Higher Education Bill Would Benefit Library

The University library system stands to reap substantial benefits as an indirect result of a $5 million amendment to the Higher Education Bill.

The amendment, now in conference committee and almost sure to pass but any major modifications, provides for a $5 million grant to the Library of Congress to expand its acquisition of foreign publications and to increase the speed of cataloguing new purchases.

The money would enable the Library of Congress to double the number of foreign publications it acquires each year and to decrease considerably the amount of time the library takes to compile bibliographical data for cataloguing its books.

According to Douglas W. Bryant, associate director of the University library, if the Library of Congress program is successful Harvard will be able to save considerable amounts of time, energy, and money simply by using this bibliographical data as it is published by the Library of Congress.

At the present time, Bryant explained, the number of foreign publications purchased by Harvard is so much greater, and its cataloguing process so much faster than that of the Library of Congress, that the University finds it necessary to do all its own cataloguing, thus duplicating much of the work done in Washington.

Once the Library of Congress expands and accelerates its operations, however, the University will be able to use large parts of the bibliographical data it publishes for its own system.

Bryant said he expects that the time, money, and energy thus released will be able to be devoted to making the bibliographical data available in the Harvard cataloguing system "fuller and more comprehensive."

Although the Higher Education Bill is expected to become law soon, the appropriation bill that will actually provide the $5 million has yet to be introduced. No opposition to the appropriation, however has yet appeared.