NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by the Library of Congress under contract No. C-LC98046. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine
National Research Council
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
COMMITTEE ON AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY FOR THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
JAMES J. O’DONNELL,
University of Pennsylvania,
Chair
JAMES BLACKABY,
Mystic Seaport Museum
ROSS E. BROWN,
Analog Devices, Inc.
GINNIE COOPER,
Multnomah County Library
DALE FLECKER,
Harvard University
NANCY FRISHBERG,
New Media Centers
JAMES GRAY,
Microsoft Corporation
MARGARET HEDSTROM,
University of Michigan
CARL LAGOZE,
Cornell University
LAWRENCE H. LANDWEBER,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
DAVID M. LEVY,
University of Washington
ANN OKERSON,
Yale University
DOUG ROWAN,
interLane Media
JEROME H. SALTZER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
HOWARD TURTLE,
Cogitech Group
MARY ELLEN ZURKO,
Iris Associates
Staff
ALAN S. INOUYE, Study Director and Senior Program Officer
SUZANNE OSSA, Senior Project Assistant
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Assistant
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
DAVID D. CLARK,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Chair
JAMES CHIDDIX,
Time Warner Cable
JOHN M. CIOFFI,
Stanford University
ELAINE COHEN,
University of Utah
W. BRUCE CROFT,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
SUSAN L. GRAHAM,
University of California, Berkeley
JUDITH HEMPEL,
University of California, San Francisco
JEFFREY M. JAFFE,
Lucent Technologies
ANNA KARLIN,
University of Washington
BUTLER W. LAMPSON,
Microsoft Corporation
EDWARD D. LAZOWSKA,
University of Washington
DAVID LIDDLE,
U.S. Venture Partners
TOM M. MITCHELL,
WhizBang! Labs, Inc.
DONALD NORMAN,
Unext.com
RAYMOND OZZIE,
Groove Networks
DAVID A. PATTERSON,
University of California, Berkeley
CHARLES SIMONYI,
Microsoft Corporation
BURTON SMITH,
Cray, Inc.
TERRY SMITH,
University of California, Santa Barbara
LEE SPROULL,
New York University
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
JERRY R. SHEEHAN, Senior Program Officer
ALAN S. INOUYE, Senior Program Officer
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
GAIL PRITCHARD, Program Officer
LYNETTE MILLETT, Program Officer
JANET D. BRISCOE, Administrative Officer
D.C. DRAKE, Project Assistant
DANIEL D. LLATA, Senior Project Assistant
MARGARET MARSH, Senior Project Assistant
SUZANNE OSSA, Senior Project Assistant
BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Office Assistant
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Assistant (part-time)
MICKELLE RODGERS RODRÍGUEZ, Senior Project Assistant (part-time)
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
PETER M. BANKS,
XR Ventures, LLC,
Co-chair
WILLIAM H. PRESS,
Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Co-chair
WILLIAM F. BALLHAUS, JR.,
The Aerospace Corporation
SHIRLEY CHIANG,
University of California, Davis
MARSHALL H. COHEN,
California Institute of Technology
RONALD G. DOUGLAS,
Texas A&M University
SAMUEL H. FULLER,
Analog Devices, Inc.
MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD,
University of California, Santa Barbara
MARTHA P. HAYNES,
Cornell University
WESLEY T. HUNTRESS, JR.,
Carnegie Institution
CAROL M. JANTZEN,
Westinghouse Savannah River Company
PAUL G. KAMINSKI,
Technovation, Inc.
KENNETH H. KELLER,
University of Minnesota
JOHN R. KREICK,
Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company (retired)
MARSHA I. LESTER,
University of Pennsylvania
W. CARL LINEBERGER,
University of Colorado
DUSA M. McDUFF,
State University of New York at Stony Brook
JANET L. NORWOOD, Former Commissioner,
Bureau of Labor Statistics
M. ELISABETH PATÉ-CORNELL,
Stanford University
NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS,
Brookhaven National Laboratory
ROBERT J. SPINRAD,
Xerox PARC (retired)
JAMES F. HINCHMAN, Acting Executive Director
PREFACE
The Library of Congress (LC) is a living and vital library and at the same time an icon. It is easier to be a library than to be an icon, but it is no easy thing to be a library amid the turmoil of the digital revolution. As icon, LC has functioned at least since 1945 as the benchmark for what capabilities new information technology might bring to the communication of information. Every technology is spoken of as one that can store or transmit or search “the entire Library of Congress” in square inches of disk space or minutes or seconds of processing time. Though even LC falls far short of containing every book ever written, its record of extraordinary comprehensiveness and reach has captured the popular imagination as has no other library since ancient Alexandria’s.
Inevitably, reality falls short of what the icon seems to promise. The Library of Congress is a relatively small federal government agency of about 4,000 employees, with all the challenges of focus and service quality that impose themselves upon an organization that depends on taxpayer funding and civil service policies and procedures. The physical management of a collection of objects of almost limitless variety, size, shape, material, and fragility—objects that are repeatedly sought out, used, abused, disarranged, and rearranged—has always taxed human ability to index, tag, and control.
This report arises from the Library’s own sense of its vulnerability and uncertainty at the dawn of the information age and attempts to respond closely to the institution’s own sense of its mission. Accordingly, the Librarian of Congress asked the Computer Science and Telecommuni-
BOX P.1
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cations Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct a study to provide strategic advice concerning the information technology path that LC should traverse over the coming decade. The statement of task is given in Box P.1.1
COMMITTEE COMPOSITION AND PROCESS
The study committee convened by CSTB included experts in digital libraries, databases, networks, computer security, metadata and information retrieval, digital documents and collections, digital archiving and preservation, academic and public libraries, museums, electronic publishing, information technology management, and human resources (see Appendix A for biographies of committee members). The committee did its work through its own expert deliberations and by soliciting input from a number of experts (see Appendix B for a list of briefers to the committee and Appendix C for a list of letters received). The committee met first in February 1999 and four times subsequently in plenary session and obtained extensive input when subcommittees visited the Library and other
sites between March 1999 and May 2000. The typical LC site visit involved several members of the committee, the study director, and staff members of the Library. Library staff were informed that their remarks would be held in confidence. Additional information came from reviewing the published literature, monitoring selected listservs, and obtaining informal input from members of the library community and the information industries. During the editorial phase of the study, facts were checked for accuracy with either authoritative published sources or subject experts.
The observer affects the system observed. One cannot study an organization for more than a year and expect to have absolutely no impact on it during that time. Because the committee was asking for testimony from particular people or was asking certain questions, some of the issues of concern to it became apparent to LC staff. The committee has a strong sense that the internal conversation in LC over the months of its study has already benefited as a result of the issues and concerns the committee has raised. Thus, in addition to this final report, another outcome (in the committee’s view, a desirable one) seems to have been to encourage LC staff to think about the opportunities and challenges presented by the digital revolution.
The committee focused its efforts on the present and future of information systems and technologies that are intimately tied to the mission of the Library—namely, to the acquisition, processing, management, storage, and preservation of library materials and to making those materials available to users. The Library, like other organizations, has information systems that support the administrative aspects of the organization, such as accounting, financial planning and budgeting, and human resources management; for want of time, the committee did not study those information systems in any detail.
The committee did not construe its charge as calling for an information technology report of the sort that any reputable consulting firm could provide. Rather, the committee accepted the Library’s encouragement to pool its own wide-ranging expertise in considering how information technology could affect the Library’s mission and core processes during the new decade. The strategic perspective taken looks first at how information technology could transform the acquisition, collection, preservation, and accessibility of digital materials and then addresses questions relating to information technology infrastructure.
Although the report refers to a number of companies, products, and services by name, such reference does not constitute an endorsement by the committee or the National Academies. The committee did not evaluate any product or service in sufficient detail to allow such an endorsement.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The committee would like to acknowledge James Billington for his leadership in requesting this study; it takes no small amount of courage to voluntarily invite a panel of national experts to examine closely one’s organization. We appreciate his guidance and support as well as that of Donald Scott and Jo Ann Jenkins. The day-to-day support for this study rested with Virginia Sorkin, who worked diligently to ensure that the committee had the access it needed to documents and LC staff; Ms. Sorkin’s efforts played an important role in supporting the timely completion of this report. Many other LC staff members provided invaluable assistance to the committee through their testimony—whether in public plenary session or in private small meetings (see Appendix B for a list of all LC staff who made presentations to the committee).
Throughout the course of this study, a number of individuals not connected with the Library also contributed their expertise to the committee’s deliberations. The committee is grateful to those who agreed to provide testimony at its plenary meetings and site visits (see, again, Appendix B).
The committee appreciates the thoughtful comments received from the reviewers of this report and the efforts of the NRC review coordinator. The comments were instrumental in helping the committee to sharpen and improve this report.
Finally, the committee would like to acknowledge the staff of the National Research Council for their work. Alan Inouye served as study director with overall staff responsibility for the conduct of the study and the development of this final report. Without his breadth of understanding, keen sense for the salient detail, and highly effective management, this report would have been either a far poorer one or entirely nonexistent. He was assisted first by David Padgham and later by Suzanne Ossa. The committee would like to acknowledge the important role played by William Wulf, Jane Bortnick Griffith, and Marjory Blumenthal in launching this study. Jane Bortnick Griffith also provided invaluable advice to the committee throughout the study. The committee acknowledges the important contribution of NRC editors Liz Fikre and Susan Maurizi. Editorial and research assistance was provided by consultants Laura Ost and Kim Briggs and NRC librarian Jim Igoe. The committee thanks Charles Starliper and David Padgham for providing comments on report drafts. Janet Briscoe and D.C. Drake of the CSTB and Claudette Baylor-Fleming, Theresa Fisher, and Sharon Seaward of the NRC’s Space Studies Board also contributed to the preparation of the final report.
James J. O’Donnell, Chair
Committee on an Information Technology Strategy for the Library of Congress
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF REVIEWERS
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Christine L. Borgman, University of California, Los Angeles,
Stephen D. Crocker, Steve Crocker Associates,
Alan J. Demers, Cornell University,
David Ely, NXT Corporation,
Edward A. Fox, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
Laura N. Gasaway, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
John P. Glaser, Partners Health Care System,
Morton D. Goldberg, Cowen, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.,
Betsy Humphreys, National Library of Medicine,
Karen Hunter, Elsevier Science, Inc.,
Carole Huxley, New York State Education Department,
Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive,
Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information,
Deanna Marcum, Council on Library and Information Resources,
Charles McClure, Florida State University,
Jerry Mechling, Harvard University,
Candace Morgan, Fort Vancouver Regional Library,
Richard Nolan, Harvard University,
Jan Pedersen, Opengrid Corporation,
Kent A. Smith, National Library of Medicine,
Sarah E. Thomas, Cornell University,
Robert Wedgeworth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and
Grayson Winterling, Rooney Group International.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Roy Schwitters, University of Texas, Austin, appointed by the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, who was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.