ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


208

A C R L  Legislative N etw ork B ack s Title II-A
On May 3 the ACRL Comm ittee on Legislation 

and the ALA Washington Office sent out a call 
for action to the A CRL Legislative Network con­
cern in g  funding o f the H ig h er E d u cation  Act 
(HEA) T itle II-A College Library Resources Pro­
gram. Developed gradually over the past several 
years, the A C R L Legislative Network consists of 
more than 200 college library directors across the 
country whose institu tions have receiv ed  II-A  
basic grants and who are committed to contacting 
their m embers of Congress when appropriate and 
ne cessary . An updated v ersio n o f th e  May 3 
memorandum to the A CRL Legislative Network 
made the following points.

C a r t e r  B u d g e t , FY 1980

In th e  ad m inistration s “ lean and a u s te r e ” 
budget submitted to Congress in January, college 
library and library training and dem onstration 
programs would not be funded at all. The only li­
brary program in relativ ely good shape is the 
H EA  T itle II-C  research library program, re c ­
ommended for funding at last year’s level of $6 
million.

C o l l e g e  L i b r a r y  R e s o u r c e s — HEA  II-A

Once funded at $ 2 5 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0  in the late 1960s, 
th e  H E A  II-A  fu n d in g  le v e l is now only 
$ 9 ,9 7 5 ,0 0 0  in FY  1979, and its purchasing power 
has been sharply eroded. Although the amount of 
the basic grant has dwindled to $ 3 ,9 6 3 , it still 
represents a substantial percentage of the m ate­
rials budget of many an academic library.

T he ALA request, presented in the Senate on 
March 28 and in the House on April 26, is $21 
million. About $13 million is needed to fund the 
b a s ic g ran ts for lib ra ry  re s o u rc e s  at th e  full 
$5,000 based on the number of eligible institu­
tions applying in recent years.

T h e  S i t u a t i o n  in  C o n g r e s s

This is not the year to sit back and assume that 
the O ffice o f M anagem ent and Budget in the 
executive branch is playing the game of making 
cuts in those areas where Congress is most likely 
to restore funds. Both House and Senate are in 
th e  p ro c e ss o f s e ttin g  c o n g re s sio n a l b u d g e t 
targets b e lo w  the president s budget— an action 
that would set strict limits on Congress’ ability to 
ra ise  fu n d ing  le v e ls  for any p ro g ram . F u r ­
thermore, budget cuts will fall most heavily on 
the “controllable” items in the budget. And the 
most vulnerable of the “controllable” items are 
smaller programs, like library programs, that lack 
large, well-organized, and influential constituencies.

L i b r a r y  S u p p o r t e r s  in  C o n g r e s s

T he message from library supporters in Con­
gress is to get out there and defend your pro­

grams, and don’t let anyone te ll you that the 
am ou nts you a re  r e q u e s tin g  w ill “ b u s t th e  
b u dget.” Congressman John Buchanan (R-Ala.), 
ranking m inority m em b er o f the H ouse P o st­
secondary Education Subcom mittee, said that one 
of the worst things the Office o f Management and 
Budget has done is to cut the good, small pro­
grams severely without realizing real budgetary 
savings. W hen told how many college libraries 
there are in the United States, Congressman Bill 
Ford (D -M ich.) said that if each one o f them con­
tacted its representatives about funding for the 
college library program, it would “boggle their 
minds.”

H ow  You C a n  H e l p
The May 3 memorandum asked A CRL Legisla­

tive Network members to contact their legislators 
to urge the restoration of funds for Title II-A at 
the level of $21 million for FY 1980. The memo 
also suggested that m embers urge their library 
colleagues and interested faculty, students, and 
administrators to do the same. Many m embers of 
the network responded immediately.

As we update this memorandum in mid-May, it 
is not yet clear what action the House and Senate 
L a b o r -H E W  Appropriations Su bcom m ittees or 
Congress as a whole will take on HEA II-A fund­
ing. By the time you read this in July, the House 
and Senate will probably have acted separately on 
the L a b o r-H E W  appropriations bill that contains 
HEA II-A funding. The most likely timetable for 
early July is that the H ou se-Senate conference 
comm ittee will be about to meet. I f  one chamber 
has a higher figure for II-A than the other, it will 
be important to write to conference com m ittee 
m embers supporting the higher figure. College 
librarians a re urged to ch eck  the most re c e n t 
issu e o f th e  A LA  W a s h in g to n  N e w s l e t t e r  for 
details.— C a r o l H en d erso n  ò  D av id  B is h o p . ■■

b i s h o p  t e s t i f i e s  
o n  r e s u l t s  o f  

t i t l e  II-A s u r v e y

College Library Resources Program grants have 
played a useful, sometimes vital, role in assisting 
the nation’s academ ic lib raries, David Bishop, 
chair of the ACRL Legislation Com m ittee, told a 
House subcommittee on April 26.

T h e  C o lle g e  L ib ra ry  P ro g ra m , a u th o riz e d  
under T itle  II-A  o f the Higher Education Act, 
this year provided basic grants averaging about 
$3,900 each to nearly every college and univer­
sity library in the country. Legislative authoriza­
tion for all Title II programs will expire in Sep­
tem ber 1979.



209

B ishop , new d ir e c to r o f th e  U n iv ersity  of 
Georgia Libraries, Athens, told the House Sub­
committee on Postsecondary Education that sup­
port for the program was particularly strong 
among m edium -sized and sm aller institutions 
with library book budgets under $150,000.

Bishop based his testimony on the results of a 
survey sent to more than 500 library directors 
randomly selected from the Title II-A recipient 
list. T he survey was prepared by the A CRL 
Legislative Committee and the ALA Washington 
Office.

Directors of libraries with book budgets under 
$150,000 accounted for three-quarters of the re­
spondents to the survey. Forty-four percent of 
these directors reported that they wanted to see 
the C o lleg e Lib rary R esou rces Program  co n­
tinued unchanged. Fifty-two percent indicated 
that they wanted the program amended, but the 
change that 75 percent of them wanted was to 
base the program on need. Only a small fraction 
of responding directors from medium-sized and 
smaller libraries wanted to repeal the program or 
alter it in a major way.

Among the directors of university libraries with 
book budgets of more than $150,000, 31 percent 
of the respondents wanted the program to con­
tinue unchanged; 62 percent wanted it amended. 
Forty-one percent of those who wanted amend­
ments favored basing the grants on need.

“It is cle a r,” Bishop told the subcommittee, 
“that the program needs to b e focused b e tter 
than it is at present. An overwhelming majority

want the program based on need, but ‘ne ed ’ 
should be defined so that it includes the bulk of 
the country’s junior and four-year colleges.”

Bishop stressed the point that for the smaller 
in stitu tio n s the grants are not m arginal. He 
quoted the following comment of a librarian at a 
private two-year college in Georgia on the effect 
that ending the program would have on his in­
stitution: “W e would be reduced,” he said, “al­
most to the ‘starvation level’ of buying, as the 
grant is two-fifths of our entire materials budget. ”

A librarian from a public two-year college in 
California cited another benefit of the program: 
“The maintenance-of-effort requirem ent associ­
ated with Il-A has definitely helped to keep our 
budget up. Our college administration has main­
tained our budget …  ‚ and the II-A grant has 
provided support for maintaining the levels. ”

The end of the program, Bishop told the sub­
committee, would mean a collective as well as an 
individual loss to the nation s libraries. Title II-A 
funds made possible the purchase of approxi­
mately 500,000 volumes last year. These volumes 
create a common pool of scholarly materials upon 
which college libraries can draw through interli­
brary loans.

In conclusion, Bishop recommended that Con­
gress reauthorize the College Library Resources 
Program essentially in its present form but with a 
provision excluding institutions above a certain 
size. He asked that funding levels for basic grants 
be increased to $ 1 0 ,000 and supplemental grants 
be continued for the neediest institutions. ■■