>> for 40 years c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in 1979, c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> next, the senate rules committee holds a hearing on

what's being done to modernize the library of congress. we heard testimony from dr. carla hayden, the librarian of congress. this is a little more than an hour. [inaudible] -- who also chairs the appropriated committee for library and i think that's particularly helpful that you could be here as well. also a member of this committee so she's here as a of the committee but also on these topics, particularly fallible in her role as appropriate. we have been having with the library, with the smithsonian, with the architect of the

capitol these kinds of oversight hearings to fulfill that responsibility and be sure we're giving the agencies to help they need. we're glad to be here of course with the librarian, dr. carla hayden, with mr. barton, the chief information officer and your temple, the register of copyrights. thank all of you for being here today. i think we want to talk primarily police i want to talk primarily about monetization. we had a chance with dr. hayden at the last meeting to talk about the physical plant ideas of how to make the library even more of an experience for people who visit there. i think we want to talk about today more of how the monetization of the i.t. elements at the library are coming together, and how all services are being benefited by that. the library of course performs a lot of functions for us,

historically. one of those functions has been the copyright office. i think initially that was to be sure that the library would be a clear recipient of that great treasure of the copyrighted documents that have become part of the libraries collection. the copyright office has always been part of the library. today were taking a different, deeper look again into the copyright office and we're glad the registrar is here with us, but also i.t. and modernization generally i think we will focus mostly on the copyright office and i.t., but we want, any discussions you want to have about challenges you are having or successes you are having as you move in the direction of more up-to-date i.t., of more up-to-date protection. you know, cyber threats are real and i think they are particularly real in some of the

information that you are dealing with. dr. hayden, you and i got to know each other well in 2016 when we were able to work together to be sure that she became the first librarian in a long time to be the librarian of congress, and we been pleased to be able to work together since then. prior to the arrival of really all three of you in these current jobs, the gao was very critical of the library, the copyright office, information technology. the government accounting office identified a lack of storage, of strategic planning, information and technology investment, and investment management, and weaknesses and information security and privacy. they recommended that the library higher a permanent chief information officer, which it did, and that chief information

officer would professionalize and centralized information technology needs at the library, which hopefully were going to find out today you were doing. as librarian, dr. hayden, you are ultimately responsible for the management and success of the library as a whole, which includes the copyright office but, of course, we look to the register, the copyright office to be responsible for what happens there every day and have the kind of working relationship with the two of you that are essential to make that happen. mr. barton, glad you were here. for to hearing about how you taking this job in making it work. and ms. temple, we talked some last year in this committee. we had a proposal even to make your selection slightly different and may be outside the normal selection process that had traditionally been for the librarian of congress. that did not pass and so the

congresses of you was the situation would continue to stay as it was -- congresses view. the staff and rules committee has spent a lot of time with all three of you over a a recent months trying to be sure this is working the way it needs to work. it's hard to talk about trade policy or lots of other policy without talking about the importance of protecting information and copyrights and other patents and other things. so this is a very real topic. we had our last review in march, as i mentioned before, of the librarian and with the library was doing and other areas. glad the three of you are here today to talk about this, and i'm particularly please that senator udall could carve up the time to be here as part of this as well. senator udall, i would turn to for any opening statement you might have.

>> thank you so much, chairman blunt. you're a good friend and we worked on a lot of issues together, and thank you so much for holding this hearing. the library of congress is an important institution, and i'm pleased to see the committee taking an active role to make sure it's healthy and strong. and i want to thank all the witnesses that are here today, dr. hayden, ms. temple and mr. barton. i also have worked with dr. hayden a lot over the course of her tenure over there and i have really enjoyed developing a deeper relationship. first i want to say the library is an american treasure of immeasurable value. it's 170 billion items includes the world's largest collection of legal materials, films and sound recordings. it's landmark buildings c 2 million visitors every year, and over 114 million visits to

its website last year. and the copyright office is critical to music, film and publishing industry worth over $1 trillion every year. copyrights are especially important in my home state of new mexico where artists and the creative economy are significant in growing part of our states business activity. in addition to its public value, the library is fundamentally essential to our work here in the legislative branch. you know some people may think members of congress are ill-informed, might imagine what this place would be like without the assets like the congressional research service and online resources like congress.gov help keep us informed and up-to-date with nonpartisan factual information here like so many americans, we rely day in and day out on the information provided by the library of congress to make important decisions.

so while the series may not be carried live on cable news, it's this committee job to make sure the library is well-run, up-to-date, and prepared for the future. future generations will thank us. dr. hayden, i know you and your team have been working diligently to modernize and grow the i.t. infrastructure of the library of congress, and the copyright office. digital technology is crucial to the libraries evolving operations. i encourage with pace at which the government accountability office recommendations have been implemented. i've worked on federal i.t. reform on a bipartisan basis for many years, and i know it's not easy. big i.t. projects are tough enough in corporate enterprises, but federal agencies face a much different budget process and unique organizational issues. federal chief information officers have learned a lot of lessons and develop best practices in recent years. and i urge the library and

copyright office to seek out those best practices and work together for success. i look forward to hearing about the progress to improve the library's infrastructure and operations, progress and improving accessibility of the library's unique collections, and historical artifacts like thomas jefferson strapped of the declaration of independence, and the contents of abraham lincoln's pockets and the nighe was assassinated. tangible pieces of some of the most significant moments in our nations shared history can be both preserved and made accessible. along those lines i want to highlight one of the library's ongoing initiatives, the veterans history project chartered by congress in 2000. this ongoing effort to lex and makes accessible personal accounts of american war veterans so that future generations can hear directly from veterans to better understand the realities of war.

with that in today's approach i will be interesting to hear an update on the progress of the project during our question and answer time. helping native american tribes protect their historical and cultural resources is also a high priority for me. dr. hayden, we have spoken about this before and i know it's a priority for you. i hope we can keep working together on tribal engagement under the music modernization act as well as the library's language and other resources for tribes. and i look forward to our panel discussion today and i would yield back to the chairman. >> thank you, senator udall. so, dr. hayden, you are full testimony will be in the record. you can deal with it however you want. i will also ask my remarks and senator udall and any comments come introductory comets in the of the panel would like to make will go into the record without objection.

so dr. hayden, we are glad to hear. you testify on behalf of everybody, and then everybody would get their share of questions, i'm sure of that. dr. hayden. >> thank you, mr. chairman, senator udall, senator hyde-smith. i welcome the opportunity to be here today to give you an update on the library's modernization, and especially the information technology and work with the copyright office. and want to thank the committee for its ongoing support of the library in general, and with the library's i.t. modernization. three years ago in this very room during my confirmation hearing we discussed the many challenges and opportunities presented by the library's technology, and i am excited to be able to tell you today that we have significantly improved the library's information technology.

the library is a different organization from what it was just a short time ago, and over the last two years, we have stabilized our core i.t. structure. we have streamlined and strengthened our i.t. governance, and we have centralized and professionalized our i.t. workforce. and that hard work has allowed us to close and implement nearly 95% of the gao recommendations made in 2015, and we will keep working until we close 100% by the end of this year. modernizing the copyright office is a top agency priority. and we're making progress and updating the system to register and maintain up-to-date records for greater work so that the systems are automated,, antiquated coming easier by the public to use.

and thanks to the generous support of congress the library is now one year into a five-year effort to design and implement a new enterprisewide copyright system. and to keep progress moving forward the copyright office has now hired a senior technical advisor in place to help manage and plan i.t. modernization and also to enhance the collaboration between the copyright office and agencies technology staff. and in fiscal fiscal year 2019e copyright office and office of the chief information officer jointly engaged in user experience outreach to stakeholders and launched it all but efforts for components of the new system. this fiscal year the library will release a limited part of the of the first fully digital

copyright recordation system. we will also complete a prototype of a searchable records management system and begin the initial development for the next generation online registration systems. i want you to know that i believe in my team leading this effort. .. >> every part of the library. the chief information officer, mr. barton, is working with the congressional research service, the rs, to implement a new research and information system, and it will make use of the latest technology. the national library for the blind and print-disabled is completely rethinking how it delivers content to people with reading difficulties. the law library has completely digitized the u.s. statutes at

large and, in collaboration with the government printing office, we have digitized the congressional serial set dating back to 1817. so by embracing user-focused design, we've brought new products to millions of online users, and we've made enhancements to many of our services. and lastly, our digital strategy agencywide is leveraging technology to find innovative ways to reach more people. and so with these efforts, we're moving ahead with a challenging but achievable task of transforming the library into a more digitally-enabled agency. and there's still a lot of work to be done, but we've made great progress. and so i thank you again for inviting me to update the committee with my colleagues, and we welcome your questions. >> great. we're glad you're here.

we, clearly, are going to have plenty of time for us to ask multiple questions. i think we'll probably try to stay at about five minute segments and just go back and forth. senator hyde-smith's coming back in just a moment and, obviously, will be here for questions as well. mr. barton, would you share your progress? you started right, when, 2016? or was it '15? >> september of 2015, sir. >> 2015. and that was in response to the idea that somebody needed to come in and be the chief information officer. kind of just in a couple of minutes just sort of give me a sense of how far you've come from the day you walked in and particularly how far you've come since the librarian took her job in 2016. >> thank you for the question, sir. it's a great opportunity for me to be able to reinforce the

talent that we have at the library regarding i.t. and the professionalism displayed by the staff. as the gao audit found, there was a lack of oversight, and so they wanted -- they suggested that the library hire a chief information officer. whenever i first came in, it was apparent to me that it wasn't a lack of talent or lack of capability, it was really a lack of vision and a lack of oversight on the i.t. organization. the library had been pretty much working in a siloed fashion, and as i'm sure we'll discuss a little bit more throughout the hearing, centralization was something that would help this. in other words, making decisions about i.t. at the agency level regarding strategic direction, and then making sure that those decisions at the strategic direction didn't interfere with

the individual service or business unit's needs to have specialized i.t. to perform their business mission. whenever i first arrived, i testified that my goal was to make sure the findings of the gao audit were addressed in a way that didn't just check a box. i wasn't here to just make sure that we closed the audit findings. i was here to make sure that the root cause of those findings was addressed in such a way that we were not put back into the same situation in a matter of years. and thanks to the support of congress from a budget tear perspective -- budgetary perspective, we have been able to address 95% of those findings. and i expect that we will close all of those findings if by the end e of this calendar year. we have submitted the evidence that is necessary to the gao in our existing back and forth conversations with them throughout the rest of this year on getting those closed. the progress we have made is

significant, and it covers every domain of i.t. from the constitutions i've had with the gao, the team that was here. it was the first time that they've actually made that broad of a recommendation. the number of recommendations were significant, over a hundred recommendations, and in every domain of i.t. from security to finance, to operations, every domain that there exists. the biggest progress we have made is in security. and i'm very proud to say that at this point all of the major systems within the library have now obtained what we call an authority to operate which means the security of those systems have been validated, tested and compared to nist standards who is the body that we look to for establishing security standards. >> on that topic, let me go to

ms. temple before i run out of time here with first questions. on the security topic, you know, intellectual property clearly one of the things that we're with, with good reason, most concerned about. one of the big targets of cyber espionage and other things, do you feel good about where we're headed in terms of the security of the information entrusted to the federal government through you in your job? >> yes. thank you for the question. security is one of the most important aspects of our development of an i.t. system, and i'm very pleased that the library has taken such a huge role in insuring that the items that we receive in the library are protected. digital security, as we kind of move to digital technology, we receive a host of different types of works from, you know, feature films to important books, to works that have not even been released to the public yet. so security of our system is a critical aspect of its development, and so that's one of the things that we are

focusing on as we develop with the library. >> and you've worked in the office for some time, haven't you? >> yes, i have. >> and what's the difference in the security either concerns or your sense of security now compared to five years ago or whatever number you want to give me? >> yes. i would say that the main difference is the focus that we've been placing on security, acknowledging and recognizing how critical it is to the management of our i.t. system and really making sure that at every level security is considered as we begin developing the new system. so i think the focus and prioritization of security is one of the main differences from where we were years ago. >> yeah. and i would point out before we go to senator udall that while you said you've worked there for some time, you've had this job really permanent -- as the permanently designated person for a relatively short time. so we're back into 2014 or 2015, somebody else was the registerer

of copyrights at that time. senator udall. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. hayden, as part of the ongoing i.t. management and modernization plan, i'm aware that the library has implemented a new digital strategy by transitioning to a new tier iii level data center. this investment is key to helping the library deploy technology to expedite and expand digital access to the vast collection of books and media. last time you testified before this committee you stated that the library was in the process of migrating applications to the new data facility. your testimony today provides an update that you are moving forward to fully transition operations by the end of the fiscal year 2020 to support the library's digital needs. could you expand upon your testimony and discuss the progress of this move including progress on migrating data to cloud services? >> as we mentioned before, we

are looking at and making sure that we have a variety of storage capacities, and that includes the cloud and also physical storage capacity as well because of the nature of the materials that we are storing. some need to be on site, and mr. barton has been -- and he knows that i've been very concerned in making sure that we are able to make that migration secure and also very effective without losing any data. and so if you wouldn't mind, mr. barton to give you a precise -- >> that be great. mr. barton? >> thank you, sir. the move out of the madison building of all of our what we term the production, the actual usable content is supposed to be complete by the end of this fiscal year.

a lot of that content, especially the ones that is sensitive that needs to have security controls around it, will be maintained in this new data center that we have fitted out, and that will be complete by the end of the fiscal year. we will also be migrating our non-sensitive, public-releasable, the things that the general public reviews into the cloud in a lot of respects so that it is a faster and less physically from an equipment perspective thing that we have to worry about funding. >> ms. temple, can you update the committee on the progress of shifting copyright office data to this facility as well as to cloud services including the benefits you expect to see and the current challenges you face? >> yes. i will defer a little bit to bud in terms of the exact schedule, but i know that we are in track in terms of beginning to migrate

our data over to the data center, some of our data. some of our other data will be housed in the cloud service as we are developing the new system as well, and so we are working closely with the oci in terms of the schedule and timeline for that process. >> dr. hayden, i understand that expanding access to make the library's unique collections available to all users is the central part of the library's strategic plan. the veterans history project of the american folk life center is one collection of particular interest to me and with veteran's day just four days away, i'm sure it's of interest to my colleagues. my office discovered that new mexico had a low number of stories in the archives especially considering the high number of active duty and veterans in our state. to change this, i set a goal for my taffe to collect at least 50 stories from new mexico veterans

including at least one from ever one of our 33 counties. i'm proud say that my office has conducted over 80 interviews, i conducted a number myself. i can tell you it was a really eye-opening experience. i'm especially focused on enlisting the help of other community partners around my state to continue collecting interviews and other materials from hispanic veterans, apache tribes and the navajo nation. can you update the committee on the progress of this project and how it fits into the updated mission and vision of the library? >> i'm very pleased that you asked that question because i just returned from rhode island with senator reed and before that with senate end si in wyoming with -- enzi in wyoming and adding to the over 100,000

all testimonies of veterans. and the inclusion of the gold star families has been very important, and we are making sure that we work with congressional offices, and we want to thank you for conducting the interviews. you are so correct about the fact that it is, it can get emotional, and there are a lot of veterans who feel they don't have a story to tell, but we try to make sure they know. and people who have lost their love ared ones can also -- loved ones can also contribute to the veterans history project and talk about that. so over 100,000 already, and we're working to make sure that we reach out to the native communities. and so we have added many oral histories and have a potential focus in working -- a special focus in working with the national museum on that project as well. it's very successful. it is something that we hope people will realize is so important in terms of stories to be told. so at our new orientation

center, we will have a special section for veterans history project and people that visit, those two million visitors will all know they can record their stories. hopefully very soon on their digital devices. they can do some of it now. >> great, thank you. and just to let all members know that you do a really good job, i think, training us to do this. so thank you very much, and we hope maybe you'll visit new mexico to take our recorded interviews back when we get ready to do that. thank you so much. >> okay. yeah. >> let me mention again, i think we'll have time for at least a second round of questions, but for your first questions, senator hyde-smith. >> [inaudible] and thank you for being here today, and i look forward to learning more about the modernization of the library of congress and the copyright office, because i know it is certainly vital to the growth and the vision of expanding access to our nation's wonderful collections. i, your credibility, i think, is

outstanding, and it's just one of my favorite places here in washington, d.c., and i thank you for all your efforts. my question, dr. haden, the -- hayden, the effort to centralize i.t. across the library has included transferring both people and resources from your individual service units including the copyright office to the office, of the chief information officer to execute technology activities. and this could be for who wants to answer it. can you explain how ocio tracks and utilizes the funds appropriated for copyright modernization on behalf of the copyright office? >> i'd like to start, and thank you for the question about the addressing benefits of centralizing i.t. efforts and projects in the library in general. that was one of the major

challenges and major focus of the i.t. modernization effort, to not have silos. mr. barton referred to that. with centralization we can track fiscal expenditures and resources, we can track equipment, we can professionalize personnel as well. and so that and also additional security. when you have a number of units dealing with security, that's difficult. so i.t. centralization has allowed us to track all of our expenditures and keep a better view of, enterprise wise, what i.t -- [inaudible] but i'm very pleased to be able to report centralization has been helpful in so many ways. >> thank you for the question. we have two prongs that i would like to address on that, and one is overall from an i.t. funding

management perspective, we are in the middle of implementing something that's called the technology business model. this is something that the executive branch has been working on for several years, industry has been working on for several years. and while we may not be as far along as some of the agencies that started this ahead of us, we have made great strides, and we expect by the end of this fiscal year we will have a tool in place that gets us down to a level of fidelity on where we're spending i.t. funding that we can make much more informed decisions about what is working and what isn't working. with regards to the copyright office, we have a regularly scheduled, every other week meeting with the chief financial officer at the library, chief financial officer of the copyright office and my i.t. funding manager. and we go over in detail what is the funding that's being used for the copyright modernization effort, where it is being used and spent, contracts, personnel

and all of the resources that are involved in the i.t. modernization of the copyright office. >> thank you very much. >> senator cortez masto. >> thank you. welcome. it's great to see all of you. i am a big fan of the library of congress and and what you all do and your staff. please know that. and i'm just sitting here talking to my wonderful colleague from new mexico about the veterans history project. count me in. as my staff are listening, we will be participating with you in the great state of nevada. we have some incredible veterans who i have met and have heard their stories. believe it or not, there's 140,000 population of filipinos. many of those veterans. and i would love to capture their stories if they're not captured and so many more in the state. so we will be following up with you. let me follow up on the enterprise copyright system. it seems to be the topic this

morning. finish i know as part of the goals for this updated system it's to improve public records searches and simplify the process for registering copyrights. and i think you mentioned, dr. hayden, in your testimony you said courses in the program will be are piloted in the spring of 2020, is that right in. >> yes. >> okay. and so how do you, i guess the only question i have is how do you measure the success of the pilot program? >> oh. i have my colleague here, but we have a copyright modernization office, we also have regular tracking of progress, and we are about to have a critical path opportunity that we can overlay everything that is happening with copyright modernization. but i'll turn to ms. temple for more. >> thank you. and also if the public will be able to provide feedback as well.

>> yes. and just to piggyback on your last statement, we think it's critical to have the public provide feedback as we adopt our system. so for the recordation system in the spring of 20 to we're going to a digital system for the first time, so that is something very exciting for us. we have established a group of companies and individuals who will participate in the pilot. but as we continue to, you know, it rate on the pilot and add functionality, we will be adding in additional individuals to participate. and during that process, we will be getting feedback from them as to how the system worked. is it as easy as we thought it would be, are there changes that we need to make. and i think that is one of the benefits of the methodology in terms of the system development that we will be able to quickly take that feedback and add on to the existing system and change it as the users provide

feedback. >> okay, thank you. thank you, i appreciate that. mr. barton, you mentioned before that one of the library's big challenges is storage. and i know when i was over there visiting with some of your staff, we talked a little bit about that. can you talk about the work the library's doing to address the current storage problem? >> we are taking several prongs of approach to the storage issue. one, we are -- as dr. hayden mentioned in her opening remarks, we, stabilization was the first phase. second phase of the i.t. modernization was what we call optimization and then modern modernization. they weren't necessarily sequential. the optimization part of storage is making sure that where we need storage, we're using the right type of storage. so, for example, if we're presenting information to the public, we want that information to be, appear on their computer screens instantly. so that's going to have a different type of storage than

preservation of storage. we want to make sure something is here for posterity, in a hundred years it's still available. that's not necessarily something that needs to be retrieved rapidly in a matter of milliseconds. so that would be a less expensive form of storage. so that's one of the avenues we are approaching, making sure we're using the right type of storage for the type that's needed. the other part looking at our options from the priorities of ownership. cloud-based storage we would consider something that's less expensive for us to maintain because we're not in the position of having to replace the hardware. so making sure that we're taking advantage of all the options from a storage-based perspective is a high priority for us to make sure that it's being done correctly and efficiently. >> thank you. and thank you all for your testimony today. appreciate you being here today and all the good work that you do. thank you, mr. chair. >> so, mr. barton, earlier when you mentioned moving from the madison building to the new storage facility, how much would

that be physically some stored and how much of it is being digitized, moved to the cloud, however you're doing that differently than was the case a few years ago? >> that's a great question, sir. we are attempting to get all of our analog written materials digitized in a way that they're accessible by the citizens of the united states and and worldwide. that's right now i would have to get back with you on the exact number of what is digitized and what isn't. it's a constantly growing requirement. when i first arrived, we were dealing with -- we counted the content at 160 million items. and as we testified today, it was 170 million, so 10 million items in less than four years on an analog basis. that's something that's going to be a challenge for us, and we are implementing a process where we look at what is the best way to make this happen.

and i know the copyright office has a really good story on storage that i don't feel qualified -- >> well, ms. temple, let's hear that story. [laughter] >> i think what mr. barton is alluding to is as to our efforts to digitize our public records. one of the things that we were really excited to be able to release to the public last year -- or earlier this year, i guess we're still in 2019, was in march of 2019 we did our final release of our virtual card catalog. on that we were able to give access for the first time to over 41 million images that were previously physical images where you had to come into the copyright office to be able to get access to those documents. those were completely digitized and put into a digital database for people to be able to access from wherever they wanted to. and so that is manager that we are really pleased about -- something that we are really pleased about. we are continuing to digitize

the remainder of our records, and that is one of the work streams we do have for modernization this year. we are going to have a limited pilot of a public records system where we'll be able to add in the virtual card catalog records that are already digitized as well as the records that we are dimmingtizing now and then work on how we might be able to make all of those records available in some way available to the public. >> and on that digitization project, to you do that with outside contractors? >> yes, yes. we have contracted, we have been working, actually, with fed link who has been assisting us on that and with outside contractors to digitize the additional records beyond the card catalog. we have about 26,000 record books that we are hoping to digitize and make the information, the data like copyright registration number, author, title available in a database so that people who want to come to our office digitally or online will be able to very

easily search the copyright status of individual copyrighted works. >> and i know like in the department of agriculture i used to be the top republican on that appropriating committee, they have a number of cios in their various entities around the country. but any big project has to be cleared by the central usda a cio. do you, on an outside contract on information, would that go through a clearance process at the library as well? >> yes. [laughter] >> and also fed link, that ms. temple referred to, is managed by the library. and that, we manage that for contracting and services for other federal agencies and libraries. and so anything that is to that part of the centralization of standards and the operation of any i.t. has a review. >> and, ms. temple, as one of

the agency leaders in the library, does that process work quickly enough, in your view? certainly gives you a safeguard you wouldn't have otherwise, but does it -- >> yes. i mean, obviously, all people within the government would love things to be automobile to work even more quickly than they do. but, yes. we, i think, have an efficient process where what we do is work with both ocio if it's an i.t.-related project to develop the contract and send it through the centralized contract office within the library. so for the digitization side, which is actually more of a business side project, that also does, so the resulting contract will go through the contracting office within the library, and we will work with them whether through fed link or through an outside vendor to develop that contract and get that solicitation out and approved and then work with the contracting officers which will be in the library's contracting office to make sure that that contract is operating smoothly.

>> i think initially the reason the copyright office in the library was, as much as anything else to insure the collection. and so one question i would have with all of this material out there, are you still, do you still have the kind of relationship, dr. hayden, you need for best adecision, for deposit requirements so that you're getting what you think is what the library really needs to have in that? if apparently quickly in that digitized form as well as the other forms. >> the deposit requirement has allowed the library of congress to have one of the most comprehensive collections in the world, and it's now the largest collection in the world. and it is such a benefit to be able to have an opportunity to

select, so we're very pleased. i just want to also take an opportunity to commend the virtual card catalog project. even though -- [inaudible] just to think of 41 million cards in cat hog drawers. that was a -- catalog drawers. that was a major undertaking. so visualize a catalog set -- >> and how often is the old card catalog cabinet used now? >> people actually do still come to the office to use it, but we are looking to, actually now that people are aware of the that is fact they can access those online, we're going to take advantage of the space and save some space and probably decommission the physical card catalog and actually direct more people to go online as it's becoming more enhanced. >> people have quite a bit of affection for card catalog ares. we even have published a book

about card catalogs with a different ending. >> senator udall. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. when you last testified in march, dr. hayden, you and i discussed tribal concerns with the proposed rule for music modernization act that deals with the pre-1972 recordings. finish since then the copyright office has issued its final rule. the rule did not include a public domain exemption for pre-1972 tribal cultural recordings because according to the copyright office it would exceed the office's regulatory authority. this question's for, i think, both you and ms. temple. are you working with tribes to continue addressing this issue, and if so is, what are you doing and what can congress do to assist your office with those efforts? >> we have several initiatives

with making sure that we preserve and make available the cultural heritage of native cultures, and we have the federal -- [inaudible] project, and that's where we are preserving very fragile historic records dating back to the late 19th century. and then the ancestral voices digital collection in our folk life center is making sure that we provide access to the recorded sounds digitally and songs. so we are very active at making sure that we are capturing and using technology to a great extent for that. >> great. and, ms. temple, will you give me your commitment that the copyright office will work with me and my indian affairs subcommittee staff on this issue? as vice chairman of senate committee on indian affairs, respecting tribal sovereignty is a priority for me, so i look

forward to working with you to resolve this issue. would you give me your commitment? >> yes, of course. during the process for the music modernization act implementation of the regulations, we did seek outside comments about issues including issues with respect to tribal musical recordings. we have some specific provisions in our regulations that do address tribal musical works and are committed to working with you and the various tribes on ways that we can continue that partnership in the future. >> yeah. and one of the issues that their raising -- they're raising, which i think is a critical issue. i think you know about this, but i think it's important for everybody to know about it. in the first half of the 20th century, anthropologists and sociologists took a substantial number of tribal ceremony and religious event recordings without the con sent of the tribes -- consent of the tribes. and many museums and universities now hold these collections without tribal knowledge. the mma would require these institutions to make these

recordings public, resulting in potential release of culturally-sensitive information. so that's the issue we're trying to focus in on, and we want to work very closely with you on that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator udall. mr. barton, i think the librarian mentioned 95% of the 2015 gao recommendations have been fulfilled. what were the business units that the 5% are largely congregated in? >> the 5% of the remaining comes out to be six recommendations. two of them are non-public, so they revolve around security, and that would be a library-wide concern, not just a specific service unit. >> uh-huh. >> we have the i.t. funding,

there's a recommendation on financing. that is an ocio responsibility, so that applies directly to the ocio. >> let's be sure, for the three of us or anybody watching, we understand exactly what that means. so how would that be followed up then if it relates to the ocio? are they not giving you -- are you not getting the information you need or the funding you need, or what's -- what do you mean that's up to somebody else? >> we are getting the funding that we need to close out these particular findings. >> right. >> we are in constant communication with the gao and providing evidence on closing out the remaining six findings. i do not have any concerns about being able to meet that by the end of this fiscal year, so i'm confident -- >> all right. let me let you finish the answer

then. so what are the other, beyond that do you have some specific units where there are more challenges than others at finishing up? >> i'm sorry, yes. we actually don't have any remaining challenges to close out. in fact, as part of the gao there were two findings that specifically related to the copyright office. both of those have been closed as implemented, and we're very happy to be able to report that. so all of the remaining six are strictly within the purview of the ocio, and we are confident that those will be closed by the end of this calendar year. >> and, ms. temple, do you have on that topic, is there anything that you're trying to get done in this calendar year that's a concern for you? >> no. we, as mr. barton alluded to, we were very pleased that we were able to close out those last remaining two gao recommendations. we worked closely with the ocio to do that, and we are prepared to move forward aggressively on

our modernization efforts. >> and the timeline that the two chief financial officers and the cio and your folks that work with them are working on is someone that you think is reasonable? >> yes. obviously, we do understand that our users and stakeholders would love to have a new system yesterday, and so we do take that very seriously. but we are working very aggressively as was alluded to, fy-19 was the first year we actually got specific funding for the enterprise copyright system. we've now had that one year concluded, and now in fy-20 we're going to have three separate work strains working on registration development, public records development and record ization system development all at the same time. the public will be able to see the progress more concretely now that we're in the second year of our funding phase. >> okay. senator cap toe. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

it's always great to see dr. hayden, and thank you for your good work. i think you're doing an excellent job at the library of congress and in modernizing its operations just in the brief time i've been in here. but when i was chairman of the subcommittee of legislative branch for two years, i went back and looked at some of the legislative language that we had in our appropriation subcommittee report. our report in fy-2016 recounted gao's finding that, quote, a lack of central leadership and oversight at the library resulted in duplicative overlapping and inefficient i.t. policies and investments. and again in 2017, our report noted that the i.g.'s finding that the library failed to have, quote, an organization-wide, independent strategy for digital collection activities and that the goal of addressing the digital collection strategy was

not included in the library-wide strategic plan or its information technology strategic plan. indeed, at that time the library was seeking funding for a digital collection management i unit even though there was no comprehensive study. i'm not bringing these up to rehash problems of the past, but to highlight how much progress has been made. dr. hayden, you have already implemented 95%, and mr. barton just talked about the remaining 5% of the tasks. so as we talk about this, dr. hayden, could you kind of flesh out a little bit how this is impacting the public, how the public is benefiting now and will in the future from having access to the digital access to the library's collections? how is this impacting americans just in general? >> in general, what americans and people worldwide will be able to do is have more access

to the library's collections digitally, they will be able to download photographs that are copyright-free, and they will be able to have visual exhibits on their mobile devices, they will be able to record their veterans history projects and send them to the library. they will be able to also use congress.gov and get up-to-date government information that is available to all citizens. the variety of opportunities that information technology provides in terms of opening up what we call the treasure chest of the library of congress are in, just amazing. when you think about seeing rosa parks with the exhibit that's going to open in december, her handwritten notes and seeing

thomas jefferson's draft of the declaration of independence, and we have invited the public to help us transcribe letters to abraham lincoln by the people's project. so they can actually be part of helping history come alive. >> yeah, i was going to ask you about the by the people project. >> it's been whiffle. we launched it -- it's been wonderful. we launched it with the anniversary of the gettysburg address, and we had high schoolers come in. we found that the aspect of reading cursive writing gave us opportunity for intergenerational -- [laughter] programs where you have more mature people reading the cursive and the young people doing the computer. we were able to -- 27,000 letters to abraham lincoln that had not been reviewed in decades or seen by people -- >> were they written to him as

president? >> they were written to abraham lincoln. >> how exciting. >> and the hook for young people was the fact that they were making something by transcribing. they were taking manager that hadn't been -- something that hadn't been read since 1864 available for everyone to see. so of those 27,000, all were transcribed. >> so really without the digital access, a project like that -- >> it couldn't have happened. and so the fact that we were able to be and congress has supported the i.t. modernization at the library has had so many benefits in terms of making the library more useful, ips separational for so many people. and then with the copyright modernizations, you will have people who can search historic records, they can file by register online. people are buying cars online, and now they'll be able to

register quickly, search records, do different things with the entire copyright system. it'll be an integrated system. to technology, and we really appreciate the support that congress has given us. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> senator udall. >> i just have, first of all, just thank you all very much, just one final statement. senator klobuchar, i know, who's the ranking on this committee, is very interested in all of these issues. i know she's been working with you. i believe she's working on a piece of legislation called the case act which is, would help to reduce the costs and barriers to making a small copyright claim less expensive. and you all are aware of that. but she and her staff are going tock working with you -- to be working with you, and i'm sure she's going to be putting in questions for the record. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. let's talk about the case act a little bit. i had a, was in missouri over the weekend and had a

photographer at an event that i was speaking at say i hope you're looking at the case act, because i can't afford to defend my work anywhere else. so, obviously, you know, we want to create that kind of opportunity. but can, what are the, what are the challenges to that kind of opportunity in addition to, including the kind of additional staff you might have to have or the other challenges you would see? i think senator kennedy also one of the members of the senate along with senator klobuchar that's interested in the case act. why don't you tell me how you think that would impact what you do and if it's a responsibility that you could handle. and if you could handle it, what would it take in addition to what you have now to be able to handle it? >> yes, thank you. this is a longstanding issue that the copyright office has analyzed and reviewed. we actually did a full study of a proposed small claims tribunal

back in 2013 and issued a report to congress actually recommending that congress adopt legislation that would create a small claims tribunal within the copyright office. so we feel confident that if the case act were to pass and be signed into legislation, that is something we would be able to readily implement. we have our previous experience, for example, with the music modernization act which was a historic piece of legislation that really did require the copyright office to work closely with ocio to develop a number of online filing mechanisms as well as several databases and a series of regulations all within a statutory deadline of six months, and we were able to quickly, with the help of ocio as well as our tell lahr team in the office of general counsel, the copyright office, to get all of that done ahead of time. we were able to post a new web site within overnight at the time that the mma was actually enacted. so given our history and experience with that recent legislation, we are confident

that we would be able to meet whatever resource requirements would be needed to implement the case act if it was passed. >> would you see that likely to be largely a cio-assisted kind of operation where someone contacts you without coming to the office? they explain what their problem is without having to have an attorney or a visit or anything else? and how is that working? how many more people do you think you'd need to have to manage that? >> for implementation of the regulations, we don't anticipate any additional staff. we were able to do the regulation side of the mma without additional legal staff. the case act is, you know, one of the main points of that provision is to streamline the process, so take advantage of digital technology, for example, video conferencing so that people would not need to come into the offices necessary for motions and hearings. so we would work with ocio on

that to develop any necessary digital resources that would be needed to be able to have that access for the case act. the provision of the bill does require that we have three potential judges for the case act for the small claims tribunal as well as up to two additional attorneys, and so we would just work with congress to make sure that we have the resources to hire that staff. but we feel that that should be a relatively easy resource because there are many attorneys, i'm sure, who would be willing to participate in that tribunal process if that was something that was enacted into legislation. >> and physically you have space for those people? >> yes. we currently have -- so -- >> put 'em where the card catalog used to be? [laughter] >> well, we've kind of already identified potential areas for that, but we already have a copyright royalty board that adheres, excuse me, related to our statute, you know, our

administration of the statutory licenses under the copyright act. so there is a hearing room. we did work with the cbo to score the case act and to determine, you know, how much it would cost if we actually got an additional hearing room or did not, and we could do either one. so it just would depend on whether congress would like us to have an additional hearing room beyond the one that we already have for the copyright royalty board. >> i think in your other comments earlier you mentioned that you had designated or brought in an i.t. adviser to work directly with the cio. why did you do that, and what do you think the benefit of that will be? >> one of the main reasons we did that was to really strengthen our communication and collaboration with ocio. i think lawyers and the business side sometimes speak a slightly different language than the technologists, so we wanted to make sure as we are really working on a number of additional work treatments for fy-20 that we had strengthened

communication and collaboration to really assist effectively communicate with one another. make sure that the business needs that we have from the copyright office are easily transferred to ocio as they start doing all of these various development activities. and so we think that that will be, you know, really helpful as we have all of the number of work streams that we're working on. we were very pleased that ocio was willing to give us one of their top persons, so this is an individual that actually came from ocio. so i think that that will really help to strengthen our communication and collaboration moving forward. >> good. i think internally, too, taking full advantage of all the resources that the whole library structure has is a good thing. i believe there was an effort made from, say, 2014 or '15 to '17 for copyright modernization largely independent of the internal structure that just didn't work. about $11 million spent, and

nothing was produced as a result of that. i think that was an example of what happens when you don't have the system you have now. and, of course, that system was just being put into place. so i would, would also point out, you know, the structure here has grown up over time. intellectual property needs have grown up over time. the desire for accessibility and as you're doing now more immediate accessibility to everything in this vast collection including the copyright space has changed. the overall structure, while -- has not changed. and, in fact, as i mentioned earlier, we last year made an effort to at least, thinking that the copyright community had greater interest in maybe a different kind of procedure to choose the register, but it

turned out that that was not an effort that was successful between the house and senate. i don't think would be again. so that makes it critically important that we make the current structure work. and you've got, between all three of you, vast resources that probably are always a little short of what you'd like to do but are substantial. and how do you make those resources work. i'd also point out this committee is the oversight committee for the library, for the copy -- not the committee that will write copyright law, and that's often the case that you have a different kind of reporting responsibility for oversight and how you manage a lot of that responsibility. we just had two of the previous chairmen of the leg branch appropriating committee who are on this committee. and from the point of view of money available and how that money's spent, have an incredible ability to not only ask the right questions, but

help you help us understand the answers. so the responsiveness to the committee, really important. i don't think we've had problems with that, dr. hayden, since you became the librarian. but responding to questions from our staff and our staff's spent a lot of time on particularly this modernization effort systemwide over the last couple of years. and we intend to continue to do that. but grateful to have your time. dr. hayden, do you have anything you want to say that we might have covered today and didn't that we need to be thinking about? >> well, i just want to reiterate the gratitude that we have for the support, and and we want to encourage your continued input and feedback. we want to keep the discussions going, and it's very helpful for us as we move along. >> thank you. anybody else? well, thank you all for taking the time with us today, sharing

your views. the record will be open for one week from today for others on the committee to ask questions. we ask you to respond to those quickly, and the committee's adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> weeknights this week we're featuring booktv programs.

tonight we take a look at books by members of congress. we'll start with louisiana representative steve scalise and his book, "back in the game: one gunman, countless heroes and the fight for my life." then senator kamala harris in "the truths we hold." that's followed by senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, "the u.s. senate and the commonwealth." enjoy booktv in prime time this week and all day every weekend on c-span2. >> congress returns for work next week, and here's what's ahead. the house has yet to decide on impeachment managers and send the two articles of impeachment over to the senate. eventually, the senate will hear the cases against president trump. we also expect the senate to take up the u.s./mexico/canada trade agreement which the house approved before leaving for the holidays. president trump will deliver the state of the union address on february 4th.