FTEs for the National Collection Stewardship Program
    to provide additional collections space. I understand this is
    an interim solution that consists of some additional compact
    shelving within the Library's existing buildings and the lease
    of additional storage space.
        Would you please explain why this is necessary and if and
    how the work would be phased out?

                    NATIONAL COLLECTION STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM

        Dr. Billington. Well, I would just say that the Library
    adds approximately 2.5 million items to the collections each
    year, and of the 2.5 million analog items, 250,000 volumes are
    books which make up the largest component of our immediate
    space requirements.
        I'd like to turn to Mark Sweeney, who can provide you with
    more specific details on the emergency collection storage needs
    of the Library and answer your questions more fully.
        Mr. Sweeney.
        Mr. Sweeney. Collection storage is a critical need for the
    Library right now. As Dr. Billington said, we are growing at
    about 250,000 volumes per year. We have more than a million
    items that are stored on the floor or on book trucks in our
    Capitol Hill buildings. We have about a million volumes stored
    at our Landover Annex Complex that is in a less-than-desirable
    environment, and we're about 10 years behind in building Fort
    Meade preservation modules for the growth of our collection.
        So our plan right now is to be able to occupy Ft. Meade
    Module 5 when it becomes available in late 2017. At the same
    time, we are looking at space in our existing buildings here on
    Capitol Hill. This is primarily the Madison Building, where we
    can get greater collection density by installing compact
    shelving. We're limited in how much of that we can do, but it's
    based on the physical limitations of the building, what
    collection weight the building can handle.
        In addition to that, we're requesting an interim lease
    facility. This would be a 5-year lease with additional 5-year
    options.
        Senator Capito. Where is that lease? If I could just
    interrupt you quickly, where is that facility?
        Mr. Sweeney. At this time we're working with the Architect
    of the Capitol to identify a facility that can meet the
    requirements that we've already provided them.
        Senator Capito. Okay.
        Mr. Sweeney. The two posters that we have to the left over
    here, the first one, the one closest to me demonstrates the
    books that are on the floor, as well as book trucks. This
    arrangement inhibits our ability to retrieve material. It also
    puts the books at risk in terms of damage. And then the lower
    image, number 3, demonstrates a location in which we have a
    structural deficiency in one of our storage buildings.
        The poster to the left of that is our solutions. The first
    is a photograph of our high-density preservation storage
    facility at Fort Meade, a wonderful storage environment, that
    can not only hold an awful lot of material but also can
    increase the longevity of those collections; as well as image
    number 2, which is an example of using existing space and
    getting more density by shelving material by size. The third is
    an example of compact storage solutions that were installed in
    our Adams Building, which give us about a 40 percent increase
    in capacity in that space.
        Senator Capito. Well, following up on that, if you're
    collecting more than you've ever collected before, and part of
    your budget speaks to the digitization of certain items and
    certain other things in terms of the demands on your budget,
    what kind of prioritization is the Library doing in terms of
    reconfiguring what your collection priorities might be in terms
    of trying to balance the burgeoning collection that you're
    doing here, the digital you're doing here, and maybe meshing
    that with some sort of efficiencies?

                           DIGITAL COLLECTION CENTER

        Dr. Billington. Between the additional small elements,
    relatively, that we're adding to the digital collection center,
    and the priorities involved that Mr. Sweeney was able to speak
    to--adjudicating between digital and a hard-copy or analog
    version--qualitative judgments are made on the basis of what is
    the substance. There are qualitative judgments made throughout
    the process of collection building. But I think Mark can speak
    to that in more detail.
        Mr. Sweeney. Well, I would say that we live in an
    interesting time in which there is just an explosion of
    creativity. So we're living in a ``both'' world, both having to
    collect analog at scale, as well as emerging digital
    collections. To date, our digital conversion program has
    primarily been about access. That's taking an analog item
    already in our collection, putting it in digital form, and
    making it accessible on the Web. That doesn't mean that we no
    longer need the analog copy or that it shouldn't be part of our
    collection. We have taken some steps to reduce holdings. We are
    reducing our dependence on second copies of works in our
    collection so that we can get some efficiency there.
        Senator Capito. Right.
        Mr. Sweeney. However, this is not going to accommodate the
    volume of work that we anticipate will be available on the
    market that will be needed for Congress and the American
    people.
        Senator Capito. Let me ask you this. You mentioned in your
    opening statement that your FTEs are way down, yet in the
    budget you're asking for 15 more full-time equivalent positions
    for a new digital collections center. Help me understand how
    some people--their positions aren't being filled is probably
    how you're doing that, I would imagine, through attrition and
    other ways. Is that how you got down to that number, and are
    you ramping up for different skill sets, and are you cross-
    training folks so that when the digital collection center is
    inventoried they can move into different parts of the Library?
        Dr. Billington. I think that maybe Mr. Sweeney and possibly
    the Deputy would want to add a few words on that.
        Mr. Sweeney. Of course, our level of staffing down is
    primarily through attrition. There is a different skill set
    that's required to work with digital content, and the staff
    that we have available, the diminished number of staff, are
    primarily preoccupied with dealing with the analog collections,
    which have also grown.
        So the DC2, the digital collection center, is an
    opportunity for us to meet an emerging demand that we have, and
    this is not about converting analog items into digital form.
    It's primarily about dealing with digital content that's newly
    being received by the Library, where there is no analog
    equivalent.
        Senator Capito. Okay. I wanted to compliment you on the
    Books for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. We talked about
    this when you were in my office, and you mentioned that West
    Virginians have chosen to access this as a service, and I think
    that it has been a great service for those folks. So I want to
    say thank you on that, and I was wondering, with the budget
    request there, is there enough there to cover these needs?
    Obviously, it's the only free access library in the country, is
    the way I understand it, for the blind and physically
    handicapped. If you could just give me hope for the future on
    that and where you see that going.

           FUNDING FOR BOOKS FOR THE BLIND AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED

        Dr. Billington. Well, since 1931 the National Library
    Service has been addressing the needs of this important
    constituency. I think Karen Keninger, our excellent head of the
    National Library Service, can provide you with the details and
    answers to your questions. I know that there are five major
    distribution centers in West Virginia, but she'll give you more
    of the details.
        Ms. Keninger. Thank you, Senator. The budget that we have
    requested will be sufficient for the upcoming year. We are very
    fortunate in that regard at this point in time. So we are okay
    there.
        Senator Capito. Finding more people, becoming aware of the
    services, is your reach broadening?
        Ms. Keninger. We are actually in the process of launching a
    public education and information program that will, we believe,
    expand our reach and increase our service. We have a lot of
    things to offer people, and it's always been a challenge to let
    people know that we're there at the time that they are ready to
    take advantage of it. We share that responsibility with our
    partners in all of the States, and they do what they can. We're
    going to be doing a national program, as well as helping the
    states with some local and regional advertising and outreach as
    well. So we're hoping that we'll be able to expand our reach
    significantly in the next couple of years.
        Senator Capito. Thank you, thank you.
        Another question I had, you mentioned in your opening
    statement that you had a world reach, you're the world's
    resource, and we've been reading news reports of ISIS members
    destroying artifacts of ancient civilizations.
        I'm curious to know if the Library's overseas offices have
    been successful in salvaging any art relics or artifacts that
    may have been or may yet be targeted for destruction, and how
    has the Library's overseas operation been impacted, if at all,
    by any kind of ongoing terrorist activities in the Middle East?
    Because you have several offices in the Middle East.

                   IMPACT OF TERRORISM ON OVERSEAS OPERATIONS

        Dr. Billington. Yes, we do. Of course, three-dimensional
    objects, the kinds of things that are in museums, are not part
    of the Library's collection policy. But the sort of paper-based
    things, archival things, books, maps, the things which record
    the knowledge and essential information about many of these
    countries, have been very much on our mind.
        We've played a role. We don't have a foreign aid budget,
    but we have expertise in dealing with fires and damage, which
    the State Department will fund trips for. We provide the
    expertise, which we have done in the case of the Iraq National
    Library to a very substantial degree.
        The damage that has been done in Egypt, where we have a
    Cairo office, and damage or real destruction of the historic
    laws of Afghanistan, where we have duplicate copies of some of
    this material and can restore some of the historical memory of
    Afghanistan in our Pakistani office, are examples of the kinds
    of damage, associated with fire or water, where restoration
    assistance has been provided working through our overseas
    bases. We had to move our Cairo office, which collects
    generally in the Arab world, when there was chaos there. The
    Cairo office was directed from Washington for a while.
        The overseas offices are directed by American employees,
    but there are multiple foreign service nationals who work on
    building the collections. In certain areas like Yemen most
    recently and in large parts of Syria, options have been
    limited. We still get some things from Damascus, but not much
    from Aleppo, for example.
        Our six overseas offices are mostly in danger spots. The
    one in Nairobi gave us additional background, for instance, on
    our first African American President. We also collect in these
    overseas offices for other research libraries in America that
    conduct research in these languages, who pay for the materials
    they receive.
        So the overseas offices are an enormous asset for America,
    a very important service that we're able to provide.
        Mark may want to add something to that since that's part of
    his immense domain as keeper of the National Collection. But it
    is also an international collection of great importance, and
    Mark may want to add a word.
        Mr. Sweeney. I would just say on the impact of terrorism on
    our operations, first we've had to contribute to capital cost
    sharing for improved security in embassies, because that's
    primarily where we operate out of. So that's had a budget
    impact on us. In Cairo and Islamabad, both of our directors
    have had to be out of country for periods of time because of
    security issues. We've also had the offices closed for periods
    of time so that the national staff weren't available to be able
    to work there.
        So it's a difficult situation, but we continue to work with
    our staff there, as well as with agents that we have in some of
    the problem countries in order to be able to acquire material.
    Sometimes they'll hold material for a period of time for us
    until it can be safely sent to Washington.
        Senator Capito. Okay. Well, I think that's an aspect of the
    Library of Congress that not many Americans really know about,
    and I wanted to highlight that because it's an interesting
    service. I think if we're going to learn the lessons of the
    past, we have to preserve the documentation and news and
    everything else that revolves around that.
        My last question will be around the Congressional Research
    Service, which every member of the House or Senate, has used.
    It is a vital resource to us as a non-partisan, very objective
    view of a variety of issues, obscure and not-so-obscure.

                          HEALTHCARE EXPERTISE IN CRS

        But the budget request is asking for six full-time
    equivalent positions for the expertise of healthcare. I
    understand the need for six more people for the expertise in
    healthcare with all of the various things that are moving
    around with the ACA and Medicare and Medicaid. It's very
    complicated and it needs to be examined as closely as possible.
        But I would ask, are there other areas where less expertise
    is needed where you can shift people? Or do you feel that
    healthcare is the premier need right now? Does that mean in 10
    years it will be something else? Do you have any feel for that
    on the CRS?
        Dr. Billington. Dr. Mary Mazanec, who is actually a medical
    doctor as well as a qualified lawyer, is the best person----
        Senator Capito. She must like school.
        Dr. Billington. I would just make this one quick comment,
    and that is that you need real expertise. I think they only
    have one expert working mainly in this field. She can specify
    exactly. But you can't spread them too thin or you don't have
    the kind of highly specialized expertise that for 100 years now
    the Congressional Research Service (CRS) within the Library has
    been providing to Congress. So I think this is the minimal
    request, and it's not solely, but it's mainly for healthcare.
        Dr. Mazanec can explain.
        Dr. Mazanec. Thank you. I would echo what Dr. Billington
    said. In the last 5 years, and that's about my tenure at CRS,
    our staffing numbers have come down, and we have looked at
    portfolios as people have retired and left CRS. We have
    reassigned issue areas. We're spread very thin, especially in
    the healthcare area. It's received the highest volume of
    requests across the Service. It receives about 10 percent of
    our targeted inquiries.
        On top of that, the capacity that we're seeking in these
    six FTEs really is not adequately represented in the current
    staffing. It requires academic study and professional
    experience that we don't sufficiently have; for example, a
    health tax policy expert, or an expert on the private insurance
    sector, the industry.
        As you stated, Chairman, the healthcare sector is becoming
    increasingly complex as it evolves. There is increased
    regulation. So I also think there are emerging issues every day
    in Medicare and Medicaid. I don't think that healthcare is
    going to become a quiescent issue area in the near term, or in
    the longer term, especially as the population ages and their
    health needs increase. Healthcare expenditures also represent a
    significant percentage of our national economy, and I am told
    by my experts, my health experts, that 40 percent-plus of
    Americans currently receive health benefits at least in part
    from various Federal programs.
        So I really do think that we need to build additional
    capacity in this area.
        Senator Capito. I said that was my last question, but this
    will be a short one.
        We've had testimony from the GAO and others that they're
    having difficulty finding the level of expertise they need
    mostly in the economics field. Do you share that same
    difficulty finding expertise, or do you rely mostly on, once
    folks get in the door, training them on how to research, et
    cetera?
        Dr. Mazanec. We do both, but there is a certain expertise
    that has to come in through the door, and I would agree with
    both Doug Elmendorf and Gene Dodaro that healthcare economists
    are very marketable. They're difficult to recruit because there
    is such demand today, and even more difficult to retain.
        Senator Capito. Right. Thank you.
        Senator Schatz.

                       STATEMENT OF SENATOR BRIAN SCHATZ

        Senator Schatz. Thank you, Chair Capito.
        I think it's important in the digital age to remember that
    books matter, libraries matter. I subscribe to the ``both/and''
    approach. I support the Library's effort to incorporate digital
    material into its collections and make materials available
    online whenever possible, but I also support the Library in
    continuing to collect physical materials.
        It's important to recognize that search engines are not
    curated by experts. Libraries have not and cannot be replaced
    by the Internet.
        Funding for the Library of Congress, which we review today,
    supports the subject-matter experts and library scientists who
    curate and preserve American creativity and scholarship. It's
    this world-class knowledge and care that makes the Library of
    Congress the premiere repository of our Nation's historic works
    and original knowledge, and the largest, broadest-reaching
    library in the world. It's our responsibility to show this to
    our children. Libraries aren't dusty museums that the Internet
    left behind. They are living, breathing, and growing
    institutions that deserve our investment. This makes our job of
    ensuring that the Library has the resources it needs to curate,
    preserve, and store its collections especially important.

                        BUILDING THE DIGITAL COLLECTION

        My first question for the Library of Congress has to do
    with digital collections. Due to the rapid growth of digital
    technology and content, the rate of the Library's digital
    acquisitions now rivals that of its analog collections. You may
    not characterize it as analog. I'm interested to learn how the
    Library plans to build and improve upon its digital capacities
    to best fulfill its historic mission.
        So, what is your long-term vision on building the digital
    collection, and how is that reflected in the budget request?
        Dr. Billington. Well, I think I should perhaps turn that
    over to Liz Scheffler, our new interim chief information
    officer. She's been working to deal both with the
    infrastructure question, the status, and the outline of our
    future path and strategy in this area. But perhaps we should
    also call on Mark Sweeney, because the integration of the
    digital, the choice of prioritization of whether you take a
    digital or an analog object when both is available depends on
    the substance, because we're interested in the best substance.
        But I would just say, before I turn it over to my
    colleagues on this very important question, I appreciate your
    general statement as well as your focus on this, because
    integrating the digital with the analog so that we can answer
    the questions the Congress asks and the Nation requires a
    qualitative selection process for its national collection. So
    nothing could be more important.
        I'll begin with Liz Scheffler, who has a great deal of
    experience in this and is our interim chief information
    officer, and then I'll call on Mark Sweeney who will answer the
    other questions that she may not cover.
        Liz, go ahead.
        Ms. Scheffler. Thank you, Dr. Billington, and thank you so
    much for the question.
        My focus is primarily on the ability to accept what the
    Library decides it wants to collect on the digital side, and
    working alongside Library Services, the Law Library, and also
    Copyright, on how it will be stored and preserved for the
    future. My primary focus right now as part of the overall
    Library IT strategic planning that I'm leading is planning for
    the long-term storage needs on the technology side which,
    looking at the rapid growth we've had--and I should say it like
    this: last year it was triple what we had expected, and we do
    not expect that to end, as far as the growth levels grow, of
    receiving the digital materials.
        So we're looking forward to working alongside Mark Sweeney
    and the others as we plan what will be the needs.
        I'm going to turn it over to Mark because Mark is really
    the expert.
        Senator Schatz. Well, can I just ask a question? There are
    several questions. One of them is how, operationally, you're
    going to do this. Another is who makes the judgments and what
    judgments are to be made about either what comes in digitally
    and then gets archived or comes in in analog form and then gets
    digitized? But then the other question is, to what extent is
    this all reflected in the budget request? So, could you speak
    to those questions?
        Ms. Scheffler. Okay. Let me go first and say we look to the
    Library side, basically those who are in charge of the
    curatorial aspects, to be providing to the technology side what
    will be their needs and what they will be collecting and what
    will be digitized, and that we work as a partnership.
        Senator Schatz. But does the expertise, is it the same set
    of knowledge and expertise and all the rest of it on the
    Library side, so to speak, or is there a growing field of
    specialized expertise in the curating of digital materials?
    Because it seems to me that may not be the same expertise.
        Ms. Scheffler. There is a different expertise, and I'm
    going to rely on Mark Sweeney, who leads Library Service, to
    discuss what that program will look like.
        But what we do on the technology side is we work alongside
    them as they determine what they want to bring in, what will be
    digitally collected, which is born digital, will be digitized,
    and then how we'll be storing it, whether it will be in long-
    term storage, how things will be presented to the public.
        Senator Schatz. So, in the interest of time, I'd actually
    like to maybe put these questions in the record----
        Ms. Scheffler. That would be fine.
        Senator Schatz [continuing]. And have you get back to me on
    the details. But here's sort of a more basic question.
        How far along, how mature are your processes and
    procedures? How mature are you in your hiring? I mean, are you
    all set and now you have to fund it and execute, or are you
    sort of boarding a moving train at this point?

                        STAFFING THE DIGITAL COLLECTION

        Ms. Scheffler. I would never say we're boarding a moving
    train. However, I would say that there is an upside to maturity
    and that we have been doing this for a number of years. We've
    learned a lot from what we have done. We know what we have to
    do to proceed to the future.
        Senator Schatz. Okay, thank you.
        Dr. Billington. Mark may be able to provide an answer on
    this.
        Senator Schatz. Sure, go ahead, and then we'll move on to
    the next question.
        Dr. Billington. Thank you.
        Mr. Sweeney. I think the heart of your question speaks to
    why we proposed the Digital Collection Center and the number of
    staff for that. We do have some experience with acquiring
    already born digital content, but we know that we have to scale
    that, and the expertise that is needed is both curatorial,
    identifying what is of value in digital and bring it in, but
    also requires skills that are unique to managing that content
    both from the moment it arrives at our institution, adding
    metadata to it, having preservation plans for it, and
    eventually making it accessible. So it's really the whole life-
    cycle of it.
        Senator Schatz. Thank you.

                COPYRIGHT OFFICE WITHIN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

        Dr. Billington, I have a question for you about the
    Copyright Office within the Library of Congress. This was based
    on the Library's need to build its collection by acquiring one
    copy for each registered work. So it made sense at the time for
    the two entities, the Copyright Office and the Library of
    Congress, to operate under one roof.
        My view is that the reality has changed, and now the
    Copyright Office has a staff of more than 400 who are
    responsible for processing nearly half-a-million copyright
    registrations each year, maintaining the national copyright
    recordation system, and administering all of our copyright
    laws.
        The work of the Copyright Office is vital to the Congress,
    the judicial system, copyright-related industries,
    international trade and the global marketplace. I'm worried
    that the Copyright Office may be out-growing its home within
    the Library of Congress and that it may no longer be the right
    fit. As we deliberate--and this isn't a decision that we would
    undertake precipitously, but I wanted to put this question on
    the table because I think that we need to reevaluate whether
    this fit which had a specific rationale a long time ago makes
    sense anymore.
        Dr. Billington. Well, as I said in my introductory
    statement, there are many questions about how copyright will
    function in the future. I think it's extremely important to
    remember that before 1870-1871, when the Congress decided to
    put Copyright inside, to function within the Library of
    Congress, that nothing copyrighted was preserved at all. So the
    question of determining what is important to have as
    permanently preserved and ultimately part of the national
    memory and the national collection was a basic reason for
    bringing it into the Library in the first place.
        Now, of course, things have changed. The problems have
    multiplied. We've requested 25 new FTEs, exactly what the
    Register requested for this year to address operational
    requirements.
        I think the most important thing to consider in the future,
    in how you modernize the Copyright Office from the point of
    view of the national collection, is that the record of the
    private-sector intellectual and cultural creativity, innovation
    and creativity has to be preserved for the future.
        Senator Schatz. Well, I agree.
        Dr. Billington. Prior to 1870, deposits were kept for the
    purpose of enforcing the copyright laws; the preservation of
    these records was not a consideration. So this is an important
    Library consideration that is very central because it's one of
    the two things that we are unique custodians of for the rapidly
    changing future: the world's knowledge and America's
    intellectual and cultural copyright activity, which would not
    be priorities of the Patent Office or other places that might
    be considered an appropriate location.
        I'll let the Register speak to this issue, Maria Pallante,
    our Register of Copyrights.

               RESOURCES AND ORGANIZATIONAL LOCATION OF COPYRIGHT

        Ms. Pallante. I appreciate the question very much, Ranking
    Member Schatz. I think, as Dr. Billington said, there have been
    a lot of long-term synergies between the Copyright Office and
    the Library. But as you stated, ultimately today they need to
    focus on acquisition preservation and making use of scholarly
    materials. For a variety of reasons, we need to focus on
    serving e-commerce, and we administer a Federal law that
    protects intellectual property rights.
        The reason that I think the tensions are becoming more
    apparent, or the challenges, to use a better word, is because
    of resources. So before, for example, I can ask you for capital
    funds to bring recordation online. Because it's still paper, I
    think the question is how do we make that investment. Do we do
    it in the current Library infrastructure for IT, or do we begin
    to make investments in a more strategic, targeted way? And
    that's without getting into some of the constitutional issues
    and other things that are pending before the Judiciary about
    the relationship. But there certainly are still some synergies.

                    COPYRIGHT--LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SYNERGIES

        Senator Schatz. Can you give me an example of some of the
    synergies? I'm wondering if there are economies of scale
    operationally? Because it doesn't seem to me that you're
    actually operating together.
        Ms. Pallante. I think there were, but we're subordinate to
    the Library in terms of the organization.
        Senator Schatz. So what are the synergies?
        Ms. Pallante. The synergies are that to the extent we
    continue to request materials for the purpose of examining them
    for legal protection and preserving them for litigation, it's
    certainly possible that the Library could continue to be the
    repository for those materials.
        What we're finding, though, is that that has to be done
    according to a very careful regulatory scheme that can't simply
    just be made available to the public as though they're part of
    the Library's regular collection because people have given them
    to us because they want to protect their rights, not re-publish
    the work. Those are not things that I think we can't solve.
        The bigger question, though, is if we're going to re-think
    registration, period, do we need those kinds of preservation-
    quality deposits. That has to be aired publicly and carefully
    and can't just be an agency decision.
        Senator Schatz. Thank you, and thanks, Chair Capito, for
    your indulgence. I'm done with the Library of Congress.
        Senator Capito. Senator Murphy.
        Senator Murphy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one question
    for Dr. Billington.

                          CAIRO, EGYPT OVERSEAS OFFICE

        Some years ago, on a trip to the Middle East, I had the
    opportunity to visit a Library of Congress facility in Cairo
    and was really blown away by the scope and the reach of a very
    small staff there. And it strikes me now more than ever that
    those efforts to collect information--pamphlets, propaganda,
    whatever it may be--that aren't published traditionally are
    more important to the United States now than ever.
        I, frankly, have not followed the progress of that work
    being done in and around the Middle East region, but I just
    would love to know whether the budget cuts that you've
    sustained over the course of years have affected that operation
    and what the plans and prospects are for that international
    effort, especially in that very volatile region, to collect
    information and publications that are not coming to you through
    other means, what the future of that looks like.
        Dr. Billington. Well, we've had to pay more to maintain
    these offices. They're more expensive. We've had to pay rent
    and different carrying costs to the State Department and
    others. It is extremely important that we maintain our overseas
    operations because they are the only means of acquiring and
    preserving a multitude of unique collection materials. If we're
    not going to be the repository, in effect, for the mandatory
    receipt of copyrighted materials for permanent retention as
    part of the national memory of American creativity, we will be
    in trouble. But we'll also be in trouble if we don't continue
    these overseas collections for the knowledge of the world.
        For instance, our Cairo office does remarkable things. All
    of these overseas offices travel widely. They have enormous
    knowledge of foreign languages, which is extremely important
    because more and more places are popping up with material that
    nobody else could decipher. We have somebody in our Cairo
    office, for instance, who speaks all three languages of the
    Kurds. Most people don't know that there's even one language of
    the Kurds. These are not dialects. These are separate
    languages. We have preserved the entire Coptic liturgical
    music, the oldest that relates to Christian history. The Copts
    are an important part of the Egyptian population. That's never
    been preserved before. It's now the official language of the
    Coptic Church.
        There is so much information that is in danger of not
    surviving, of not being part of the national memory. We're a
    part of the national memory and we're part of the world's
    knowledge. There's nothing equal to it. If we were to lose
    copyrighted knowledge or be dependent on some future
    arrangement that may not happen, you go back to the situation
    before 1870 when none of the copyrighted record was preserved.
        If our overseas offices don't function, we'll cease to be a
    place on the world's frontiers for preserving things that may
    be destroyed by extremists or terrorists or just fires that are
    never put out or water damage that's never repaired, which we
    are the best in the world at.

               SUSTAINING THE OLDEST FEDERAL CULTURAL INSTITUTION

        This is a unique, one-of-a-kind American institution that
    the Congress has created and sustained. It's the oldest Federal
    cultural institution, and it is I think capable of being one of
    the most innovative if its collections and staff are not
    diminished.
        We have a tremendous new leadership team. We've had a year-
    long futures process that I have personally conducted with
    staff below this level. So from bottom-up and top-down, we
    offer you not something that we've created but something that
    Congress originated, created. But once it starts declining,
    once you miss 1 year, you double the problem in the following
    year, and the decline will be irreversible.
        I think we ought to hear a word from Robert Newlen who is
    my chief of staff, in conclusion so it's not just the old
    professor going on for 15 minutes.
        So, Robert Newlen and David Mao can just wrap things up
    very quickly for you and supplement my passion with a little
    more youthful vigor and energy.
        Mr. Newlen. Mr. Murphy, just to follow up on Dr.
    Billington's question about budget impact on our foreign
    office, one area of concern is the annual assessment that we
    have from the State Department for security for our facilities,
    many of which are located in American embassies. It's a very
    complex formula to determine our assessment. But this year I
    believe it ran in the neighborhood of over $2.5 million, and we
    anticipate that it will continue to grow in the future.
        But thank you for your comments about those offices. They
    are absolutely critical to our future acquisition policy. We
    are able to accumulate materials that we routinely use to
    service the Congress, so we continue to value them very much.
        Senator Murphy. I would just make a final note which I
    think, Dr. Billington, you're very right to note the fact that
    in many of these places you have regimes or entities, non-state
    actors, who are controlling large portions of territory that
    are in the business of destroying the historical record,
    destroying the cultural record. And when these communities and
    societies try to rebuild, if that record isn't preserved, and
    we are the only ones that have the resources to preserve it, it
    makes reconciliation much more difficult. So I appreciate the
    work of your overseas offices and I appreciate your comments.
    Thank you.
        Senator Capito. Thank you. I think this concludes our first
    panel of this hearing and I want to thank Dr. Billington, Mr.
    Mao, Mr. Newlen, and all the others who came forward to give
    their expertise on the Library of Congress, for your time
    today.
        The hearing record will remain open for seven days so that
    senators may submit any statements and/or questions for the
    record to the subcommittee by close of business Tuesday, March
    24, 2015.
        I would now like to ask Stephen Ayers, the Architect of the
    Capitol, to take a seat at the witness table for the second
    panel of the day.
        Thank you all.
        Are you ready, Mr. Ayers?
        I'd like to welcome the Honorable Stephen T. Ayers, the
    Architect of the Capitol, and the talented and dedicated
    members of his senior staff: Christine Merdon, who is the Chief
    Operating Officer; Tom Carroll, Chief Financial Officer; and
    Mamie Bittner, who has just joined the Architect's team this
    past December as the new Director of Communications and
    Congressional Relations.
        I understand that there are several superintendents of
    daily operations and maintenance of many of the buildings
    within the jurisdiction, that many of them are here today. So I
    want to thank you for your dedication and public service. I
    admire it every day. I feel honored and privileged to be
    working here in what is, I always say, the largest symbol of
    our freedom, the United States Capitol and associated
    buildings. It's a magnificent place, and we want to keep it
    that way, as you do too.
        So briefly, the budget is an increase of $61.5, or about 10
    percent, and I realize that there is a deferred maintenance
    backlog of about $1.4 billion, and you've had some very tough
    decisions that you've had to make. But it is an increase of 10
    percent, and if you heard me with Dr. Billington, I basically
    posited that it's highly probable that we'll be faced with a
    flat budget for 2016 and be unable to make some tough decisions
    ahead of us.
        I noticed the theme of exterior envelope repair needs in
    this building or your request, including significant roof and
    stone deterioration on several buildings. I thank you for the
    tour so we could see up close and personal, particularly in the
    Russell Building, Hart, and the Capitol itself.
        One of the questions I'm going to be asking later is how do
    we prevent that from accumulating to such great degrees in the
    future? Do we need more maintenance, more cleaning, different
    materials? We can get into that later.
        So now, for an opening statement, I'd like to turn to my
    ranking member, Senator Schatz, for any opening comments he may
    make.
        Senator Schatz. Thank you, Chair Capito. I'm ready to hear
    from Mr. Ayers.
        Senator Capito. Mr. Ayers, I'd like to ask you to give a
    brief opening statement of approximately 5 minutes. The written
    testimony you submitted will be printed in full as part of the
    hearing record.

                            ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

    STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN T. AYERS, ARCHITECT OF THE
                CAPITOL
    ACCOMPANIED BY:
            CHRISTINE MERDON, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
            TOM CARROLL, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
            MAMIE BITTNER, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND CONGRESSIONAL
                RELATIONS
        Mr. Ayers. Thank you and good afternoon, Chairman Capito,
    Senator Schatz and members of the subcommittee. I'm delighted
    to be with you today, and thank you for the opportunity to
    testify.
        I'm pleased to present the Architect of the Capitol's (AOC)
    fiscal year 2016 budget. Our incredibly talented team of
    professionals has worked diligently to prioritize the
    challenges we face as our magnificent Capitol campus continues
    to age.
        Thanks to the outstanding support from you, we're hard at
    work at delivering our common mission of stewardship for the
    buildings and grounds of Capitol Hill. The start of the Dome
    Restoration Project in the fall of 2014 is a prime example of
    how we have worked together to reinvest the necessary resources
    on a project that will protect America's inspiring Capitol. I'm
    pleased to report today that we're nearly halfway through the
    exterior Dome restoration work. We currently anticipate
    completion of the exterior restoration this time next year.
        However, beyond the Capitol Dome, enormous challenges
    remain. From falling stone to aging infrastructure, coupled
    with safety and operational issues, the problems of Capitol
    Hill are continuing to get worse over time. This year's budget
    request addresses several critical projects across the Capitol
    campus, and I would like to highlight a few of them now for
    you.
        First, we continue to address the systemic problem of stone
    deterioration across the campus. To this end, we are seeking
    support for the third phase of the five-phase Russell Senate
    Office Building Exterior Envelope Repair and Restoration
    project. This will make repairs to the west facade of the 105-
    year-old office building. Rehabilitating the Russell Building
    exterior will significantly reduce the risk of falling stone
    and will result in increased energy savings with the
    maintenance of the doors and windows.
        Another project that I think is critical to our success is
    the next phase of the West Refrigeration Plant Chiller System
    Replacement at the Capitol Power Plant. This project will
    replace two old, inefficient chillers and chilled water pumps
    that date back to the 1970s, with a new chiller and other
    essential equipment.
        The Capitol Power Plant plays an essential role in the
    Architect of the Capitol's (AOC) long-term energy conservation
    and cost reduction efforts. The existing chillers were
    installed in the 1970s and are far beyond their useful life
    expectancy.
        Lastly, we are seeking your support to fund the first of
    three phases of the Senate Underground Garage Restoration and
    Landscape Restoration project. Constructed in 1932, the Senate
    Underground Garage, plazas and fountains continue to
    deteriorate and are in need of renovation and restoration. The
    project will also improve the Senate fountain's water
    efficiency and save future maintenance costs.
        These projects, among others highlighted in our budget
    request, are indicative of the critical nature of the work
    necessary to maintain the Capitol campus. Every day when I walk
    around Capitol Hill I'm reminded that the AOC's work directly
    affects members of Congress, your staff and visitors, and
    allows you to conduct the important work of government. Rest
    assured that the proud men and women of the AOC are your
    partners and we will continue to work around the clock and
    dedicate ourselves to our mission, no matter the challenges
    that lie ahead. Thank you.
        [The statement follows:]
                  Prepared Statement of Hon. Stephen T. Ayers
        Chairman Capito, Senator Schatz, and members of the subcommittee,
    thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the Architect
    of the Capitol's (AOC) fiscal year 2016 budget request.
        With the support of Congress, the AOC is a strong steward of the
    buildings and grounds that comprise Capitol Hill. The incredibly
    talented and skillful employees of the agency care for facilities that
    are decades and even centuries old--buildings that were constructed
    without the modern equipment and efficiencies we now take for granted.

         Safety canopy over the Rotunda in support of the Capitol Dome
                                  Restoration.

        In service to the U.S. Senate, the AOC achieved a number of major
    accomplishments in the past year. This work included moving 15
    committee offices and 7 Senator's offices as required by the majority
    transition. We also began work on the Hart Senate Office Building roof
    and skylights replacement, including an ongoing structural analysis of
    the Calder Clouds Mobile. We made critical life-safety systems upgrades
    to the historic Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda that also
    preserves its ornate features.
        Recognizing that AOC employees are among our most important assets,
    we continue to make investments to empower them. In 2014, we held more
    than 30 town halls, sharing critical information and soliciting
    feedback from our staff. In addition, we conducted an organizational
    assessment survey and are pleased that more than 80 percent of AOC
    employees participated. Based on this feedback, AOC was ranked 8th out
    of 25 mid-sized Federal agencies by the Partnership for Public
    Service's Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings.
        AOC is also working to strengthen our supervisors. We have launched
    a ``Supervisory Academy,'' a week of intense supervision, management
    and leadership theory and skills development to help our supervisors
    become extraordinary leaders. Beyond our supervisors, we have launched
    two programs to encourage our staff to further improve their abilities.
    This includes the Architect's Mobility Program that allows employees
    who lack qualifying experience to move into positions where they can
    gain a specialized skill set, enabling them to progress according to
    their abilities. And our Exchange of Critical Expertise and Learning
    (ExCEL) program serves to improve organizational productivity, enhance
    strategic efficiencies and increase employee knowledge.
        As strong as our employees are, our buildings are in need of
    additional help. Materials like stone, cast iron and bronze are key
    elements that provide the character and charm that thousands of Members
    of Congress, their staff and visitors have enjoyed throughout our
    Nation's history. Yet even these robust materials degrade over time.
    The maintenance needs of the Capitol campus continue to grow every
    year, allowing small problems to become major life-safety and
    infrastructure problems requiring significant investments and resources
    to remedy.
        Taking into account the emerging priorities and looming urgent
    repairs for fiscal year 2016, we are requesting $661.8 million--a
    decrease of 2.2 percent from our fiscal year 2015 budget request.
        To address capital projects categorized as urgent or immediate, we
    are requesting $144.5 million. This is a $12 million or 7.7 percent
    decrease from our fiscal year 2015 request, leaving $182.9 million of
    deferred maintenance work to be requested in future fiscal years. We
    recognize that not every project can be funded at the same time, and
    the deferred work will continue to be added to future funding requests.
    While we work to mitigate the risk of major failure by carefully
    monitoring and maintaining the facilities and systems, we know that
    delaying critical projects will inevitably result in increased fiscal
    demands on future budgets.
        Ongoing budget constraints mean we must carefully weigh competing
    demands and use our expertise to recommend investments in the most
    critical projects. Our Project Prioritization Process ranks every
    project based on its importance and urgency so that we can effectively
    recommend to Congress the investments most needed to ensure the Capitol
    campus remains safe, functional and protected for all who work and
    visit the buildings and grounds.
                  aging buildings require critical investment
        Viewed from a distance, the buildings of Capitol Hill are inspiring
    and impressive, but up close, the buildings are more distressing than
    impressive, as weather, age and deferred maintenance are destroying
    many of the finer details of these awe-inspiring stone edifices.

      Deteriorating stone on the Russell Senate Office Building exterior.

        When stone is properly maintained, it is one of the world's most
    enduring materials; but when exterior stone deteriorates, major
    problems such as water infiltration, rusting of steel structures, mold
    and energy loss can occur within the building.
        While our dedicated employees perform the work necessary to
    maintain our buildings and grounds, they can only ensure the integrity
    of the materials when they are given adequate resources and support.
    Years of austere budgets have already resulted in the loss of many
    irreplaceable heritage assets.
        Stone preservation continues to emerge as one of our most important
    priorities. The condition of the exterior stone on most, if not all, of
    the buildings on Capitol Hill is rapidly deteriorating. The AOC's
    historic preservationists, structural engineers and stonemasons are in
    a race against time as the infrastructure ages and deferred maintenance
    projects accumulate.

           AOC stonemason makes repairs to the Olmsted Terrace Walls.

        Stonemasons from our Construction Division have been hard at work
    making repairs to the Olmsted Terrace--the first in more than a
    century. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1874, considered the
    founder of American landscape architecture, the terrace walls provide a
    strong visible base to the Capitol and a heightened sense of grandeur
    and scale. Unfortunately, the terrace conditions have deteriorated over
    time. But through the expertise of our Historic Preservation Officer
    and our stonemasons--funded from Capitol Construction and Operations--
    we are able to make the critical repairs needed to save these assets
    and restore the Olmsted Terrace to its former splendor.
        The longer these stone buildings are left to the destructive
    effects of time and the elements, the more the problems compound.
    Instances of cracking and spalling stone grow more serious and more
    costly to repair every year, and the temporary fixes the AOC undertakes
    to prevent catastrophic failures are not enough to prevent conditions
    from worsening. Investing in stonework projects will pay long-term
    dividends and preserve these historic buildings for decades to come.
        At the U.S. Capitol Building, an investment in the rehabilitation
    of the exterior stone will prolong the building's life expectancy and
    preserve its historic features. The U.S. Capitol South Extension
    Exterior Stone and Metal Preservation work will include mortar
    replacement, fabrication and installation of Dutchman repairs, and
    stone cleaning. This work will help stem the water infiltration that
    has been destroying the existing historic fabric of the building.

                  Spalling stone on the U.S. Capitol Building.

        The third phase of the five-phase Russell Senate Office Building
    Exterior Envelope Repair and Restoration project will address the west
    facade of the 105-year-old office building. The work will repair the
    facade, windows and doors; repoint the masonry; restore and refinish
    the exterior metals and make structural repairs to the balustrades.
    Rehabilitating the Russell Building exterior will significantly reduce
    the risk of falling stone and will result in increased energy savings
    with the maintenance of the doors and windows.

        Stone sugaring on the Russell Senate Office Building balustrade.

        The Summerhouse, a favorite Capitol Grounds respite during the hot
    summer months, is rapidly deteriorating and requires intervention to
    restore the structure to its former grand condition. In particular, the
    terra cotta roof and bricks are crumbling, leading to an increase in
    life-safety issues, and the center fountain and grotto lack a
    recirculating water system, which is an inefficient use of resources.
    If the Summerhouse Restoration project is completed, it will ensure
    that this Capitol Grounds treasure is preserved for generations.

            Olmsted's Summerhouse is an American historic treasure.

        In future fiscal years, stone preservation will continue to be the
    AOC's main focus, as nearly every building on Capitol Hill is built
    from stone and nearly all are in need of repair. Scaffolding already
    surrounds parts of the U.S. Capitol Building and will soon be visible
    around the Russell Senate Office Building and Cannon House Office
    Building as well. These critical stone restoration efforts will ensure
    that the work of Congress can continue for decades to come.
                               critical projects
        In our fiscal year 2016 budget request, we are requesting funding
    for projects that will ensure necessary investments are made in our
    historic infrastructure and increase the safety and security of those
    who work or visit Capitol Hill. Providing superior service to our
    customers and executing numerous large-scale and highly visible multi-
    year construction projects is a formidable challenge that we are
    addressing by managing risk and transparently communicating with
    Congress and the American public.
        AOC is responsible for meeting a wide range of fire, life safety,
    accessibility and performance standards, while also balancing
    operational needs and challenging working conditions that are unique to
    Capitol Hill and our aging buildings. In particular, we are focused on
    energy efficiency, addressing safety deficiencies and repairing crucial
    building infrastructure.
        The Capitol Power Plant (CPP) will continue to play an essential
    role in the AOC's long-term energy conservation and cost reduction
    efforts. The CPP's existing chillers, located in the West Refrigeration
    Plant (WRP), were installed in the 1970s and are rapidly approaching
    the end of their useful life expectancy. The risk of chiller failure
    increases as we continue to rely on this equipment to provide
    environmental control to the buildings on Capitol Hill. The next phase
    of the WRP Chiller System Replacement will replace two old, inefficient
    chillers and primary chilled water pumps with a new chiller, in
    addition to making other essential upgrades and repairs. The chiller
    replacement will reduce the Capitol Power Plant's energy consumption,
    increasing efficiency and simultaneously providing a significant
    electrical cost savings.

                Chiller reaching the end of its life expectancy.

        To mitigate Office of Compliance citations across the Capitol
    campus, we are requesting funding for the second phase of the Library
    of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building North Exit Stair B, which will
    address important egress deficiencies in the building. The AOC will
    construct a new self-supporting masonry exit stair in the northeast
    stacks that extends from the cellar to the top floor of the building,
    in addition to constructing new fire-rated exit passageways. The
    project will ensure that occupants of the Jefferson Building will be
    able to efficiently and rapidly exit the building during an emergency
    evacuation.
        Constructed in 1932, the Senate Underground Garage, plazas and
    fountains continue to deteriorate and are in need of renovation and
    restoration. Our request to fully fund the first of three phases of the
    Senate Underground Garage Renovations and Landscape Restoration will
    waterproof the upper and middle plaza fountains and surrounding
    stonework, restore the walkways and waterproof part of the garage ramp.
    The project will improve both of the fountain's water efficiency and
    save future maintenance costs for stonework repair.

                    Deteriorated Senate Underground Garage.

        The longer these projects are delayed, the more the conditions of
    the buildings will decline. Proper investment is needed to ensure the
    historic fabric of these buildings is not lost to the ravages of time.
                                   conclusion
        Chairman Capito, Senator Schatz and members of the subcommittee,
    funding our recommended capital projects in fiscal year 2016 ensures
    that necessary investments are made in our aged infrastructure, and
    maintains the unique and historic buildings that serve Congress and the
    American people.

        We appreciate the previous investments, support and trust Congress
    has placed in us to address critical construction projects across the
    Capitol campus. The investments made in the AOC have enabled us to
    preserve history and ensure Congress can accomplish its daily
    functions.
        The buildings of the Capitol campus are well cared for by the
    dedicated men and women of the AOC who use their incredible talents and
    skills to maintain the buildings and grounds. Day after day, our
    employees deliver inspiring and professional service to our customers.
    Each employee's contribution is vital to our success as an
    organization.
        There is much work to be done, but we believe that there is no
    greater mission than upholding the historic buildings entrusted to our
    care. The American people and future generations are counting on us to
    work together to invest the necessary resources to sustain the
    treasures of Capitol Hill.

                     ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL POSTER BOARDS

                         U.S. CAPITOL DOME RESTORATION

        Senator Capito. I want to thank you, and I'll go right to
    questioning.
        The Dome, obviously, is the most prominent demonstration of
    the work of the Architect of the Capitol, the rehabilitation
    work which you toured for us, probably on the coldest day of
    the year. Thank you very much for that.
        I understand you mentioned that it is on budget and on
    schedule. I'd just like a reaffirmation of that because
    obviously I have concern about the inauguration of 2016. Do you
    have full confidence that you'll have this completed in time
    for that?
        Mr. Ayers. Yes, I do. This is a three-phase project. We're
    executing the exterior now, and we expect that to be finished
    this time next year. So that's well in advance of the 2017
    presidential inauguration. And the final two phases, the
    interstitial space and the Rotunda space, are both awarded, and
    work and planning is well under way. We're pretty confident
    that we'll make that date.

                         PROJECT PRIORITIZATION PROCESS

        Senator Capito. Good, that's good news.
        On your request, you have line-item construction projects
    in priority order. I noticed that you mentioned Phase 3 of the
    Russell Building exterior envelope. We also looked at that as
    well and concur that it's in need of restoration and repair.
        But as we're looking through the budget, if we flat fund
    you, we're not even going to get to that project. Do you
    anticipate that you will be reconfiguring some of your top
    projects or phases? The $29 million for the West Refrigeration
    Plant, is that the final phase of that project?
        Mr. Ayers. It is not the final phase. I think the total
    expenditure on that program is about $180 million.
        Senator Capito. Wow.
        Mr. Ayers. We've already broken it down into about six
    phases. I think there's potential that we can certainly work
    with the subcommittee to move those projects up and down the
    priority list as funding is available, and we're well poised to
    work with the subcommittee to do that.
        It's interesting, as I look through that list, nearly all
    of them are immediate priorities. The difference in priorities
    is rather small between them, and moving one above the other
    will have fairly low consequences. We would welcome the
    opportunity to do that.

                              STONE DETERIORATION

        Senator Capito. What about the question I asked in my
    opening statement in terms of the large projects, and you
    mentioned in your opening statement the deterioration of the
    Capitol Plant in and of itself. Do you have a side part of your
    vast responsibilities where you're looking at ways to do better
    maintenance or prevent the grand deterioration? When we looked
    out at the park over by the Russell Building, I think it was
    mentioned that these stones had been moving for decades, and I
    know you tried to address them, but couldn't address them.
        What do you say about that? Because certainly that would
    help with cost issues.
        Mr. Ayers. First let me show you an image or two of the
    stone restoration.
        Senator Capito. Okay.
        Mr. Ayers. I think you have some photographs at the dais,
    and let me just refer you to images 1, 2, 3 and 4. Image 1 is a
    great example of stone deterioration. This comes from water,
    and you can see the base of the wall that has pulled away from
    its structural system, and the severe deterioration at the
    bottom.
        Similarly, if you look at photographs 1, 2, 3 and 4, you'll
    see very similar deterioration there.
        To answer your question, the work that we do and our
    maintenance is not out of the ordinary. I think it's in line
    with industry best practices.
        What's different is we are managing historic buildings that
    are 100 to well over 200 years old, and we are dealing with the
    materials and methods of construction from that time. Keeping
    those buildings maintained is the issue that causes us the most
    difficulty.
        Take stone, for example. We are using the latest
    technology. Thirty or forty years ago, cleaning stone would
    have been done with high-pressure power washers or sand
    blasting, and today we're doing that with water misting and the
    newest technology of hand-held laser cleaning of stone that is
    making incredible efficiencies in our projects, and costs as
    well.
        We are abreast of the latest technologies and are using
    those in the work that we do today.

                  UNION SQUARE AND GRANT MEMORIAL CONSERVATION

        Senator Capito. My last question will be about the Union
    Square and Grant Memorial conservation. My understanding was
    that in the 2012 budget you took over the responsibilities for
    Union Square and the Grant Memorial conservation without really
    any additional funding provided to you.
        It is a beautiful area as you're walking down from the
    Capitol, a lot of visitors walk through there. I understand
    you're going to be refurbishing the Grant Statue and all of the
    walkways and the pumping system for the Reflecting Pool there.
        How are you putting this into your budget, and what do you
    see for that area of the Capitol?
        Mr. Ayers. What an important space that is for this grand
    city of Washington, DC, and what an important memorial to Grant
    this is. It is in a significant state of disrepair, and we were
    delighted that the Congress acquired that property, and we are
    working hard to be good stewards.
        I have another image or two, if I may, of that. If you can
    look at image 5 and 6, a great example is image 6. This is the
    current state of that statue. You can see the military officer
    here with his hand raised in victory with his sword, only that
    the sword is missing, and this is just one of probably 100
    pieces of the statue that have been removed and deteriorated.
        Similarly, you see the deteriorating condition of the
    bronze statue and the staining of the marble of this stone, and
    we're eager to undertake that work and get it looking the way
    it should be looking.
        The first thing that we've done at Union Square is to
    stabilize it and make it safe by removing the tripping hazards
    and making sure people can safely traverse through Union
    Square. We have expended about $1 million doing that work.
        Secondly, we've spent or will spend about $1 million in the
    short term conserving the bronze, conserving the marble, and
    getting this piece of important statuary collection back to the
    way it should be.
        Thirdly, we have undertaken a series of studies to help us
    understand the cultural importance of this piece of property
    and what needs to be done long term to the infrastructure. When
    we acquired the property, the pumping room was completely
    submerged in nearly 10 feet of water and had been that way for
    a very, very long time. We've now drained it and are beginning
    to understand what needs to happen to get this Reflecting Pool
    functioning the way it needs to function.
        Senator Capito. Senator Schatz.
        Senator Schatz. Senator Murphy.
        Senator Capito. Senator Murphy.
        Senator Murphy. I'm going to leap over Senator Schatz. I
    just have one quick question, so I appreciate Senator Schatz
    allowing me to ask it.

                        HART ATRIUM AND CALDER SCULPTURE

        Thank you for the work that's going on right now in the
    Hart Atrium regarding a structural assessment of the Calder
    Statue. Calder is a Connecticut-based sculptor, someone that
    we're very proud to be associated with. Of course, that statue
    has not been operating according to Calder's wishes for some
    time. I know that this is going to be a lengthy analysis
    because you're looking at whether there is the structural
    ability to re-mechanize the clouds portion of the statue while
    also just trying to understand whether it's financially
    feasible as well. I was able to take a quick tour of the work,
    and I think there's great progress being made. But I'd love an
    update on that analysis as it stands today.
        Mr. Ayers. Thank you, Senator. We are certainly concerned
    about that. The roof of the Hart Building and the skylights
    were leaking significantly, and we came to the Congress seeking
    money to replace the roof and replace a significant number of
    skylights. As part of that project, we had to scaffold the
    Atrium. It presented a wonderful opportunity to analyze the
    Calder sculpture and understand why the clouds haven't been
    rotating since 1992, I think it was. We're in the process of
    doing that analysis.
        You may have seen a notice we've sent out to member offices
    just within the last few days that we're about to undertake the
    x-ray portion of that analysis. We will be looking very
    carefully at all of the welded joints in the clouds themselves
    and the connecting devices of the clouds to see if there are
    cracks and understand the depth of the welds. That process will
    happen over a number of weekends over the course of the next
    several weeks.
        We expect to have that report this summer and come back to
    the Congress with our recommendation on how we should proceed
    with getting it repaired and whether or not it can continue to
    spin and function as it was originally intended to.
        Senator Murphy. Well, we have about three feet of snow on
    the ground in Connecticut, so we've seen a lot of clouds over
    the course of the last few months. It's nice to see occasional
    cloudless skies, but we're hopeful to have that structure back
    up and operating as it was originally intended to.
        Thank you, Senator Schatz, for allowing me to jump in.
        Senator Capito. Senator Schatz.

                               CONTRACT OVERSIGHT

        Senator Schatz. Thank you, Chair Capito.
        I have a few questions, Mr. Ayers.
        I know the Architect relies on contractors for a number of
    your major construction contracts, and I think that makes
    sense, especially when you lack the specialized expertise. I'm
    interested in how you do your contract oversight, and I'm
    particularly focused in on whether you're following GAO's best
    practices for contract oversight.
        Mr. Ayers. To answer the second question first, we believe
    that we are. We had a recent GAO audit of our cost estimating
    and risk assessment practices within the last year, and we are
    following those practices and have done five cost and risk
    assessments on our major capital projects, and all of them seem
    to be in line with our expectations. We are achieving an 80
    percent confidence rate, both in cost and schedule, and in many
    of our projects we are exceeding that 80 percent confidence
    rate in both cost and schedule. So we think we're following the
    best practices.
        Secondly, we take a very comprehensive approach to contract
    management. We treat our contractors as our partners. Our
    success and the success of the Congress in these endeavors are
    related to the success of our contractors. We partner with them
    and perform rigorous oversight of our contractors. We are
    engaged with them at so many different levels, starting with a
    contracting officer and a contracting officer's technical
    representative, a project executive, a project manager, a
    project inspector, a construction manager, and on down the
    line.
        A great example of that is we recently had about 15 of our
    construction managers certified as certified construction
    managers through the Construction Management Association of
    America. So making sure the folks that are on the ground
    working with contractors are the best they can be is important
    to us, and we're investing in that.
        Senator Schatz. Are you adhering to your existing internal
    policies and standards? Is this an improvement that you've made
    over the last couple of years?
        Mr. Ayers. It's only been in recent years that we've
    actually captured our project management practices in a written
    manual. All of those procedures, just within the last 5 years,
    have been written and codified both in a manual and guidance
    and policy that I've signed and directed all of the members of
    our organization to follow these procedures as we perform
    contractor oversight.

                           PROJECT SCHEDULE AND COST

        Senator Schatz. Speaking of contract management, Chair
    Capito asked about the Capitol Dome restoration being finished
    before inauguration, made reference to the Grant Statue in
    Union Square, and also the exterior stone work I believe. Can
    you just confirm for the subcommittee that all of those
    projects and any other projects will be completed before the
    inauguration?
        Mr. Ayers. I'd be happy to, and I can confirm that. Every
    member of this organization understands how important the
    presidential inauguration is and knows that we are front and
    center on every television screen across the world on that day.
        Senator Schatz. And who bears the cost if something
    unforeseen happens? Let's say you had to take down scaffolding
    to conduct the inauguration and then re-start one of those
    projects. Would it depend on the reason for the delay and the
    way the contract is written, or is there some way this goes
    every time?
        Mr. Ayers. I think all of those things are situationally
    dependent. If it's some force majeure, then we have to pay for
    that. If it's delayed because of the contractor's fault, then
    we would insist that the contractor pay for that.
        The scaffolding and everything else is going to come down
    by the time the presidential inauguration happens, and we will
    ensure that the West Front and the East Front of the Capitol
    look terrific.

                                   FORT MEADE

        Senator Schatz. Thank you. And my final question on the
    Fort Meade acquisition, my understanding is that there is 100
    acres, the total number of acres, and then there's seven acres
    or so that were part of an old railroad owned by the State of
    Maryland. Have you made your arrangement with the State of
    Maryland, gotten your easements, and is there any thought given
    to not acquiring that last seven acres because of the potential
    environmental mitigation that may be required and the cost
    associated with it?
        Mr. Ayers. We did submit legislative language in our budget
    request, and the purpose of that is to allow us to begin
    negotiating with the State of Maryland to acquire that piece of
    property. I think all of that will be determined in the
    negotiations.
        Today, what's in front of us is the construction of Fort
    Meade Module 5, and we have negotiated and signed a Right of
    Entry with the State of Maryland allowing us to proceed with
    construction of Module 5.
        Senator Schatz. Module 5 is not on those seven acres. You
    just need an easement through the seven acres to do the
    construction?
        Mr. Ayers. Correct. We have to run utilities through the
    easement to feed Module 5.
        Senator Schatz. Okay. I would just ask you to stay nimble
    on this one because we're obviously nowhere near having built
    out all 93 acres, which are by all accounts free and clear. So
    it would be great to acquire those last seven acres. But if it
    proves to be difficult, as sometimes is the case with parcels
    of property that may have environmental requirements, I think
    we should all be prepared to just work with the first 93 acres
    and not get into a long and potentially expensive process,
    especially if it's not necessary. So let's all stay nimble on
    this.
        I don't have a dog in that hunt, except that I don't want
    to see you wasting your time, and I certainly don't want to see
    us using taxpayer dollars to have to do environmental
    mitigation on land that we went out of our way to acquire.
        Mr. Ayers. I understand, and we certainly will. Thank you.
        Senator Schatz. Thank you.
        Senator Capito. Any further questions?
        Senator Schatz. No. Thank you.
        Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Ayers. I have no further
    questions.
        I want to thank the staff, too, of the Architect's Office
    for your time here today.

                         ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

        The hearing record will remain open for seven days,
    allowing members to submit statements and/or questions for the
    record, which will be sent to the subcommittee by close of
    business on Tuesday, March 24th, 2015.
        [The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
    were submitted to the Agency for response subsequent to the
    hearing:]
                 Questions Submitted to Dr. James H. Billington
                  Questions Submitted by Senator Brian Schatz
                        building the digital collection
        Question. What is your long term vision on building the digital
    collection?
        Answer. The vision for digital collections at the Library of
    Congress is anchored in the Library's mission to support the Congress
    in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of
    knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people. It is
    also part of the larger vision that covers both analog and digital
    collections. The Library strives toward:
      --A universal collection of knowledge, unmatched in the world, analog
            and digital;
      --Routine and easy acquisition of analog and digital materials by
            deposit, purchase, gift, and exchange, in pursuit of serving
            our patrons in the present and preserving a national patrimony
            for the future;
      --Collections moving quickly to the hands and screens of on-site
            scholars and users of the public Web site;
      --Serving patrons and the public with the tools and skills needed to
            access and analyze digital collections;
      --A digital and analog collection that is universal, well organized,
            and easy to use, enabling authoritative research and analysis
            for Congress; and,
      --The Library of Congress continuing as a center of excellence in the
            practices of acquiring, describing, managing, preserving, and
            providing cultural heritage material and as a world leader in
            the handling of digital material.
        Question. How is that reflected in your budget?
        Answer. The Library has requested fiscal year 2016 funding of
    $2.005 million (15 full-time equivalents (FTE)) to establish a Digital
    Collections Center, which will provide an essential increase in the
    institution's capacity to ingest, process, manage, preserve, and
    provide access to digital material. As a centralized team, this
    operation will collaborate with technical staff elsewhere in the
    Library. It also will assist other staff members who work with digital
    collections, increase standardization of the work, engage underserved
    curatorial divisions, and provide training across the Library.
        Question. Who makes the judgments and what judgments are to be made
    about either what comes in digitally and then gets archived or what
    comes in in analog form and then gets digitized?
        Answer. In general, subject specialists make such judgments under a
    framework of existing policies. The Library has a set of more than 70
    Collections Policy Statements and Supplementary Guidelines documents
    (see http://www.loc.gov/acq/devpol/cpsstate.html) that guide the
    institution's acquisitions and selection operations for both analog and
    born digital materials. The policies provide a plan for developing the
    collections and maintaining their existing strengths. They set forth
    the scope, level of collecting intensity, and goals sought by the
    Library to fulfill its service mission. Proposals to digitize analog
    materials are prepared by specialists and submitted to the Digital
    Library Content Group (DLCG), a committee with Library-wide
    representation. Proposals are evaluated by the DLCG using these
    criteria:
      --Value to Congress
      --Scholarly research value
      --General audience interest
      --Educational value
      --Historical or cultural significance
      --Extent to which it fills in major gaps in subjects covered
      --Extent to which it augments/complements existing collections
            presented on the Library's Web site
      --Extent to which it represents ``star'' materials in LC collections
            (top treasures, extraordinary items)
      --Extent to which it reduces wear and tear on fragile and/or valuable
            physical materials
      --Potential to engage new audiences
      --Relationship to a planned event
      --Relationship to a planned exhibit
      --Extent to which it provides an opportunity to collaborate with
            outside communities
        Question. Is there a growing field of specialized expertise in the
    curating of digital materials?
        Answer. Yes, specialized expertise is required on the technical
    side. The Library already has limited resident expertise in digital
    curation. The establishment of the Digital Collections Center will
    allow for an expansion of that expertise base in the Library and result
    in the ability to greatly expand our digital collecting program.
        Question. Are you all set to bring on this expertise, and now you
    just have to fund it and execute?
        Answer. The Library is prepared to expeditiously establish and
    staff the Digital Collections Center.

                             CONCLUSION OF HEARINGS

        This concludes the Legislative Branch Appropriations
    Subcommittee hearings regarding the budget request for fiscal
    year 2016.
        The subcommittee stands adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., Tuesday, March 17, the hearings
    were concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
    subject to the call of the Chair.]