curators, and other interested individuals funded by ARS. The committee members are volunteers who must either obtain funds to travel to meetings from other sources or pay for them personally. To facilitate attendance, meetings are often held in conjunction with other scientific or professional meetings. This approach, however, does not ensure the participation of all members.

Each regional plant introduction station receiving CSRS research funds has a regional technical committee (TC). An experiment station director serves as its regional administrative adviser, and its members include a representative from each experiment station in the region and representatives from participating USDA agencies. Other cooperating agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior, may also be represented.

There are interregional administrative advisory committees for the two interregional research projects and an interregional committee that functions as a TC for each interregional project. These committees meet separately and function independently of other advisory groups concerned with the site. Technical advisory committees (TACs) provide advice on technical and scientific issues to clonal repositories. They do not exercise authority over programs at the site, but are a source of expert advice. A TAC is composed of individuals chosen for their scientific and technical expertise. For some sites a crop advisory committee may fulfill all or part of the TAC's role.

The TCs and TACs are advisory to specific sites and independent of other advisory groups. TCs are responsible to CSRS, and are not under the purview of the national program leader for plant germplasm or any germplasm advisory group of the ARS. Thus, there is frequently a lack of coordination and leadership among advisory groups regarding national program requirements.

The PGOC includes the curators of the major collections, selected ARS research leaders, and the lead people from ARS-NPGS support offices (e.g., the National Germplasm Resources Laboratory). Its other members include representatives from the regional stations, repositories, NSSL, the National Small Grains Collection, and the cotton, soybean, and potato collections. The chair is elected by the committee from its membership. This committee has been effective in maintaining com-

Front Matter (R1-R16)

Executive Summary (1-20)

1 Managing Crop Genetic Resources (21-42)

2 Elements of the National Plant Germplasm System (43-86)

3 Administration of the National System (87-106)

4 Prescription for Effectiveness (107-144)

References (145-148)

Glossary (149-153)

Abbreviations (154-155)

Authors (156-160)

Index (161-173)