This book made available by the Internet Archive.

The Office of the Secretary, Thomas Blair, the Inspector General. Mr. Blair. Margaret Gaynor, where are you, Margaret? The voice of the underprivileged. Nancy Johnson, the Senior Business Officer. James Hobbins, Executive Assistant to the Secretary. Peter Powers, the old judge. Hi, Judge. Mark Rodgers, Director of the Office of Grovemment Relations. And Linda St. Thomas, Acting Director of the Office of Public Affairs.

A very formidable list. A very good one.

All right, testimony. Mr. Adams, your testimony in writing may be made a part of the record.

It may be followed by the biography of Mr. Ortner.

[The information follows:]

TESTIMONY OF SECRETARY ROBERT McC. ADAMS

ON THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION'S FISCAL YEAR 1995

BUDGET REQUEST TO CONGRESS

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HONORABLE SIDNEY R. YATES, CHAIRMAN

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1994

ROOM B-308, RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

Today I appear before the Siibcommittee to discuss the Smithsonian Institution's Fiscal Year 1995 budget request to Congress. Before discussing the specifics of the request, I first wish to express my gratitude and appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the Subcommittee for your support of the Institution during the past decade. As you are aware, this may be my last appearance before the Subcommittee as Secretary. I plan to step down as soon as my successor has been selected and an orderly transition can be completed.

I have been privileged to serve these past ten years as Secretary of one of the greatest cultural and scientific institutions in the world. During this time, I have been witness to the many accomplishments of the talented and wonderful people who make the Smithsonian such a special and unique place. In the past decade, the Smithsonian has operated in two distinctly different environments: a sustained period of program growth during much of the 1980s and a period of restructuring beginning in the 1990s.

In many ways, the Smithsonian is a reflection of the nation as a whole. When times were robust and expansionist, such as during the early and mid-eighties, the Institution was too. As the recession of the early nineties exacted its toll on our nation and we all were required to do more with less, the Smithsonian was no less affected. Those times called for self evaluation and commensurate action. In 1992, we began the task of reexamining and reaffirming our core priorities and allocating our resources to support those priorities. We then undertook the concomitant process of reducing programs and activities which, although worthy, could no longer be justified as parts of the indispensable core responsibilities of the Institution. While my past several appearances before this subcommittee have focused on the Smithsonian's activities in response to the current period of constrained resources, what was less noticeable, but in the long run more significant, was the continued evolution of the Institution as a whole. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few examples of that evolution.

In the sciences, we have witnessed remarkable strides which have continued the transformation of the National Zoo away from a traditional menagerie of animals into a true biological park which imparts to the public a much greater understanding of our global environment and the interrelatedness of the many millions of species which inhabit our world. There is no better manifestation of this than the National Zoo's recently opened Amazonia exhibit. This wonderfully reconstructed sliver of one of our world's most fascinating and endangered ecosystems has done more to stimulate curiosity and spur the pursuit of wider and deeper knowledge among the public than a more traditional, single-species exhibit could ever have done.

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I

Looking beyond our many programs focused on planet earth, the Smithsonian's Astrophysical Observatory will soon have a greatly enhanced capability to carry out its mission with the advent of two path-breaking instruments: the converted multiple mirror telescope on Mt. Hopkins in Arizona and the submillimeter telescope array on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These two instruments have been in development for nearly a decade. Once in service, they will be the cornerstone of the Observatory's ground-based data gathering capability for years to come.

Within the past ten years, there have also been significant accomplishments in the arts and hximanities. After almost five years, the newly-renovated and restored Freer Gallery of Art reopened to the public. What can be best described as a work of art housing works of art, the Freer Gallery is home to one of the world's greatest Asian art collections and some strikingly complementary works of individual American artists.

The National Museum of American Art (NMAA) has greatly expanded its outreach activities through its National Arts and Humanities Education Program (NAHEP) and its "Save Outdoor Sculpture" (SOS) initiative. NAHEP comprises seven themes, chosen to conform with strong areas in the Museum's collections as well as staff expertise. Curriculums are developed around these themes and disseminated to school systems nationwide. SOS, a highly successful community-based, grassroots program, co-sponsored with the National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property (NIC), records and preserves outdoor sculpture across the nation. Because of the efforts of NMAA/NIC, an important part of our nation's culture and history will be more readily accessible to the public and will not be lost.

Another major accomplishment has been the establishment of the National Postal Museum as part of the National Museum of American History. A collaborative effort with the U.S. Postal Service, the Museum chronicles, through the progress of the postal system, the successively closer and more effective binding together of every generation of Americans. The positive response from the public to the National Postal Museum has been most gratifying.

In the immensely popular field of air and space history, the Smithsonian has begun planning in earnest for the extension of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) at Dulles International Airport. The NASM Extension will allow for the conservation and exhibition of the many artifacts which at present are inadequately stored and cared for at the antiquated Garber facility in Suitland, Maryland. The Extension will provide the public with the opportunity to see first-hand such well-known and historically significant artifacts as the space shuttle Enterprise, the Enola Gay, and the SR-171 Blackbird. Just as importantly, the new facility will, for the first time, provide

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the necessary conservation and storage standards that our absolutely unparalleled collection requires.

To move forward on planning and design for the Extension, the Smithsonian is requesting $4 million for Fiscal Year 1995. These funds will be complemented by the commitment of both financial assistance and infrastructure improvements from the Commonwealth of Virginia in support of the Extension. This unique partnership will ultimately include not only the Federal and State governments, but also the regional business community, and private sponsors from around the nation. . .

In the field of African American history, I am hopeful that authorization to establish the National African American Museum in the Arts and Industries Building on the Mall will be completed by the end of the 103rd Congress. It is imperative that Congressional action be completed as quickly as possible in order to preserve the great many artifacts and historical materials which have been pledged to the museum once established. This initiative will remain a priority for me for the balance of my tenure as Secretary.

In the fall of this year, we will cut the ribbon to open the first permanent component of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City. This is the first step in what we believe is a profoundly significant contribution to museum design, and indeed, to a reexamination of the underlying rationales which museums have long taken for granted. Because the Museum is the proposed recipient of the greater part of the Institution's requested increases in both the Salaries and Expenses and Construction accounts for Fiscal Year 1995, I would like to deal with the Museum and its future more fully.

Although the first discussions regarding the Smithsonian's acquisition of the Heye Foundation collection began in 1976, it was not until 1986, as you will remember, Mr. Chairman, that the Institution began to seriously pursue the acquisition of the Heye collection. Simply stated, the Heye artifacts comprise one of the greatest collections of Western Hemisphere archeological and ethnological materials in the world. The inclusion of this collection is not only a milestone addition to what has always been a core component of our collections but a new and pioneering form of partnership with the communities that are represented in those collections.

In 1989, Public Law 101-185 established the National Museum of the American Indian within the Smithsonian Institution. It was given the mission of recognizing and affirming to Native communities and to a world public the historical and contemporary cultural achievements of the Native peoples of this hemisphere. Nationwide public programming, research, conservation, training.

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and exhibitions all were to be conducted in close consultation with Native peoples. The process of consultation with Native communities during the planning process for the Museum has already been of decisive importance. What has emerged from these consultations — which were held throughout the entire country — is an immensely rewarding new and participatory way to create a museum as a living cultural institution.

NMAI will consist of three permanent facilities: the Custom House site in New York City; the Cultural Resources and Collections Center in Suitland, Maryland; and the Mall facility. While it may appear that the Museum has three distinct and unrelated components, nothing could be farther from the truth. The three entities are intertwined through their dependence on a single collection and through common programming.

As part of the negotiations which brought the Heye Foundation collection to the Smithsonian, it was agreed that the new museum would have a permanent, public presence in New York. Working closely with trustees of the Foundation and the State and City of New York, a unique and beneficial arrangement on cost sharing was agreed to for the Custom House site. New York State, the City of New York and the Smithsonian each contribute one-third of the cost of construction of the New York facility. I am pleased to report that the agreed-upon site, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, is proving to be extremely suitable as the venue for NMAI's New York presence. The portion of the building dedicated to the Museum will be known as the George Gustav Heye Center. Roughly $8 million has been contributed by each party to the construction of the Museum, a fine example of partnership among national, state, and local levels of government in support of cultural programming.

The Smithsonian is requesting an increase of approximately $2.4 million in its Salaries and Expenses account to support the opening of the Custom House exhibition and its related programs, with the Custom House opening, the National Museum of the American Indian moves from the planning and concept stage and begins its mission of serving and educating the public.

This budget request also includes construction funding of $40 million to build the Cultural Resources and Collections Center at Suitland, Maryland. The design of this facility, most important to many Native American communities and vital for the conservation and perpetuation of the collection, is the result of consultations, even more extensive than those mentioned earlier. Access to the artifacts in a ceremonial setting was felt by B<my Native Americans to be the key to their ability to study and foster their cultural identity. Although we began the process of planning for the Museum with the Suitland facility serving as a standard collections building, we quickly came to understand that this was not the way to be responsive to the needs of the peoples

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with whom we were in partnership. While the cost for the facility has been held within the original estimate, we have been able to incorporate those specialized requirements considered most critical by Native Americans.

We are requesting $3 million for the planning and design of the Mall building which will be the primary public facility of the Museum. Again stressing the importance and necessity of public-private partnerships, this component of the Museum will be funded with both Federal and private sector money. The Museum,

through its National Campaign, expects jtQ_raise_Qnfi-third-of the

estimated $106 million from private sources. While it is fiscally and economically prudent to share the costs of creating this portion of the Museum with private contributors, doing so has proved to be beneficial also in another sense. The requirement to implement a national fund raising campaign for the Museum has resulted in heightened awareness and interest among the public about Native American culture and history. The Campaign's national membership prograun currently numbers more than 70,000 people and has raised more than $15 million. These individuals will comprise a ready and enthusiastic constituency to assist in the educational mission of the Museum once it is opened.

In addition to our program activities, I would like to summarize some of the significant and long-term reforms which have been implemented in the administrative and managerial sectors of the Institution. The way the Smithsonian did business some years ago is vastly different from the way it conducts business today. Some of this can be attributed to incremental improvements in administrative systems and strategies. Some, however, must be attributed to the recognition of the need for a different approach by senior management during the period of constrained resources. As is often the case with any large, long-established organization, the willingness to change can be much more difficult to attain than the changes themselves. With the help of Congress, we have identified numerous areas within the Institution which were not operating efficiently or which lacked full accountability. More remains to be done, but the improvements have been tangible.

Even before the National Performance Review, the Institution's Offica of Human Resources (OHR) was given a top-to-bottom reassessment to remedy bureaucratic bottlenecks. Shortly, the Smithsonian will be one of a handful of Federal entities under a new pilot program which will provide an automated personnel system that will virtually result in "paperless" personnel transactions.

Our Office of Protection Services has instituted a new training program that addresses our officers' dual roles as security professionals and Institutional ambassadors. This

78-792 O - 94 - 5

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program has become the envy of the domestic and international museum commiinity.

The Institution's Office of Facilities Services devised and implemented a systematic and coordinated repair and restoration program that prioritized the facility renewal needs of the entire Institution. This approach, although initially time consuming and complicated, has allowed us to allocate our resources in a much more efficient manner to support our infrastructure needs.

All-of these steps, combined with the organizational restructuring undertaken over the past several years, have resulted in greater accountability throughout the Institution for both Federal and Trust funds. I believe the Institution is presently getting more for each dollar spent than at any time during my service as Secretary.

One of the areas in which I have taken a personal, as well as professional, interest has been in fostering diversity throughout the Institution. We still have far to go, but I believe that we have made great strides in diversifying both our workforce and our programmatic activities. The policies initiated during the last decade to identify and recruit minority and women candidates for employment are today bearing fruit. We now have more minorities and women serving in senior management and general supervisory positions than at any time in the Institution's history. One area of employment recruitment that has not produced the results I had hoped, and that requires a redoubling of our efforts, is among Hispanics. We have established a Latino Task Force, comprised of representatives from outside the Institution, to look at all aspects of the Institution. We are especially pleased that Raul Yzaguirre, President of the National Council of La Raza, serves as Task Force chairman. The Task Force will shortly issue its report which will include recommendations as to how we can strengthen both the recruitment of Hispanic applicants and Hispanic-related programming in our activities. We will move with dispatch in response to the Task Force's report.

The Smithsonian has become a leader in the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Although many of the provisions of ADA have yet to become effective, all of our facilities planning for the past several years has been done in accordance with ADA. Our exhibition designers have taken into account the special needs of those with disabilities and the accessibility of our exhibitions has become a model for others to follow.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me return to the fact that this is the tenth and last of my annual reports to you and this Sxibcommittee. Thinking back over what I have learned as well as done during this decade, I am moved to offer four brief

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characterizations of the Institution. I hope they may convey a useful, longer-range perspective on the course that this Subcommittee has been so instrumental in enabling the Smithsonian to follow.

The first is that it is a living institution, undergoing change all the time. How could it be otherwise? Everything we seek to study and represent is changing, the technical means at our disposal are rapidly and continuously advancing, and the audiences with whom we wish to communicate are not only demanding more and more of us but are also taking an increasingly active role in a dialogue with us. Not all changes have turned out to be improvements. We have made mistakes, but we have sought to correct them in a timely fashion — and I believe we have drawn the appropriate lessons from them. The central point, however, is that the worst mistake of all would be to think we could just stand still and be content to look only backward.

Secondly, then, this is an Institution that is committed to maintaining a long-term view of its changing responsibilities, and not to be caught up only in the vicissitudes of the day. This involves no disrespect for tHe immediate goals and constraints of the forthcoming budget cycle, but it asserts a parallel responsibility to prepare thoughtfully for the central, yet surely different, role that the Institution will be called upon to play a decade, or two, or three, hence.

With the support of the Mellon and MacArthur Foundations, the Regents have established a Commission on the Future of the Smithsonian that has begun to play a crucial part in this process. It is a broad and diverse as well as eminent body, with Dr. Maxine Singer, President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, as its splendid Chair. The Commission plans to work closely with the Board of Regents as well as with me and my successor as Secretary, and to issue its report next winter. I am sure it will want to share its findings with this Subcommittee also.

Third, this is an Institution that is as central as any in the cultural life of this country, and it must always work actively to maintain and enhance that centrality. Reaching out to new audiences, and opening new dialogues as well as deepening and extending old ones, has to be of paramount importance for us. Looking back over what I think has been a creditable decade-long effort in this respect, let me single out for mention with admiration an initiative of your own that has made an important contribution toward this end: By assuring the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service of Federal support, its wonderfully variegated offerings now are within the means of many smaller museums around the country that previously could not afford them. With the prospect of information superhighways now opening before us as a result of the Administration's initiative, I confidently

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expect that we will continue to reach out more and more effectively, and in technologically unforeseen ways, in the years ahead.

Fourth and finally, the Smithsonian has always represented a public-private partnership. That is not only still true today, it is ever more important and even vital under the conditions that lie ahead of us. The National Board of the Smithsonian, a distinguished group of public-spirited volunteers drawn from every part of this nation, has become the principal embodiment of this private but public-spirited participation in and support for our work. Recently it has accepted the responsibility of helping to secure a more adequate endowment for the Institution, establishing what has been designated the Smithsonian Fund for the Future.

Public and private funding, I should stress, play different but complementary roles. The public part of the combination primarily makes possible the assured preservation of the Institution's core collections, facilities, and functions, while the private part largely underwrites the research, fellowship support, acquisitions and exhibition programs, and is essential for the new initiatives that continuously revitalize us. It is this combination, I am convinced, that more than any other single thing has made the Institution the wonderful invention that it was in 1846 and continues to be as we plan for our approaching sesquicentennial celebration in 1996.

Thank you for your attention, Mr. Chairman. My colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any questions at this time.

,t^

4m'?^i':<wMifiii^c'ii-

NATIONAL MUSEUM of NATURAL HISTORY / SMITHSONmM INSTITUTIO

Media only: Thomas Haniey (202)357-2458

Linda St.Thomas (202) 357-2627

Jan. 28, 1994

DONALD J. ORTNER APPOINTED ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL MUSELM OF NATURAL mSTORY IN WASHLNGTON, D.C.

Dr. Donald .■. Onner has been appointed acting director of the National Museum of Natural History, announced Smithsonian Secretary Robert McC. Adams. Ortner, who will assume his duties effective Feb. 1, succeeds Dr. Frank Talbot.

A leading authonty in the study of pathological conditions in archeological specimens of human bones. Ormer, in recent years, focused his scholarly interests on health and disease in the ancient Near East and medieval England.

While working with British anthropologists in 1992, at a Gloucester church cemetery that was abandoned in 1520, Ortner studied a skeleton that may provide the first convincing evidence that syphilis, or a closely related disease, was present in the Old World before Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World and before his return to Europe. This discovery casts new light on one of the most-iniensely debated questions in the history of human disease. Dating of the skeleton must be confirmed.

Ortner's important fieldwork and studies include:

• excavations of an early Bronze Age cemelerj' at Bab edh-Dhra, Jordan (1977)

♦ a survey of leper cemetery skeletons in medieval England and Denmark (1985)

♦ consultant in the Josef Mengele case for the U.S. Department of Justice, with investigations conducted in Sao Paulo. Br.izil (1986)

* University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England; conducted research there on mediexal leper cases found at an archeological site at the Hospital of St. James and St. Mar)' Magdalene, Chichester. England (1988. 1990, 1992)

Ortner, 56, joined the curatorial sta'f of the Museum of Natural History in 1969 as an assistant curator. He served as chairman of the museum's Department of Antliropology from

SI-28-94

1988 through 1992, and he was acting program manager for the museum's Repatriation Program from 1990 to 1992.

His more than 80 publications include co-authorship of Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains (1981) and the proceedings of the Smithsonian's Seventh International Symposium on How Humans Adapt: A Biocultural Odyssey (1983). He was co-editor of Human Paleopathology (1991).

His awards and honors include being the recipient of the first Smithsonian Advanced Research Fellowship in 1968-1969. He has received four Smithsonian Institution Exceptional Ser\'icc Awards (1989, 1990, 1992 and 1993). He is a member of the Amencan Association of Physical Anthropology, Anthropological Society of Washington, D.C., Paleopathology Association and International Skeletal Society.

Ortner earned a bachelor's degree in zoology (1960) from Columbia Union College, Takoma Park, Md. He received a master's in anthropology from Syracuse (New York) University in 1967, and his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, in 1970.

Ortner was bom in 1938 in Stoneham, Mass. His father and mother met in the United States, having immigrated early in their lives from Russia and Germany, respectively.

He is married to Joyce Elayne (Walker) Ortner, and they have three children—Donald Jr., Allison and Karen.

####

Secretary's Opening Statement

Mr. Yates. Tell us, Mr. Adams, how goes the state of the Smithsonian?

Mr. Adams. I think my main message, Mr. Chairman, is that the state of the Smithsonisin, in spite of the perilous times in which we live, is basically strong and healthy. I'll be very brief. I hope my written statement can appear in the record.

Mr. Yates. It's already in the record.

Mr. Adams. Let me summarize it very briefly. This is, as I note there, in all likelihood my last appearance before you and this committee. I expect to be replaced as Secretary by sometime this summer or fall.

Mr. Yates. I think that's unfortunate. Is that good or bad for you?

Mr. Adams. Well, that all depends upon whether you're thinking of it from my viewpoint or the Institution's, perhaps. [Laughter.]

Mr. Yates. I thought it was unfortunate you were leaving.

Mr. Regula. I see we have a picture to commemorate him.

Mr. Yates. When did you have this taken? [Laughter.]

Mr. Adams. I would like to begin by thanking you and the committee for the sensitivity and the care that you've exercised in your oversight responsibilities for the Smithsonian, certainly during my entire time of office. I think the Institution owes you, I think the American people owe you a debt of thanks for the support you've given and frequently for the critical questions that have accompanied that support.

Mr. Yates. Well, that's very kind of you. I think it should be applied to every member of the subcommittee and the staff, because they all are of the opinion, that the Smithsonian is one of the great institutions of the world. I think you and your staff have done very well, indeed, in your administration. I'm sorry to see you go.

Mr. Adams. Well, I'll obviously continue to look at it with great interest.

I would like not to deal with the theme that we have repeatedly dealt with in the more recent of our hearings before you, which frequently has touched on restructuring and downsizing and so on. Those are real problems that we continue to face. But obviously, I'm somewhat retrospective in my orientation today, and as I look back on the Institution, I also think of its future. I would like to stress that it continues to be very vital and strong, and that there continues to be much evidence of new programs developing, new initiatives coming forward, and I think this is testimony to the central place that the Institution occupies in American society, really, and to the sense in which the entire staff is aware of the responsibility of occupying that position, and continues to devote extraordinary efforts to moving forward, even when conditions are not as good as they might hope.

Just to very briefly touch on a few of the accomplishments that seem to me to be currently underway, or that have recently been completed, and that I think give evidence of this basically very positive state of affairs, let me begin with the sciences, and mention that out at the Zoo we have the emerging Biopark that Mike

Robinson has been talking about for a number of years, and the Amazonian exhibition. I think it is a major achievement.

You'll be hearing more from Irwin Shapiro on the state of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. We're moving ahead on two major instruments, the multiple mirrored telescope replacement and the submillimeter telescope array in Hawaii. And I think those provide a foundation on which the work of the SAO will go forward for years to come. I think that's exceedingly healthy.

There are some major exhibits coming at the National Museum of Natural History, one on the oceans, which I think will be really pathbreaking in its own way. The Gems and Minerals Hall is to be entirely redone. We have the renovation of the Freer, which was a major undertaking, as I'm sure the members of the committee know, and which I think has produced a truly glorious museum that will stand really for all time as a gem in the whole set of what there is to be seen.

Mr. Yates. Will it move past the New York Museum of Natural History?

Mr. Adams. Well, they're so different, I don't know if you can put it in those terms.

Mr. Yates. That's supposed to be one of the preeminent ones.

Mr. Adams. I think you'd have to speak of the Freer as a jewel, as a very special kind of a place. The Natural History is an extraordinary collection of great scope and with many sorts of developing edges. It's really a different kind of an institution. In a way, as you were reading the list of names of the museum directors who are here, it occurred to me again what an extraordinarily heterogeneous institution the Smithsonian is. In some ways, I sit here at the table and represent the whole Institution. But its strength lies in those different bureaus and museums and laboratories and so on, and in the sense of responsibility that each of those bodies feels to its own stream of visitors and constituencies and its own collections. I think it's appropriate that we have all of the directors here, because it's an indication that the Smithsonian, in a way that's really not common in Washington, is a kind of federal body. It's very pluralistic, and I think that's only appropriate. I don't think you'd get the creativity that the Institution needs without having that sense of difference between its different components.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

I can continue of course with many other accomplishments. The National Postal Museum opened in the course of the last year. We will see in the course of the current year the opening of the Custom House exhibition in New York, and the first of the Indian Museum complex buildings to be coming forward. I should perhaps take a moment on the Indian museum. Rick West is here. We can carry on this dialogue later.

But this, I think, has been one of the initiatives taken during my own term as Secretary of which I am proudest, and which I personally think offers the most to Washington as expanding the field of perception of visitors who come here. And not only perception in the sense of an extraordinary collection that they will much enjoy visiting, but a field of perception also in the sense of this being a

museum which has been developed in partnership with the people who are represented in it.

I think that's going to change, in some slow but fundamental way, the perceptions people have of what museums are and what they can be. So I think this is a very important development.

HISPANIC REPRESENTATION

I won't take time to go over the many administrative and managerial reforms that are detailed in the written testimony I've given. I should say that, it's perhaps the most self-critical note I feel a responsibility to take, we've made some strides in emplojrment and programmatic diversity during the time that I've been here. It's been slower than I would have hoped, and perhaps slower than— I think I may bear some personal responsibility for not having moved it more quickly.

I think the problem is particularly severe in the field of His-panics, and we are awaiting a report from our Latino Task Force, which will be very important to move ahead, because that's an area that we are, I think, very decidedly still deficient in.

Mr. Yates. I would like to interrupt you for just a moment to point out that we've received a letter from three Congressmen, Esteban Torres, Jose Serrano, and Ed Pastor, all of whom have addressed me and are asking questions which I would ask you to reply to for the purposes of the record.

Mr. Adams. We have been engaged in a dialogue with members of the Hispanic Caucus. I think their concerns are appropriate and I think we need to do whatever we can to rectify a situation that is not adequate at this point.

COMMISSION ON THE FUTURE OF THE SMITHSONIAN

I don't believe I need to take more time at this point, Mr. Chairman. I hope I've made clear that the Smithsonian is a body that is still resilient, that is still capable of creative, new responses, even under the difficult conditions we face. I think it is looking ahead, and even looking ahead in the long term.

I should mention here the activities of the Commission on the Future of the Smithsonian, under the chairmanship of Maxine Singer, the President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The Commission has funding from the Mellon Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation and it's beginning to take a very active part working with the regions in looking at the long term of the Institution, what really will be our national responsibilities.

Mr. Yates. Has there been any report on that yet?

Mr. Adams. They've only had their first general plenary meeting and now the committees are beginning to meet. It will be some time before those reports begin to come out. You can be sure, of course, that reports will come to you. But I should say in addition, I think it's likely that subcommittees of that commission will want to meet with you and perhaps with this committee, and interact about what the long-term future appears to be to this body.

Mr. Yates. Will this be placed in the record, or could you send us a list of the members of that committee and of their subcommittees, so that we know what's going on?

Mr. Adams. We certainly will.

Mr. Yates. Thank you.

Mr. Adams. It's a commission that seems to be taking its respon-sibiHties very seriously, and really is going to give us the first comprehensive look at the volumes in a very long time.

Mr. Yates. Who's on the Commission besides Maxine Singer?

Mr. Adams. I don't think I have a list.

Mr. Yates. How many are there?

Mr. Adams. About 23 or 24, 25.

Mr. Yates. Who made the appointments?

Mr. Adams. They were all approved by the Board of Regents itself. There was a very large list and much combing of the list. The nominations committee of the Board of Regents was the body that went through that list.

Mr. Yates. Your minutes for January 24th, on page 47, show you've got $150,000 from the Mellon Foundation and MacArthur, as you pointed out. Complete list of membership follows. John Bos-well of Yale, Jeanetta Cole, Barber Conable, who used to be a member of Congress, Paul DiMaggio, who used to play for the Yankees. [Laughter.]

Oh, no, this is a professor of sociology.

Mr. Adams. He's an authority on museums.

Mr. Yates. I see. Sandra Faber, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics. How does she compare with Irwin? Do you know her, Irwin?

Mr. Shapiro. Yes, I do, sir.

Mr. Yates. Okay. Henry Gates, Steven J. Gould, Robert Grad, Neil Harris, Irene Hirano, Ruth Holmberg, Roy Huhndorf, Jorge Klorde Alva, Maya Yinglin. Interesting. Walter Massey is in here. Mr. Sawhill and Mr. Woolsey. Is that the head of CIA?

Mr. Adams. He hasn't been able to attend, and I don't know that he will. He was the chair of the Regents' Executive Committee.

SMITHSONIAN OUTREACH PROGRAMS

Mr. Yates. I see. Sounds like a very good committee. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

As I was thinking, we were congratulating each other on what a wonderful institution the Smithsonian is. I go back to a thesis that I've expounded for a number of years, and that is, how do, instead of requiring the people of the country to come to the Smithsonian in Washington, how do we bring the Smithsonian to the people of the country? I know you do it in one forum through SITES, and I don't see SITES listed, and I know why. Anna Cohn has just had an operation. But I would have thought that you would have an acting person here for her to tell us about SITES.

Mr. Adams. I'm sorry we don't.

Mr. Yates. SITES does a remarkable job.

Mr. Adams. I completely agree. And as I said in my written testimony, the fact that there now is Federal support for SITES and therefore the opportunity to make exhibits available to smaller museums with lesser resources is an enormous gain.

Mr. Yates. Oh, I don't think there is any question about that. Is this the only outreach you've got?

Mr. Adams. Oh, no.

Mr. Yates. What else are you doing by way of outreach?

Mr. Adams. The forms are so extensive that we really

Mr. Yates. Well, put all of it into the record.

Ms. Newman. Yes. If we took the various museums, like the National Museum of American Art, there are a variety of projects. As a matter of fact, we gave you listings of projects around the country from Save Our Sculpture and other activities in American art.

APPLICATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO OUTREACH PROGRAMS

But in addition to actually going out into the various locations, we have curriculum going out through our education programs, and we're getting much more involved in dispersion through CD ROM and through more high tech. So it's a combination of the physical programs that the various museums have around the country, but we're attempting to communicate more through other media and kinds of telecommunications vehicles as people are expecting to have access through many types of communications.

Mr. Yates. When you talk about CD ROM, I'm aware only of the CD on the National Portrait Gallery. Are there others?

Ms. Newman. In addition to that, we are on America Online. We're going to show you something today to give you an idea of some of the kinds of activities that we have.

Mr, Yates. I know Mr. Regula is anxious to get at it. Mr. Reg-ula?

Mr. Regula. Thanks for yielding, Mr. Chairman.

I just wanted to, on this particular subject

Mr. Yates. CD ROM.

Mr. Regula. Well, the online. What I'm curious about is will schools, grade schools, high schools, colleges, be able to use an online hookup to the Smithsonian to seek information they might use in their curricular offerings?

Ms. Newman. That's the idea. We're getting more and more information into the various networks to be used by schools at all levels. But in addition to that, we're recognizing that not all school systems have the resources or the equipment. So there is curricular material, and there is still hard copy material going out to school systems. It's a combination. We can give you a listing of the kinds of materials that are already available to the school systems.

Mr. Regula. Are the schools using it?

Ms. Newman. Yes. In fact, the National Sciences Resource Center has an outstanding program with joint sponsorships of corporations and the school systems in the various communities and there is a great deal of feedback. And they feed back on how they are being used and expanding throughout the nation.

Mr. Regula. Do you have a list of the schools? I would like to ask some schools on my end of the line what their experience is.

Ms. Newman. No problem at all. We can do that.

Mr. Regula. Along that line, we funded a site in conjunction with William McKinley, who's from my district, £ind we want to develop a First Lady's Museum as part of this facility. Would it be possible, for example, to put in some type of equipment that students could go in there and pull up your resources on First Ladies?

Mr. Adams. That clearly is where we're going to end up. Whether we have those materials on line at this moment, I couldn't tell you.

Mr. Regula. But they would?

Mr. Adams. That is the direction in which we're moving.

Mr. Regula. We're in the process of configuring this property that is owned by the Park Service, and it struck me that maybe the thing to do is put in a room rather than try to display a lot of things. We could put a room in where a student or adult, anyone interested, could come in and actually plug in through the online facilities to what you have. As I understand it, you could transmit the visual as well as the written material.

Mr. Adams. We have been in conversation with the Office of Science and Technology Policy and submitted a budget, because there are some things we're doing which really are on the edge of where technology is in this area, and we expect some support to come through from that source.

Mr. Regula. You're truly a part of the information highway.

Mr. Adams. Well, I think we ought to be, clearly. Citizens come to the Smithsonian with that in mind.

Mr. Yates. You ought to be a way stop.

Mr. Regula. You have such enormous resources, that we need to get them across the country, because millions of people will never get to Washington.

Mr. Yates. The question is, how much money are we going to give them to let them do this? If we can let them go, it would one of the great things for the classroom.

Mr. Adams. Speaking of interactive projects, I should tell you, Mr. Regula, that one that I think is going to be funded, I'm not sure whether it has yet been funded by the Defense Department, involves Defense Department schools. And the kind of information that they expect to be able to have involves say, the Wright flyer. And they would be able to take the plans of the Wright flyer on the computer and reconfigure the plane, and try it with a more powerful engine or with a different wing or whatever, and in a sense experiment, get a sense of what the Wright brothers really succeeded in doing. That's an entirely interactive form of learning of a very powerful kind.

Mr. Skaggs. Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure exactly how you want to proceed.

NATIONAL ZOOLCXJICAL PARK

Mr. Yates. Just as general. He's giving us a general presentation. I thought I would let him put on the show and tell items and then go into the budget after that.

Mr. Skaggs. Why don't we do show and tell, then?

Mr. Yates. I wanted to find out if you have any general questions, or Mr. Packard. All right, let's do the dog and pony show. [Laughter.]

Ms. Newman. Well, we're going to start out with the Zoo.

Mr. Yates. That's what I mean. First on the list, I don't know whether to give you the true introduction that you deserve, Michael. [Laughter.]

Well, all right, then I'll say nothing. You're number one, and you have a two minute video of a baby Asian elephant interacting with its mother. Was this on television? I thought I saw a documentary that showed a little baby elephant that had been abandoned by its mother and taken up by another mother.

Mr. Robinson. No, this is actually the first elephant ever bom at the National Zoo in 104 years. So it's a dog and elephant show. [Laughter.]

We would have brought it along, but she's now 340 pounds weight, and not house trained. [Laughter.]

This is a really significant event. The baby was bom after a 22 month pregnancy. She was bom very early on in the labor process, less than a fifth of the time it normally takes. The mother stepped on her immediately after birth, not realizing what this object was on the floor, and injured it. And with the work of our veterinarians, which is really marvelous, she's now three months old and gained almost one third of her birth weight. You can see she enjoys playing with water, really enjoying life.

And if it weren't for our veterinarians, the baby wouldn't be alive, if it had been bom in the wild. The mother retained the placenta for three weeks, and that's an incredible thing. It produces hormones that inhibit lactation, so the mother wasn't making milk. We tried goat's milk, cow's milk, we were approaching the pediatric hospital to get some human milk, and finally they managed to do a marvelous operation to remove the placenta.

So this is just marvelous. There are only 40,000 Asian elephants left in the world compared to 150,000

Mr. Yates. How long will she live, Michael?

Mr. Robinson. One of our elephants is 32 years old. The mother of this one is 18 years old. She went to Syracuse to meet her mate, which was quite an interesting journey.

Mr. Yates. It sounds very romantic. [Laughter.]

Mr. Robinson. Well, I'm not sure romance was involved. [Laughter.]

A lot of biology. There was no mate choice. While I'm on my feet, I might insert the point that the National Zoo has already been involved in international, interstate linkups with education. We reached at least 5 million school children last year in a linkup through electronic field trips. And we have an interactive CD ROM on our Amazonian Exhibition that won the top prize in the New York Festival's International Interactive Multimedia Awards out of 170 different programs. So we feel very, very proud of that.

Mr. Yates. On just one point. Do you have a list of your CD ROMs?

Ms. Newman. We could get one.

Mr. Yates. And put it in the record, please.

[The information follows:]

Smithsonian Multimedia Programs for Outside Distribution

Compact Disc-Interactive Programs :

Treasures of the Smithsonian

Highlights of the Smithsonian by museums, categories, dates, and themes; based on the book

by Edwards Park

Stamps: Windows on the World

A wide ranging guide to 300 hundred stamps and the stories they tell

The Riches of Coins

A captivating history of 150 outstanding coins from the Smithsonian's Numismatics

Collection

The Downhome Blues

A wealth of music, live demos, and pictorial documentary about the roots of the Blues

The Uptown Blues

The "electric" story of the post-World War II migration of the Blues from the rural South to

cities across the country

Available from Philips Interactive Media 1-800-824-2567;

Additional infonnation from The Smithsonian Office of Telecommunications, 357-2985

Laser Disc Programs :

Why Explore?

Robotic Mission to Mars

Human Mission to Mars

Interactive programs developed in connection with the National Air and Space Museum's

"Where Next Columbus" exhibition

Available from Context Productions, 415-252-1492

Additional infonnation: Sandy Rittenhouse Black, NASM, 357-2975

Laser Disc/CD-ROM Programs :

Amazonia

An exploration of the rainforest's incredible variety of life

Virtual Biopark

An exploration of six of the world's biomes through animals that represent them

Available from Computer Curriculum Corporation, 1-800-227-8324 Additional infonnation from The National Zoo, 202-673-4721

CD-ROM Programs:

1993 Computerworld Smithsonian Awards

Leadership awards in the evolution of information technology

Additional information: David Allison, National Museum of American History, 357-2038

Permanent Collection of Notable Americans A reference guide to collections of the National Portrait Gallery Available from Information Navigation, 919-493-4390 Additional information: Margot Kabel, NPG, 786-2343

CD-TV. CD-ROM :

World Vista

Atlas of the world, using Folkways music

American Vista

Atlas of the United Slates, using Folkways music

Available from Applied Optical Media

Additional infonnation from Folkways 202-287-3261

Computer Diskette :

Engines of Change

A dynamic teaching supplement that brings the U.S. Industrial

Revolution alive, based on an exhibition at NMAH

Available from Intellimation, 1-805-968-8899

Additional infonnation: Steve Lubar, 357-3188

Dinosaurs

Additional information from Product Development and Licensing,

287-3620

Projects in Process :

Little Sis

Children's publication from NMAA in electronic book format

Additional information from NMAA, 357-2725

The Smithsonian's America

CD-ROM of images and artifacts from the "Smithsonian's America" exhibition mounted for

the American Festival in Japan "94

Additional infonnation: Steve Lubar, NMAH, 357-3188

Science in American Life and Women in Science

Laser disc and CD-ROM programs for schools developed in conjunction with the NMAH

Science in American Life exhibition

Additional infonnation: Ltmn Taylor, 357-2124

Mr. Yates. All right. Does that conclude your presentation, Michael? What is that over on the end right there?

Mr. Robinson. I have no idea.

Mr. Yates. Oh, that's the Indian Museum. I thought it might have been a rendition of the new zoo.

All right, Dr. Shapiro.

Mr. Regula. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Yates. Mr. Regula.

Mr. Regula. Do we have any other time to question? I have a couple on the Zoo.

Mr. Yates. On the Zoo, all right. Go ahead. Michael, Mr. Regula would like to

PETTING zoos

Mr. Regula. We've had discussion on this. Perhaps there ought to be a petting zoo, and maybe there ought to be some routine farm animals. Because a lot of school children never see a cow or a calf or a goat or a sheep. I know they're not exotic, but it would be a unique education effort, so they realize that milk doesn't come from the Safeway.

Mr. Yates. But it does. [Laughter.]

Mr. Regula. Have you ever given that any thought?

Mr. Robinson. Indeed, we have. We are currently in the middle of planning a grasslands exhibit which will include a whole section on domestication. And one of the things we want to do there is look at rare breeds of domestic animals, which are almost as endangered as endangered species, and have an exhibit of rare breeds of cattle, sheep and poultry that are in danger of dying out. Some of them are really exciting and interesting.

A petting zoo is a major problem, and it's a major problem in that it allows children to handle animals and unless you have a large supervisory staff, you run the danger of the animals being stressed and maltreated. And I don't think in the immediate future we will be able to devote the time and staff to that.

But the grasslands exhibit will talk about the effects of domestication on human civilization, it will show domestic breeds, it will show the interaction of people with the animals in the great grasslands of the world, and I think it's going to be quite spectacular.

Mr. Yates. Ralph, I should tell you that the Chicago Zoo in Lincoln Park has a miniature farm on it. It's got a silo and it's got a fence around it, and it's got a milking station. And it has the

Mr. Regula. That would be the thing I was thinking about.

Mr. Yates. Well, yes, but why do you want to put them in competition with Chicago? [Laughter.]

Mr. Regula. Well, I suspect that not all of Chicago's school children get to Washington, or vice versa. Or Washington children don't get to Chicago.

Mr. Yates. That's true.

Mr. Regula. It's part of understanding.

Mr. Yates. Well, maybe the Meatpackers or somebody would put up the money for a farm.

Mr. Robinson. It's a very important educational message.

Mr. Yates. I'm not hostile, so don't misunderstand me.

Mr. Robinson. If the Chairman weren't here, I would say anything they can do we can do better. [Laughter.]

Mr. Yates. Well, not being here, Michael, you can say that.

Mr. Regula. The proof of the pudding on that one will be when they do have it. If they are going to do it better, they have to do it.

Mr. Yates. Well, we have to get the money, Ralph. I have no objection if we get the money.

SMITHSONIAN ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY

Irwin Shapiro, who always wants money. Irwin? Oh, you've got a bodyguard.

Mr. Shapiro. What I wanted to tell you about this morning will be the largest scientific facility of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. And it will also be what you might call far-out outreach. It will bring the universe to the U.S. public. What we are building now is an array of telescopes that will be able to address a number of fundamental questions and we're building it to operate at wavelengths of light that are between radio waves and optical waves, which gives us a special insight into how the universe behaves.

The length of the waves we're going to look at with this instrument are roughly the size of the thickness of the whites of your nails, just to put a scale on it. You might say why are we bothering to build such an instrument. That's a good question. And I can't give you the total address here, but I'll concentrate on one key, fundamental question which this instrument will be uniquely able to answer, and that is the birth of stars.

THE LIFE CYCLE OF STARS

The life cycle of stars is actually of great interest to us for a variety of reasons. First of all, in mid-life, like the sun, it sustains us in days like today, although not so much on days like yesterday. And when stars die, we know a lot about how they die. Some of them die in enormous supernova explosions, of which I have an example taken with an optical telescope here, which I'll get to in a moment.

And these supernova explosions are responsible for our being here at all, because what our bodies are made of, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, calcium, sulphur and so on, all of these get spread around the galaxy through supernova explosions and no other way. So the stars have to go through a second generation in order for us to exist at all.

We know a lot about the death of stars, and we know a lot about how stars behave in mid-life. But we know virtually nothing about how they're bom, and that's obviously a key ingredient which we would like to understand.

Here I have a unique photograph taken at our Whipple Observatory where we observed the galaxy M81, just a name after Messier, the French astronomer of the 19th century who named all these things. A supernova exploded last summer and we were the only ones who happened, by luck, actually, to take a picture of this part of the universe before the supernova exploded. And you can see a little dot of light which represents the star before the explo-

sion and then this enormous splash of light which represents what the supernova looked like after the explosion. And I have a number of these photographs.

Mr. Yates. What makes them explode?

Mr. Shapiro. Ah, that's when they—well, I could give you an hour-long lecture or a two-minute variety or a 10-second variety. I'll give you the 10-second variety. Stars bum their nuclear fuel. And it's the heat from that burning that resists the gravity of the star, which tends to pull all the material toward the center. But the high temperatures from the burning keeps it at its roughly stable point.

But then when the fuel runs out, the temperature goes down, and the star collapses. As it collapses, it heats up again, because the gravitational energy is turned into thermal energy. I'm already going too far. [Laughter.]

But anyway, that happens so fast that the star rebounds and explodes with an enormous amount of light, I mean, an incredible amount of energy. It gives off in one second more energy than our sun gives off in something like 10 to the 9th years (a billion years). So it's quite a blinding flash and we can see it very far away.

Mr. Yates. I think I'll take your course at Harvard. [Laughter.]

Mr. Shapiro. The birth of stars is so difficult to study because the womb for the birth is made up of molecules and dust which you can't see with ordinary optical telescopes, because optical wavelengths being very short get scattered by the dust and the molecules and you can't see what's going on. But these submillimeter waves, even though they are rather short, are still much longer than optical, and they can penetrate and can see.

Here, for example, is a picture of the galaxy M51. And in these spiral arms—this is a galaxy somewhat like our own; at least we view it from the outside, (it's hard to get this picture, from where we are, of our own galaxy). You can see a lot of gas and dust—^you can't see it so easily from where you sit. But there is a lot of gas and dust here and you can't see any details, because the light is scattered. But with the submillimeter radiation, you can see and observe the details.

SUBMILLIMETER TELESCOPE ARRAY

Now, where we intend to place this array of six antennas is on the top of Mauna Kea, so we get above most of the water vapor in our atmosphere which prevents us from seeing too well in the submillimeter waves. And here you have an example of what one might call virtual reality, or in the old days, trick photography.

Mr. Yates. Why is Mauna Kea better than your location in Arizona where you don't have any water?

Mr. Shapiro. Because it's much higher up. Much higher up. We're at 8,600 feet in Arizona, and in Mauna Kea, we'll be at almost 14,000 feet. That gets us over most of the water vapor.

This is trick photography in the sense that this is the actual layout on Mauna Kea, an actual photograph on which we have superimposed in one array position our six antennas, which we hope will be foreshadowing of what will actually be here. And there is the control building and the assembly and repair building over there.

Mr. Yates. That's where you have to worry about volcano eruptions?

Mr. Shapiro. Well, there haven't been any in historical times on Mauna Kea, and we hope that for many lifetimes further, there won't be any others. Actually, geologists and geophysicists don't know yet how to predict earthquakes too well, as we recognize. But the expert opinion is that there won't be any eruptions on Mauna Kea for quite a while, at any rate.

Mr. Yates. Mr. Regula.

Mr. Regula. Is this duplicating research that's taking place elsewhere? We don't want to have a multiplicity of facilities?

Mr. Shapiro. This will be world unique. There is no other facility like this in the world today, and when this gets in operation, there still will be no other facility in the world like it.

Mr. Regula. Will you have astrophysicists, or whatever their title would be, coming here from other countries and other universities?

Mr. Shapiro. This will be used by scientists from all over the world.

Mr. Regula. Will they contribute to the cost of operating it?

Mr. Shapiro. No. Let me clarify that statement a little bit. The short answer is no, but it really requires further answer to get the proper perspective. It is a tradition in the astronomical community to open up all facilities to qualified observers, independent of the nation they come from. That is, not all the time, but some of the time, so that this facility will be open to people in Europe and Japan. Similarly, the different facilities that Europe and Japan run are open to United States astronomers.

So it's a reciprocal arrangement, if you will, of barter relations, with no funds transferring hands, but with facilities being open.

Mr. Regula. And the scientific knowledge is gained and shared worldwide?

Mr. Shapiro. Oh, yes, absolutely.

Mr. Skaggs. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Yates. Mr. Skaggs.

federally-funded research in astrophysics

Mr. Skaggs. Sort of a follow-up to Mr. Regula's question. We have astrophysical research funded through this subcommittee to the Smithsonian, through NSF, through NASA and to some degree through NOAA. How do we get an appropriately integrated and peer reviewed sense of priorities being followed in the overall Federally-funded research community in this area, since you're off with your own independent funding stream?

Mr. Shapiro. That's an excellent question. The astronomy or astrophysics community in this country is unique among all the scientific disciplines in, each 10 years, convening the top people in astrophysics in the country to set out the priorities for the succeeding decade. And they evaluate and peer review essentially all proposals. And this array was given high marks in the last rating, which was for the 1990's. And in fact in 1980, the review talked about the need for such a facility. We started this effort in 1983.

Mr. Skaggs. Really, I appreciate that answer with regard to this facility. But I'm speaking more generically, and raising the unto-

ward implication about the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. But as I did when the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was here wondering why their funding didn't come out of the Council of Humanities, or why your funding ought not to be through NSF or another umbrella agency for figuring out what our basic research priorities ought to be as a country.

Mr. Shapiro. Of course, the Smithsonian started before the NSF, and the astrophysical observatory was founded 60 years before the NSF was founded. And one has to take—well, I shouldn't say one has to, but astronomy grew. There are a lot of private observatories in the country as well.

And we all, actually I think the astronomy community is very good in the way we all get together, whether the funding comes from the Smithsonian or whether it comes from the State of California or whether it comes from private sources, and try to do the best we can to advance the science and to disseminate the results. I don't know if that's a completely satisfactory answer.

But there's some virtue, in my experience in life, there's some virtue to a diversity of sources. If all the funding from each branch of science came from only one source, I think the country would be a lot poorer in terms of getting results, of advancing, per unit of dollars spent. Diversity is very important.

COST OF SUBMILLIMETER TELESCOPE ARRAY

Mr. Yates. How much is this going to cost, and where are you getting the money from?

Mr. Shapiro. The money is coming from the United States taxpayers.

Mr. Yates. I see. In what amount?

Mr. Shapiro. The amount (of capital expenditures) in any one year has not exceeded a little over $5 million. The total costs, total run-out costs (including salaries), over the period of time, which will be almost 14 years, is about $45 million in 1992 dollars.

Mr. Yates. What do you gain? Do you gain anything by expediting the payments and building it in seven years instead of 14 years?

Mr. Shapiro. It involves advances in many states of the art, and one couldn't have gone much faster, because one had to develop the technology that was required to build this device. I mean, it is a step forward in science and technology, steps forward, I should say.

Mr. Yates. And you have those antenna that are collecting and shooting?

Mr. Shapiro. We don't have them yet.

Mr. Yates. No, but I mean, in your picture.

Mr. Shapiro. Yes.

Mr. Yates. What happens after you build your antenna, what happens to the material that they gather, the information they gather? Does it go to a collecting point somewhere?

Mr. Shapiro. Well, there will be a central depository of data, so that after a certain period of time, when the person who is responsible for taking those data has had a reasonable chance to analyze them and publish his or her results, at that point, they go into the public domain and they will be accessible anywhere in the world

through Internet or whatever replaces it in terms of high speed data communications. So these data will be available to everyone.

SUBMILLIMETER TELESCOPE ARRAY DESCRIPTION

Mr. Yates. What is the building that accompanies the antenna?

Mr. Shapiro. This is the control building. All the signals from all the antennas are combined together in the control building to make pictures of what we look at. And this taller structure behind it is the building we use to repair antennas if there is a problem.

Mr. Yates. Where do you house your scientists?

Mr. Shapiro. The scientists don't live at this level. It's too rari-fied. But the scientists who work with the antennas will be in this control building here. We have TV monitors so they can see what's going on everywhere.

These antennas are all moveable. There are six of them, and they are in almost the smallest array we have designed. They are moveable from one site to another in a manner of hours by a special transporter that we designed at SAO that's now being built by a small company. This does not quite move as fast as a speeding bullet, but it does have almost the power of an Amtrak locomotive that brings me here to Washington. It just picks up these antennas and moves them along on six very thick-wheeled rubber tires. And it moves at roughly five miles an hour, maximum speed.

Mr. Yates. How tall are the antennas?

Mr. Shapiro. The antennas are about—they're each 6 meters (20 feet) in diameter, but the height from the bottom of the mount to the top is about 10 meters, or 33 feet, something like that. So they're fairly big structures. So this is really quite big. And to give you some scale for it (the transporter), this is just the bottom of it. This is a man who is working on the assembly of it. It's just about finished and will be delivered next month to us.

Here are just a few other examples. We have let 15 contracts so far to small businesses in 13 different states to build the component parts. This is the mount on its side being put together. And it's a fairly massive structure. It has to be very stiff, because we have to point these antennas with extraordinary accuracy, and they have to be resistant to wind and thermal effects.

And here we have a picture of the machining of the panels, the front panels of the antenna, of which I have a model right here, which you can see. This is the scale, this is about your height, and this is the antenna. And it moves around this axis and moves around this axis.

One of the problems that has beset people who want to accurately time the signals that these antennas receive, as we do, the problem has been, you receive them, say, in that control building, but they're coming from an antenna that's moving. How do you make that connection without distorting the timing?

Well, our group has designed a new way of doing that that's 50 times more accurate than ever was able to be done before, and we applied for a patent on this. It won't solve the balance of payments problem, but it will make a contribution, and it will be used by all large antennas that need accurate transfers of signals from a rotating structure like this to a laboratory fixed structure.

Just to give you a handle on how accurately we measured the timing with this technique, you know that light travels 300,000 kilometers in one second. We can measure the change equivalent to the time it takes light to travel a tenth of the thickness of a human hair, just to put a scale on it. It's unimaginably small.

Here's the machining of the panels that form the key reflector area for the antenna. And here was another innovation that we realized. It's very hard working at 14,000 feet. And we're trying to put together a piece of apparatus that's never worked before. You have a hard time.

So we realized we could do it right near the observatory in Massachusetts, and we built this little facility which we will then copy on the top of Mauna Kea. This is like the control building you saw, and this is like the assembly building. The only thing is, this is real, not virtual, and as you might imagine, the picture was taken before the snows came in Massachusetts this winter.

Here are the pads on which we will put the antennas to test them. And so we will save a lot of time and money by doing the assembly and testing there, instead of on the top of Mauna Kea.

Now, I just wanted to say

Mr. Yates. Does that make obsolete your Arizona facility?

Mr. Shapiro. Oh, no, no. They're looking in quite different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The telescopes in Arizona look at optical radiation through the universe. We're going to look at these submillimeter waves. As I mentioned earlier, with the optical telescope, you can't observe, for example, the birth of stars, whereas with these, you can.

The optical telescopes still have a lot of good work to do. In fact, if you read yesterday's Times very closely, you would have seen reported the results of our study of the large-scale structure of the universe, where we completed a survey in the southern hemisphere that showed the universe also was very inhomogeneous with galaxies clustered around giant voids hundreds of millions of light years in diameter. And the structure is similar also when you look in other parts of the universe.

DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN HIGH TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

But that's another whole story. And just let me finish by saying that we have developed several American suppliers of high technology equipment that didn't exist before. We pushed them because of this need for this array.

For example, we found a company, a little company in Oklahoma that made guitar necks out of carbon fiber, which is a very strong material we wanted to use in this antenna. And they realized that they could use a technique called poltrusion, where they pull the carbon fiber, rather than extrusion, where you push it and do it much cheaper and hopefally get just as strong materials. We'll see. The jury is out.

And we also developed an American supplier for refrigerators, not the kind that you put your milk in whether you get it from Safeway or directly from the cow. [Laughter.]

But a refrigerator that keeps things even colder than Boston was this winter, namely about minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit, very

close to absolute zero. And we developed an American supplier for that, whereas previously you had to go to Japan to find that.

So we expect to complete this array in 1997, and I invite you all out to the dedication, and after you catch your breath, to try your hand at observing.

Mr. Yates. Okay, very well done.

Mr. Regula.

Mr. Regula. How does this translate into enhancements to quality of life? We're spending a lot of money here. There must be a reason.

Mr. Shapiro. Let me give you one answer to that, if you don't like it, I'll try another one. [Laughter.]

Science underlies everjdhing we do in modem life, things pretty much that you take for granted. You can point to things in this room like the video, they have enhanced life. But the origins, the fundamental science that underpins things like that may go back 150 years.

For example, Michael Faraday back in the 1830s and 1840s did the work that governs much of what modem society is based on. If someone asked Michael Faraday—well, someone did ask Michael Faraday back then, what use, in fact it was the British Prime Minister who was in his lab and said "Of what use is all of this?" And do you know what Michael Faraday said? "Someday you will tax it." [Laughter.]

[Applause.]

Mr. Shapiro. Maybe I should sit down now. [Laughter.]

Mr. Yates. Thank you.

Mr. Regula. I think that was a bit of an evasive answer.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES' PRESERVATION PROGRAM

Mr. Yates. All right, now we have Barbara Smith, who has an example of the Preservation Program, preservation of a photocopy which was made of a brittle book. Good for you.

Ms. Smith. Yes, at long last some examples of the Preservation Program.

We have for you two examples of preservation of brittle materials. This, of course, is a brittle item. This is from the journal, the Zoological Journal of the Lineaen Society. And this has been turned into this, and this is called a preservation photocopy. The photocopy, the hard copy is chosen because of the detail that is needed in these drawings.

Mr. Yates. How difficult was it to do that?

Ms. Smith. Well, it's very time consuming, because each of these pages has to be hand placed before the camera. And it's labor-intensive, but our estimate is that this was produced for about $100.

The more traditional means of preservation, of course, is microfilm or microfiche. In this case, this is a dictionary from Costa Rica from 1872. Obviously, a brittle book. And this has been turned into a fiche version, so that we can access this. As you can see, this is just falling to pieces.

Mr. Yates. I want to congratulate you and commend you for what you've done. How many such transitions have you been able to make?

Ms. Smith. We have been able to turn about 1,500 brittle books into either preservation photocopy or microfiche or microfilm, depending on the nature of the content. We have also been able to repair and restore about 1,000 items in about a two-year period. We have a relatively small staff, but we have a mechanism in place that is working very nicely now.

Mr. Yates. How many items were on your target list?

Ms. Smith. There are about 300,000, so we've got a long way to go. The collection was surveyed in I believe it was 1988. About a third of our collection is embrittled.

That task, however, is not quite as large as the 300,000 figure might indicate. Because, as you are aware, through NEH and other funding agencies, libraries across the country are getting funding for preservation programs. And we do not film or preserve in any other way an item that has been filmed or preserved at another institution. We have online data bases that allow us to identify those materials.

Mr. Yates. I want to ask a question before I yield. How many of the 300,000 will you lose before you get at them?

Ms. Smith. We have no way of determining that, although as we review the collections, we try to zero in on those that are most unstable.

Mr. Yates. There is no way of temporarily protecting them until you can get to them?

Ms. Smith. Well, the best protection is as illustrated here, and that is to box it.

Mr. Yates. Will that stop the deterioration?

Ms. Smith. No, it will not. Placing it in an environmentally controlled area is about the best we can do.

Mr. Yates. Have you been able to do that?

Ms. Smith. For the most part, yes.

Mr. Yates. For all 300,000 books?

Ms. Smith. No, but for the most rare. They are in environmentally secure areas.

Mr. Yates. How many make up the most rare?

Ms. Smith. I would say between 30,000 and 40,000. Those are primarily housed in our rare book library in the Museum of American History and in a facility in the Arts and Industries Building.

Mr. Yates. Should the others be similarly treated?

Ms. Smith. Well, I think that

Mr. Yates. What qualifies as being most rare? Give me an example of a most rare book.

Ms. Smith. The most rare book?

Mr. Yates. One of the 40,000.

Ms. Smith. Well, if you would indicate appraised value as an indication of rarity, we have a copy of the Double-Elephant Folio of Audubon's Birds of America, appraised at about $3 million. And that is securely placed in our library under good control.

Mr. Yates. And that's on brittle paper?

Ms. Smith. No, but it is an example of the most valuable item that is classified as a rare item. Actually the materials that are most endangered are those published from about 1860 to about 1940, because they were published on very acidic paper. And by and large, those materials are in the general collections. And our

general collections have the same kind of heating and cooling environmental control that the objects in the museums have. So it's a common problem.

Mr. Yates. Mr. Packard.

Mr. Packard. Thank you.

A hundred to 150 years before the paper becomes brittle, is that what you figure?

Ms. Smith. Yes

NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR BOOK PRESERVATION

Mr. Packard. Has any technology been developed for today's paper to allow us to preserve it much longer without it deteriorating?

Ms. Smith. Well, the Library of Congress has taken a leadership role in what is called mass de-acidification. And the jury is still out on the value of that as a technique for preserving books that are not yet embrittled. The corporations, the firms that have been developing these technologies, at this point have not been able to see projections that would indicate that they should invest additional capital in developing mass de-acidification techniques.

So it is a problem. The most that we can do at this point is to encourage publishers to use the right kind of paper in publishing.

Mr. Packard. Well, that was my question, not so much how to preserve and prevent the process taking place of existing publications, but are we publishing material today on paper that will not deteriorate, or are we still working on paper that will last for 600 or 800 years with deterioration?

Ms. Smith. Yes, the standards have been developed for the production of the best kind of paper that will stand those kinds of time lines. The burden is persuading the publishing community to use that kind of paper. And I think you will see more and more, as you look at publications, you will see that they are being published on non-acid paper.

Mr. Yates. This committee of which we are now members took the lead on this, oh, six, seven or eight years ago in bringing the groups together, the libraries together, from all over the country. They all recognized this problem. It was called "slow fires."

Ms. Smith. That's exactly right.

Mr. Yates. Slow fires, because they were just consuming these books.

Mr. Packard. I collect old books, and I find some of mine that are 100 or more years old are in the early stages of this same thing, where the pages turn brown. I can forsee that the time will come when they would deteriorate if I just turned the page.

Mr. Yates. Well, if yours are rare enough, they can go into her room. [Laughter.]

Okay, the humanities are in that program, Smithsonian is in that program, the Library of Congress was constructing a plant in Indiana for de-acidification. And I don't know whether that plant has been completed yet. There was a Canadian process that they examined. The Canadian people were supposed to have taken the lead in it, but for some reason the Library of Congress decided it wanted to go with that. And they are supposed to be making

progress in that. The Humanities people tell us about that when they come in for their appropriation. TTiank you very much.

CONSERVATION ANALYTICAL LABORATORY

Lambertus Van Zelst. You have the RELACT program, the centralized Sl-wide care of paper based research collections, including training of staff in conservation. Well, then you're a first cousin to Barbara Smith, aren't you?

Mr. Van Zelst. What I want to talk about today, Mr. Chairman, is not about our research program, but about a program called RELACT. It's a relatively small program, but we think it will have a major impact in a limited area. I have made some information packages for you. It has in it a little brochure and also another item to which I will comment in a moment.

What RELACT stands for is Research Libraries and Archives Collections Conservation Task Force. What we are trying to do is provide a Smithsonian-wide preventive care training program for these research collections. I should say here that while the Conservation Analytical Laboratory has taken the lead, the Smithsonian Archives and Libraries are actively contributing co-sponsors and we invite and in fact encourage any of the bureaus to participate in this program and thereby benefit from the long-term preservation of the collections.

The question is, what is a research collection? Well, they really are archives, paper-based archives. But they have a special place, because they are not always recognized as being archives in nature. And that's because they are not centrally housed, centrally archived, but they are in collections which have been made by researchers and are based in the departments and the bureaus and are used as research resources.

As a result, they don't always get the kind of care and handling which we would bestow on our regular archives or museum collections. And this has major consequences. Let me give you an example.

There is a collection in the Natural History Museum, the Department of Fishes. And it's a collection of 20,000 illustrations, mainly hand colored drawings, of type specimens which were collected during the earlier part of this century. The fishes were collected and subsequently preserved with formaldehyde and alcohol, and so they still today have good research value for most purposes. But they have lost their color, because that technique does not preserve color.

So the drawings we have are the only record of the original color of the specimens.

Mr. Yates. Are these fish specimens that have been totally destroyed, like the endangered species that no longer exist?

Mr. Van Zelst. Well, the interesting part of it is that indeed, some of the species which are represented in the collection are endangered or already extinct. And as a result, we cannot recollect them. And therefore, that information is paramount to research.

On the other hand, because they are stored not always in the best conditions, we are sometimes endangering the documents

themselves. These colors can very easily shift or fade. So it's really extremely important that we preserve this collection.

This is not a unique case. This is typical for this type of collection, of which we have many, many in our museums and our research bureaus and research collections all over the country. So all these collections share a problem, this loss of research value, which is their only reason for existence to begin with.

So what should we do about it? What we're trying to do is come to a shared solution which is training in preservation technology and procedures for the staff who are responsible for these collections. Everything follows from there. So we train them in collection maintenance procedures, train them in materials specifications for storage materials and customized housing procedures.

Let me show you one example of the latter. This is an interesting case. You have here a drawing of a fish. The page has become very brittle. This is a photoprint; it's not real. The real one has indeed lost part of the paper. If this were an art object, we would of course do conservation treatment to prepare for it. We would mend the tear and perhaps fill in the loss. But that's not appropriate here, it's a research item, and also it would be unaffordable, if you are talking about collection of 20,000 pieces, and that's only one of the research collections. So we have to find other ways. Repairing the tear with tape is also inappropriate, since that could cause stains which eventually would require expensive conservation treatment or even be irreversible.

So instead, what we do, we take polyester sheet, and we encapsulate it, weld it in place, and the little piece there is spot welded in place, and we have an accessible research item.

Because of our national conservation training program, two years ago we decided we would partially focus our direction into archival conservation. So we bring in interns who are trained in these collections and start in these collection projects, on surveys and rehousing, and meanwhile train the staff in the collection itself doing the same thing. We also have a monthly series of lectures and courses, and they are now going into the second year. All these accomplishments are listed in the brochure. I will not go into them.

We had a problem. We identified that. We're finding a way to deal with it the right way, and ultimately we hope to reach those shared goals for preserving the collections.

I want to come back to the other item in your package. This is one we prepared for each of you. These are prints of the actual fish collection drawings. What we did on the back of them was put a little item on what RELACT is all about. Then we cut off a comer, and encapsulated them the way we would do it with an actual document. We hope you will enjoy these as small reminders of RELACT. Ultimately, they always can serve to protect your desk from a cup of coffee.

Mr. Yates. Thank you.

TIMELINES PUBLICATION

Mr. Ortner, Timelines.

Mr. Ortner. Mr. Chairman, in 1991, I was chairman of the Department of Anthropology. I was approached at the time by representatives of the Smithsonian Press and Dorling Kindersley, pub-

lishers, about the possibility of collaborating with British colleagues in the production of a book that would trace the development of human history from its earliest stages right on through 1500 A.D.

The thing that fascinated me about this possibility was the opportunity to try something quite different, and getting the expertise of our staff, as well as the objects in our collections, out to people who might not be able to come to our museums, or who, having come to our museums, were interested in seeing something that wasn't on display there.

So I was very enthusiastic about pursuing this, and I'm glad to say that the members of my department were equally enthusiastic about it and took this on as a challenge, and as you can see, this book is now published. It came out last fall in time for the Christmas gift buying season. For me it represents a very exciting new option for conveying information about what we do at the Smithsonian to our public.

You might be interested also to know that as part of the agreement with the Smithsonian, we do get royalties, so there is a nice little extra bonus that we hope to get as well in time as royalties from the book begin to come in.

Mr. Yates. Why does this say Chris Scarre was the author?

Mr. Ortner. Chris Scarre was the overall editor for the entire volume. We on our staff contributed and reviewed all the contents of the book, but were primarily responsible for the material from the western hemisphere, that is to say, North and South America.

Mr. Yates. Does this represent art objects or artifacts that are all in the collections of the Smithsonian?

Mr. Ortner. Virtually all of the material from North and South America are from our collections. We also have significant materials from the Middle East and also from Europe that are included as illustrations in the book. And we wrote much of the text for the New World material, and as I may have mentioned, reviewed the text of our colleagues who wrote the other elements of the book.

Mr. Yates. I think this is fascinating.

Mr. Ortner. Hope you enjoy it.

Mr. Yates. Thank you very much. I'm sure I will, if I can lift it. [Laughter.]

Mr. Ortner. Don't read it at night, it's dangerous.

Mr. Yates. Well, you know, I like to read in bed, and I took McCullough's Truman to bed. It's a weighty book. And I wound up tearing it in half, so I could handle it in bed. [Laughter.]

First time I've ever done that to a book.

Mr. Ortner. It wasn't the paperback?

Mr. Yates. No, this was the hardcover. And I felt like the man who tears the telephone book in half. Tough job.

latino art at the national museum of AMERICAN ART

Okay, now, we have Betsy Broun. Want to talk about the West, Betsy?

Ms. Broun. Not today. [Laughter.]

The National Museum of American Art is very much engaged in a national outreach. A lot of the programs that we've started are focused on ways that we can use our staff expertise and our collec-

tions and our research resources to work with museums and communities and individuals across the country. One aspect of that outreach that we're very excited about now focuses on Latino art, and the many Latino traditions that exist across America, from New York to CaUfomia.

I brought in one screen print today to stand for this entire initiative. It's by an artist from East Los Angeles, so I'm sorry we've lost Mr. Packard here. His name is Chaz Bojorguez. He began his career as a graffiti artist, writing in the streets of East Los Angeles. But at some point, he became aware that his interest in graffiti as a way of tagging territory and identity was something he could translate more permanently into art.

So he has st^ed using a graffiti vocabulary in art, and actually is working now with high schools and students all across America, in Los Angeles and also with us in Washington, to talk about how a young generation can express itself in proper formats and places and ways that won't be painted out and lost to history.

In this graffiti artwork he has included his name and his wife's name as well as Avenue 43, which is the location of the gang that he used to belong to, representing his evolution from a past as a street gang member to a fine artist today. This is just one aspect of our growing collection of Hispanic art. We have staff members traveling this spring to Santa Ana and Los Angeles to work with classes and teachers there.

We are doing teacher workshops for administrators and teachers in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia areas. We're working with a Denver, Colorado artist named Carlos Fresquez to do a children's book that we hope to publish fairly soon that is based on Latino traditions.

We're also working with the Texas Educational Network (TENET) to put a lot of our Latino artworks and a lot of the information we're accumulating into the Internet where it will be used by Texas schools by 1995.

Mr. Yates. Cxood. I think I turned over to Mr. Adams the letter of the three Hispanic members of the House, I'm sure they would be interested in the program. You might incorporate that in the reply.

Ms. Broun. It's still a relatively new program for us, but we are putting a lot of energy into it, and we anticipate having one of the great collections of Hispanic art.

Mr. Yates. I like the drawing.

Ms. Broun. This fall we will be showing a number of sculptures by Luis Jimenez in the museum who, you may know, did the large painted fiberglass Vaquero that we have out in front of our building. So we're bringing in quite a number of other works by him for a special viewing in the fall.

Mr. Yates. Very good. Thank you.

Ms. Broun. Thank you.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION EXHIBIT AWARD

Mr. Yates. Tom Freudenheim, Smithsonian Institution Exhibit Award. You're giving me another award? [Laughter.]

Mr. Freudenheim. We'll give you this as a souvenir. I thought this was an appropriate day to talk about it, because the Oscars

were last night. We had our own Oscar ceremony last October. We thought it was really important to try to figure out a way to make the people who do the stuff that goes to the public feel good since most people perceive the Institution through its exhibitions.

Last night when I watched the Oscars, I was reminded of the kind of message we were trying to cari^ out also, that is to honor all the people behind the scenes. The cinematographers, the lighting people and the scenery people are the people that in effect we honored last fall. We used the Oscar, and the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences model, in fact, people -voted on their peers. People in lighting voted on lighting; and exhibition designers voted on exhibition designers, and the sort of overall categories were voted on by people in the Institution at large. We had peer panel review, a kind of modified National Endowment for the Arts type of finalist version.

The best thing about it was that it cited a lot of folks that nobody every cites, and in addition to that, we felt it was important for people to feel good about themselves in ways that they can't in relationship to the public face of the Institution. So this is a souvenir for you or for the committee.

They all have plaques. It's sort of like the Oscars. After they were given to the winners, they then were returned for individualized plaques. We have not found a name for it, I have to say. Somebody called it Alan or somebody called it Freudy. I wasn't very happy with that. [Laughter.]

So if you'd like to make suggestions for next year, we'll be happy to hear them.

It was a recognition ceremony that was very much an insider thing rather than an outsider thing, although we had our own celebrity MC, which was Jim Vance.

We will submit to you the programs that we have, also.

SASANIAN SILVER BOWL

Mr. Yates. Very good. All right. Now we have Mr. Lentz, the Sasanian Silver Bowl, 7th century. Careful. I didn't know they were doing beautiful things in the 7th century. I thought that was the Dark Ages.

Mr. Lentz. Mr. Chairman, I have been asked to talk very briefly about an object from the Sackler Collection.

Mr. Yates. This is from Sackler?

Mr. Lentz. This is from the Sackler Gallery. I hope it will give you some idea of the way we work with objects in the museum and also an idea of what sorts of information we can get from objects.

Mr. Yates. Are you allowed to touch this?

Mr. Lentz. With gloves.

Mr. Yates. I'm serious.

Mr. Lentz. I've been very well instructed by our conservation lab.

Mr. Yates. I can understand that. You have to do the same thing with a halogen light globe. Have you replaced one of those in your home?

Mr. Lentz. No.

Mr. Yates. They come in little, long globes and you're specifically instructed not to touch it. If you do touch it you're supposed to

clean it in a certain way. Why, I don't know. We'll have to ask the scientists about that.

But I would think, yes, if our hands touched that, whatever is on your fingers

Mr. Lentz. All of our hands have oils and acids and salts that can corrode metal.

Mr. Yates. That's a very handsome piece.

Mr. Lentz. This is a bowl that was made sometime during the middle of the 7th century A.D. in Iran or Afghanistan. It was undoubtedly made for a nobleman of the Sasanian djniasty, which ruled in that area between the 3rd and 7th centuries, before the coming of Islam.

The bowl consists of about a pound of solid silver. It's silver that is hammered, carved, chased and gilded. The decoration depicts the celebration of a marriage ceremony, and the key scene is two figures, a man and a woman, seated on a couch holding a wreath above their heads, which is symbolic of the union of their marriage;

The other scenes depict various celebrations of the marriage— acrobats, music makers, that sort of thing.

We feel very strongly that this bowl was made to commemorate this special event for this couple. What we don't know about an object like this is anything about its maker. Compared to other historical periods where we can reconstruct the lives of artists or the organization of workshops, here we know virtually nothing about the Sasanian period. We know nothing about how works of art were produced or how artists were trained.

I should also mention that this is a particularly thorny area for historians of Near Eastern art. The field is absolutely rife with forgeries.

We began to learn a great deal more about this object when our curator, who is an art historian, began to collaborate with members of our scientific laboratory. By combining art historical methodology with technical study, we were able to determine a number of things about this piece, one, that it was made from a single sheet of silver, instead of two, which scholars, and especially forgers, had always assumed.

We also determined that the gilding was adhered by a very complex, sophisticated process using mercury. And third, we determined through the aid of nuclear technology the composition of the metal. We discovered that the metal used for this bowl, which has non-royal decoration, uses a different source of silver than official royal silver production, like coinage.

So it's this sort of collaboration between art historians and technical scientists at the Freer and the Sackler that are not only allowing us to explore more fully the range of human creativity, but we're also getting insights into the origins and the development of technology. And that helps us a great deal with practical problems such as identifying forgeries, or the development of new methodologies that help us understand the history of art and technology, so that we can begin to understand and even answer questions like how were these things made, why do they look the way they do, what role do they play in a particular society.

Mr. Yates. It's interesting that you talk about being able to detect forgeries. The museums that I have encountered rarely want

to take the chance of saying this is not an original or this is not a forgery, because I guess they don't want to assume the responsibility.

Mr. Lentz. Well, I think museums like to avoid that publicity. But a lot of the work that went into that bowl is reflected in this catalogue, which was published in 1992, which is a collaboration between an art historian and a conservation scientist. And in this catalogue we've identified several of our pieces as forgeries.

Mr. Yates. Made recently?

Mr. Lentz. Made probably in the early teens or twenties of this century, probably in Europe.

Mr. Yates. And you were able to do that how?

Mr. Lentz. Through a combination of art historical methodologies, stylistic analysis and technical studies done by the conservation laboratory.

Mr. Yates. What is a bowl like this worth?

Mr. Lentz. That's difficult to say. This is an unusual example, and they don't come on the art market very often. But I would expect in the range of several hundred thousand dollars.

Mr. Yates. Thank you very much. Careful. [Laughter.]

OFFICE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Now we have Ms. Woodman, OTC. Demonstration of CD Interactive Set entitled "The Down Home Blues" and "The Uptown Blues."

Mr. Johnson. Mr. Chairman, if I may, Lee Woodman is going to give the demonstration in a moment. I'm Paul Johnson, Director of the Office of Telecommunications. I would like to make a couple of remarks by way of introduction that relate to the comments or questions you were raising earlier. Our offiice, along with many parts of the Institution, have been doing a number of programs in electronic media over the years, television programs and these days a lot of radio programs, including a series called Jazz Smithsonian, which features performances by the Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

But nowadays of course what we're really focusing a lot of attention on, throughout the Institution, is various kinds of multimedia programs. These come under many kinds of names, compact disks, CD ROM programs, laser interactive programs, and so on. In addition, there is work going on as the Secretary was discussing earlier, with various kinds of databases and online services drawing from data and images in the Smithsonian collections; these are very useful for collections management but also for programming for outside purposes.

And of course we have some of the examples such as Mike Robinson mentioned before from the zoo—they have a couple of wonderful programs, for one, the Amazonian program on laser disk, and another on the Virtual Biopark. There is a program coming out very shortly on CD ROM based on the Science in American Life exhibition which is opening at the American History Museum next month. I know that Betsy at the Museum of American Art is on the verge of doing a CD ROM and the Natural History Museum as well is about to engage in one.

Now, one of the arrangements that we have is a non-exclusive agreement with Philips Interactive Media of America to develop a

series of compact disk interactive programs for general distribution to the public as well as for

Mr. Yates. To be sold by Philips?

Mr. Johnson. That's correct, they do the distribution—as well as for school use. And we have a couple of brand new babies here, they haven't even gone public yet. They have been earlier programs in this series, one of them being Treasures of the Smithsonian, which highlights many of the museums, but the ones we're showing today are brand new programs.

Mr. Yates. Treasures of the Smithsonian is one of your books.

Mr. Johnson. It was based, actually, on the book that had been previously published, that's right.

Mr. Yates. Will your CD incorporate that whole book?

Mr. Johnson. No, it's selections. And actually, it's produced in a different way. It has some direct similarity to the book, but it's designed very expressly for this format. So some of the images and material are different.

Mr. Yates. How much did you have to pay for the title? Certainly Mr. Adams won't let you use that title in regard to the book?

Mr. Johnson. Fortunately, Felix Lowe who is Director of the Smithsonian Press let us use it without charge. That was very kind.

Now I'll turn it over to Lee so she can demonstrate the disk.

Ms. Woodman. This is the second disk of a two-part series to tell the story of the blues.

Mr. Yates. Is that a computer that we're looking at?

demonstration of interactive compact disk

Ms. Woodman. You're looking at player and a television set. The CD-i player, I will control with the remote control down here.

We wanted to go way beyond a compendium of music and talk about the social history of the blues, as well as some of the poetry of the blues. We actually have living performers who are still playing blues today to talk about what makes the blues the blues.

[Demonstration given.]

Ms. Woodman. The two disks have this same basic structure. We have a 25-minute documentary that tells the history of the blues. We have a jukebox of songs, and we have a demo by an artist who can tell his real story.

I'm going to Charles Brown, who was born in Texas and moved to Los Angeles, and was really one of the prime club artists, he called himself a variety artist. He talks about his background in music and relates the blues to jazz and then to rock and roll.

[Demonstration given.]

Ms. Woodman. For every artist that is represented on the disk, we have a short biography with music underneath and information about where the artist came from, what the influences were, and some critical reviews. One of our main chapters in the documentary goes back to tell the story of women in the blues, because they made some of the earliest recordings. I'm going to an early recording of Alberta Hunter.

Mr. Yates. Where's Bessie Smith?

Ms. Woodman. She's here.

[Demonstration given.]

78-792 O - 94 - 6

Ms. Woodman. To give you a better idea of what goes into a program like this, there are more than 1,500 still photographs, 15 minutes of video, and 42 songs on the first disk and 32 on the second. They are very rich in source material.

I'm going to go into the blues club and show you how we configured the jukebox. This runs like an audio CD in that you can flip through the selections on the screen here and choose the song, and choose whether or not you want to have lyrics on or lyrics off. We've found that people like to see the poetry of the blues on the pages. So, this is our version of a bouncing ball.

[Demonstration given.]

Mr. Yates. That's pretty good.

Ms. Woodman. I'm going into the documentary now. Our narrator is Ruth Brown, who certainly knows the story of the blues, because she sang with a lot of the players who are represented on this disk. We started the story of Uptown Blues where we left off with the downhome disk. We have gone through the roots of the blues, the difference in regional styles from the rural south and Texas up through the relationship of gospel to blues, and moved to the cities. So here we are.

[Demonstration given.]

Ms. Woodman. During the documentary, instead of watching straight through for 25 minutes, you can interrupt and go to a chapter of your choosing. I told you about the wild women in the blues. We also have a story of how blues relates to jazz, and then finish up with the "Blues begins to Rock."

You can also just go into an audio segment here and get an index of songs. Wherever you are in any chapter, you can go find out what songs and what artists are represented in that particular chapter.

I was so pleased to hear the question of multimedia coming up today, because we're working very hard to provide a number of streams of product lines to different audiences. We'll be developing a line to go to schools, and another line to go to the home consumer for entertainment purposes. And we're very excited about the

Mr. Yates. Are you doing this for gospel, too?

Ms. Woodman. We'd like to.

Mr. Yates. I keep thinking of Sweet Honey in the Rock. You have that under the American History Museum. Oh, they are good.

Ms. Woodman. There are a number of upcoming exhibitions that will treat music, there's one at the Portrait Gallery called "Red, Hot and Blue," on musical theater, and one now in the planning stage at American History on the "Rock and Soul," the origins.

chamber music at the museum of AMERICAN HISTORY

Mr. Yates. You were also one of the leaders at the American History Museum in classical music. What's happened, you don't go into that?

Mr. Crew. The program still exists.

Mr. Yates. Well, I remember you had some of Mozart and some of the other composers.

Mr. Crew. It's a chamber music orchestra, they still are performing.

Mr. Johnson. Actually, we're trjdng to develop a radio series with the chamber orchestra which could also spawn some CD or multimedia products as well.

Ms. Woodman. And we should go beyond music to say this can transfer into any disciplinary area, science, history, anthropology, and that's our plan.

Mr. Yates. Well, is there anything you do that relates to the various instruments of the orchestra, just by way of education?

Ms. Woodman. It's an interesting question. There are actually quite a few products on the market that do just that. In planning the blues project, we thought very carefully about that. And we thought the strongest way we could present the blues was to go into the social history aspects of it.

Richard Kurin will speak to this.

MUSICAL encyclopedia

Mr. Kurin. Yes, we also have a musical encyclopedia that we have as a joint project with Microsoft. So basically what would come out on the screen would be a map of the world and different instruments from around the world. And you can click on those instruments, hear examples of those instruments, get background, and so on.

Mr. Yates. I must say, it's an interesting world in which we live.

OBJECTS FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

All right. We have finished the show and tell items. It says here later during discussion of National Museum of the American Indian in Suitland, Richard West will present a Pomo basket decorated with beads, and a Navajo ornament from South America. Do you want to do that now, Richard?

Mr. West. Sure, that's fine. I did want to, in connection with talking about Suitland, show you some of the material. I don't know in what order you would like to do it. Would you like to actually see some of the material now?

Mr. Yates. Oh, yes.

Mr. West. This is the Pomo basket, and it's a beautiful example, I think, of basket weaving.

Mr. Yates. Ordinarily the Indian baskets I've seen are various shades of brown.

Mr. West. Yes. This is beaded throughout, and it is a form of Pomo basketry. This was done in the early 19th century.

Mr. Yates. How do they do that?

Mr. West. It's part of the weaving. It actually involves the fibers out of which the basket itself is

Mr. Yates. Oh, the beads have the hole in the center, and the fibers are—Okay. Where is the Pomo tribe, California?

Mr. West. California, northern California. And this was made in the early 19th century, and they were of course used for ceremonial purposes historically. But beginning in the 19th century, they were also made commercially. And this is probably one of the very finest examples that we have, and has been published several times.

This is a contemporary Navajo weaving by Rose Owens, who is one of the very best contemporary Navajo weavers, and it of course is circular, which is very rare among the Navajo. Her loom was a

wagon wheel. It's a very rare example and very fine. I think Rose Owens actually just passed away this year.

Mr. Yates. Was this in the Heye collection?

Mr. West. Oh, yes, this is in our collection. All of these things are out of our collection. We have both historical as well as contemporary.

Mr. Yates. How old is that piece?

Mr. West. It was made in 1981.

Mr. Yates. Were you still collecting in 1981?

Mr. West. Yes, they were actually still collecting in 1981.

Mr. Yates. Heye wasn't. [Laughter.]

Mr. West. No, Mr. Heye had departed this mortal coil by then.

Mr. Yates. I thought all you had was the Heye collection.

Mr. West. We do. But they were still collecting in small amounts even after Mr. Heye passed away because the foundation still existed, and they were still collecting.

So just to give you a notion of the hemispheric reach of it, the other object which I wanted to show you is Shuar, from Eastern Ecuador, actually. And these are beetle wing covers that the Shuar men and women used as either ear ornaments or sideburn ornaments. These are toucan feathers up on the top. And it's a beautiful example of that particular kind of object.

One of the reasons for bringing these particular objects down was to show you first of all some sense of the scope of the collection, which as you know is hemispheric. The collection comes from throughout the western hemisphere.

The other thing was just to demonstrate the fragility of this material, where you're talking about baskets, material like this, you're talking about weavings. Aiid this will eventually be discussed more when we actually get to the discussion of the cultural resources center.

But just for your information, these are pictures of the conditions under which the objects are stored at the present time, where the Navajo weavings, of which we have probably one of the most substantial collections in this country, are stacked one on top of the other, to the extent of maybe six or seven in one drawer, which means that you have to fold them, which means that they get folded along the warp and it eventually destroys the fibers and they start coming unraveled.

NMAI COLLECTIONS AND CULTURAL RESOURCES CENTER

So in Suitland, what we will be able to do is to take all of those and put them on horizontal screens, so that no weaving is stacked on top of the other. It will be much easier to preserve and conserve them into the future.

Mr. Yates. Now, where in Suitland are you doing this? Are you building some modules at Suitland for this?

Mr. West. Yes, we are. Would you like me just to go ahead into the explanation of Suitland itself?

Mr. Yates. May as well, as long as you used that magic word.

Mr. West. Okay, that's fine. There is a model over on the table there. And then there are various representations of it over here. Why don't you take a look at that first, and then I'll start over here.

Mr. Yates. Is this the storage faciUty at Suitland?

Mr. West. That's correct. This is the cultural resources center and collections facility, which is at Suitland and which is well advanced in the design process now. The designer architects are collaborations composed of James Polshek and Associates from New York City, in collaboration with a Native American Design Collaborative, which is a consortium of Indian architects and interior designers.

Mr. Yates. Richard, Mr. Skaggs wants to get two questions in before we break for lunch.

Mr. West. Surely.

Mr. Skaggs. Why don't you go ahead? I just wondered if I could, even if you left, Mr. Chairman, just take a couple of minutes.

Mr. Yates. Oh, I see. How long are you going to be?

Mr. West. Is it a question on this?

Mr. Skaggs. No.

Mr. Yates. Why don't you go ahead, and we'll come back to this.

CONSTRUCTION FUNDING FOR AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM EXTENSION

Mr. Skaggs. Thank you. I just knew that Mr. Adams would feel deprived, since I won't be here this afternoon, if he didn't have at least one question on Air and Space. I didn't want him to go away unhappy. Thank you, and I apologize that I won't be back for the afternoon.

You're asking for $4 million of planning money in the fiscal year 1995 submission. I just want to make sure we are still operating under the same basic set of assumptions with respect to actual construction money being raised.

Mr. Adams. We are.

Mr. Skaggs. Other than from the taxpayers?

Mr. Adams. That's right.

Mr. Skaggs. Could you just lay that out a little bit?

Mr. Adams. I thought we ought to ask Martin to step up and do that.

Mr. Skaggs. Great. I would just like to know what the actual game plan is for raising the actual construction money and where you stand on that.

Mr. Harwit. Sure. We've had fairly intense meetings internally, to discuss what fraction of the money we ought to try to raise from philanthropy and what fraction we will need to raise from income streams that would be able to pay off a bond that we have been offered by the Commonwealth of Virginia. As you may remember, the Commonwealth offered to pay for something between about 25 or 30 percent of the total construction in-kind by providing all of the infrastructure.

They also offered us a $100 million bond if we chose to borrow money on it. But we have to see what the income streams are likely to be that could pay off such a bond.

So we've looked at how we ought to organize ourselves to do this properly, and we have a committee on this at the Institution. We hope to get involved at a relatively deep level by investing some money of our own that would allow us to really study very carefully what fraction should be raised through philanthropy and what fraction should be raised by a bond.

Mr. Skaggs. Is the $4 million you're requesting in Federal funds for planning the only Federal funds request you anticipate making?

Mr. Harwit. No, the total planning monies that we hope to request over a three-year period would be $8 million. The $4 million is the first half of that. I understand that the Institution wants to ask for a further $2 million next fiscal year and a final $2 million in the third fiscal year.

Mr. Skaggs. Would you expect to outlay all $4 million in fiscal year 1995?

Mr. Harwit. Yes.

Mr. Skaggs. So you really need all of it, the first half, in one year?

Mr. Harwit. We do, yes. That is correct.

Mr. Skaggs. And is the overall construction budget still in the $175 million range?

Mr. Harwit. That's approximately right. There are two constraints. One of them is that we want to be able to bring all of the holdings that we have at the Garber facility to Dulles so that we don't end up with three different locations, but have everything consolidated. And we want to stay within that price target. So what we build will be limited in square footage as well as price by what we can transport over and what we can afford. We do want to live within our budget.

Mr. Skaggs. And would you remind me again—I don't want to put words in your mouth—of the relative emphasis between preservation curatorial housing, warehousing functions, and display, exhibit, visitor center type functions that you're expecting?

Mr. Harwit. Well, our main emphasis is on preserving the collections that we have. But we're looking at strategies that would allow us to optimize that. It may very well be that, by having to go to the public for funding—where exhibitions, theaters, things like that, are much more likely to attract funding—that we will have to try to essentially sell those to potential donors with a hefty overhead. That would then pay for the facilities that we really need.

So what that may mean is that there will be somewhat more public spaces than we would have anticipated if the facility had been funded entirely by Federal means. And the expenditures may be somewhat higher, also, than if they had been funded primarily by Federal means. But by appealing to public resources, we may be able to provide the more visible parts, which would then pay for the parts that we really need to preserve the collection.

Mr. Skaggs. I appreciate that. I'm sure you have it in your files, but the discussion that occurred on the floor at the time the authorization bill went through last year was

Mr. Harwit. We're fully aware of your concerns there, yes.

Mr. Skaggs. Well, and the representations that Mr. Mineta and Mr. Wolf made at that time, I think, are relevant.

Mr. Harwit. Absolutely. But I'm just trying to be open about the strategies that we may have to pursue.

Mr. Skaggs. Yes. Thank you.

Just one other question if I may, Mr. Chairman. I wondered. Bob, since you waxed philosophical in a column, now, has it been three years?

Mr. Adams. I have to do it once a month. [Laughter.]

GEOGRAPHICAL DISPERSION OF SMITHSONIAN ACTIVITIES

Mr. Skaggs. The particular waxing I was thinking about concerns geographic dispersion and the Smithsonian looking outside the Washington area. Are there any further ruminations on that?

Mr. Adams. Well, I'm happy to ruminate, Mr. Skaggs, I can't ruminate with any authority in the sense that I will not be here to carry it out. I don't have any doubt that over time this Smithsonian will be actively involved all across the country in different ways.

I'm not suggesting that the Smithsonian will have its placard up over museums all across the country, I'm not sure that that ever would make sense. But I think various kinds of collaborative activities, perhaps even extending to the point where we have people involved in collaborating activities, I think we're likely to develop.

When we come back, we'll hear from Rick West later on. Clearly the plans that are in fact legislatively mandated through the American Indian Museum involve all kinds of forms of outreach, into schools on the reservations and in pueblos and so on. If we are able to move ahead with the African American Museum, again there will be close collaborative relationships with smaller African American museums all over the country.

I think all those things are pointing in a direction which over time, and I don't want to say whether that's a decade or two or three, but over time, will develop. I think if you look at the fact that we are, after all, active in Panama and we're active in Cambridge and we're active in Arizona with our research undertakings, we're active in Florida, I don't see anything that's likely to stop that kind of an outward drift of the research, wherever the fields of the research are carried on.

But whether there will be museums, active museums, I think that's a question that I will simply pass on.

Mr. Skaggs. Do the Regents continue to come back for talks occasionally or not?

Mr. Adams. Well, the issue hasn't arisen since the time of the discussion of the alternatives for the Air and Space extension. I don't think those answers are ever permanent, I think the/re always in the context of

Mr. Skaggs. They are probably better dealt with outside the context of a particular siting decision.

Mr. Adams. I repeat something I have commented on to you privately, that located in Denver are the U.S. Geological Survey collections. And the opportunity to have a major facility of some kind developed there, which might very well involve some collaboration with the Smithsonian, since we have strong programs in that area. It's the kind of thing that would be entirely natural.

We're actively participating in the planning for the Presidio in San Francisco. There is no intention on our part to have a museum there, but I could very well imagine that exhibits from the Smithsonian might appear in some other kind of an entity there, and we may in fact be involved with that.

I have shared a concern with Maxine Singer about Mount Wilson Observatory outside of Pasadena, a magnificent site where really one of the great historic observatories is now no longer in active

use and could very well become an educational facility or something or another. I can imagine our having some part in an initiative there, without making it into a museum or Smithsonian training center or something of the kind. I think these things will indeed happen, but I don't want to make predictions about exactly when or which ones will find favor.

Mr. Skaggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time.

Mr. Yates. All right, let's break until 1:15 now.

[Recess.]

IMPACT OF FEDERAL WORKFORCE REDUCTIONS

Mr. Yates. If you're ready, we're all ready. Okay, now. Tell me about the budget. Is it adequate for your purposes?

Ms. Newman. We're prepared to work with it.

Mr. Yates. I know you're prepared to work with it, but that isn't what I asked you. I asked you if it was adequate. [Laughter.]

Ms. Newman. We could definitely always use more money for

Mr. Yates. Well, let me put my question directly. Does the budget hurt you?

Ms. Newman. If we are in a position where we have to make up the

Mr. Yates. Are you going to have to cut back?

Ms. Newman. If we have to cut back, we have to cut back on personnel.

Mr. Yates. I didn't say if you're going to cut back. Are you going to have to cut back?

Ms. Newman. We're going to have to cut back. But there are various ways in which we would have to cut back that would be more painful for the Institution. If we do not get the buyouts, if we do not get the buyouts very soon, we may very well have to run a reduction in force.

Mr. Yates. A RIF?

Ms. Newman. Yes. Which is what we have been trying to avoid. And even now, with the buyouts, because they are so late, we are not going to be able to benefit that much this fiscal year. There are ways that we can structure it so that we can minimize the problem for the Institution. But it is a problem for us.

Mr. Yates. How many buyouts do you want?

Ms. Newman. Well, we have to come down by the end of 1995 about 229 positions. We have already pretty much come down 80.

Mr. Yates. Where are you going to take them from?

Ms. Newman. Well, we are trying to look at attrition. We have a printout of the people who might potentially consider buyouts if we have them. But we don't know, and we have had to be very careful about suggesting to people that they consider the buyouts.

We've looked at the printouts. The combination of attrition and the buyouts would get us closer. But we're still, even with that, not sure that we can come up with the 229. i\nd there is an additional $3.1 million that is associated with the reduction.

And it is going to cause a very serious problem for us.

IMPACT OF 1994 LOCALITY PAY RAISE

Mr. Yates. Are you going to have to absorb any pay costs?

Ms. Newman. Yes. Well, 1994 is much more difTicult for us. In 1995, we built the pay raises into the budget request. We have annualized the 1994 and we have built in the 1995, the locality and the pay rates. Our concern is getting through 1994.

Mr. Yates. How are you going to absorb the $5 million locality pay raise?

Ms. Newman. We went out to the bureaus and offices with the reduced amount, and asked them to come back with their spending plans. It has been very difficult for them. They came back with their spending plans, which showed how they would make up the locality pay in each bureau and office, and it is going to require many of them to make significant reductions in their program.

But even having done that, we still need $1.4 million to meet the balance of the $5 million. We are trying to look at ways in which we can come up with that difference of $1.4 million. Again we had hoped we could make up with the buyouts and people leaving.

Mr. Yates. Are all your museums going to be hurt?

Ms. Newman. Yes. Yes, everybody is going to be hurt. You can ask them, I think if I said no, they would have disagreed with me. But I said yes.

Mr. Yates. I want all of you to know that, she said yes. [Laugher.]

Okay, we need a list of our museums. There we are. The first on is Betsy Broun. Betsy, how badly are you hurt by the new budget?

IMPACT OF 1994 LOCALITY PAY RAISE—MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Ms. Broun. Well, I think like all of my colleagues, we are forced to try to accommodate an ever-increasing number of expectations with a declining set of resources. Some of our most serious problems which I hope will be addressed at the Smithsonian, are in the area of automation. It's a very expensive proposition to automate the internal functions and also to try to deliver the resources of our Museum to the Nation. Right now we're doing that from our base budget.

Mr. Yates. What about the question of exhibitions? Are you cutting back on exhibitions?

Ms. Broun. No, so far we've been able to get along. They've been all funded by private organizations now for several years. The Thomas Cole Exhibition is funded by Nynex, for instance. We don't do exhibitions with Federal money, although we do have good staff support for exhibitions that is paid with Federal funds.

Mr. Yates. None of the museums use Federal money for exhibitions?

Ms. Broun. I don't know. Our major shows have all been privately funded for several years. There is no federally-funded loan exhibition in the Museum.

Mr. Yates. Well, you don't sound like you're suffering very much.

Mg. Broun. I would say this. We are struggling to maintain our many programs and activities. We are the Nation's museum for its own art and artists. We think it's an incredible story to tell, and extremely rich, and we have tried for the last five years and more to really show how we can represent all the great traditions of American artists.

It is true that there are major new initiatives, I talked this morning about the one for Latino art, but there are others for African American art, for Asian American art, for crafts and decorative arts, and for photography. These are all new programs that we didn't have 10 years ago. And basically, none of those programs have had any special funding ever. So what we do is we take the ongoing annual allocation that we get and we try to move it around and create a little heat on one side, and then another. It's like trying to keep plates spinning on top of sticks—you hope you can get back to make the first one go faster before the last one falls off on the other end.

Mr. Yates. Are you going to lose any employees?

Ms. Broun. We have this year lost our Coordinator of Fellowships position. We just aren't able to fund it, and now that person has retired. For two or three years we had an African American curator on soft money, but we were unable to continue her because we didn't have available Federal funding.

REDUCING PUBLIC HOURS

Mr. Yates. Does the Smithsonian face days of closing during the week? The answer is no.

Ms. Newman. We have had a policy of not taking our cuts in a way in which the public would have to suffer. They'd have to suffer if the curator day is reduced. They'd have to suffer if the research isn't, but we're not proposing that.

impact of 1994 LOCALITY PAY RAISE—^AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

Mr. Yates. All right. Martin, what about the Air and Space Museum?

Mr. Harwit. We took a 5 percent cut in our Federal budget last year because of the cutbacks. We had anticipated that at the time, so we had left a number of positions unfilled. We also were able to ask some of the older people who had been saying for some time that they wanted to retire whether they were planning to do that. And they said if it would help the museum, they would, and did.

The new problem we have this year with the locality pay is going to be much tougher, because we don't have additional positions that we have left unfilled. And in addition to that, the fact that we are now trying to see whether we can start a project out at Dulles, which will require us to raise $100 million in one way or another, and which will involve extensive cooperation with localities, with architects, and with financial entities, really would require us to gear up and staff up to do this job properly.

So I feel very uncomfortable in going into a project this size without adequate numbers of people to really make sure that the Smithsonian doesn't stumble for lack of the support people right at the start of the project.

air and space museum PROJECT

Mr. Yates. There's $4 million in this budget for detailed planning and design for the Air and Space Extension. Can you give us what you estimate the current total cost of that expansion to be?

Mr. Harwit. It's $162 million, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Yates. How are you going to get the money?

Mr. Harwit. Well, as I mentioned before lunch, in response to Mr. Skaggs, between a quarter and one-third of the funding is going to be provided mostly in kind by Virginia, in infrastructure preparation. We have identified about $100 million that we will need to raise either through philsuithropy or by providing additional income streams so we could pay off a bond. We're looking at this very carefully with a Smithsonian committee that's chaired by Nancy Suttenfield to look at how best to come up with the funding.

A lot of this work is done by the Smithsonian central offices, the construction, the planning and design, the financial planning and so forth. But the museum itself needs to be involved as a counterpart so that we know what is going to be built for us, and guide it, and pick the most effective ways of building.

Mr. Yates. You have more visitors than any of the other museums. Will the reductions hurt their ability to get a lasting experience from having visited your museum?

Mr. Harwit. We have started a new program of trying to cross-train our custodial staff and the people who make sure that the place is clean and that the visitors find a hospitable environment when they come in. We do that in the hopes that many of our custodial people who consider themselves to be in dead-end jobs would aspire to jobs that are somewhat more demanding. At the same time this move would provide us with a smaller staff, and provide for the visitors in a more streamlined fashion.

So essentially what we've been doing for the last year and a half is to follow what industry has been doing, to try to do more with less.

Mr. Yates. You spoke of a third of the cost of the extension being paid by Virginia in kind. How much of that has been made available to date by Virginia?

Mr. Harwit. We only got the President's sign-off on the authorization for planning in August of last year. So we haven't been able to do too much. We heard last week from Secretary Martinez in Virginia that he has already started a program of overflying the portion of the airport where we are to build to do the surveying for us. And that's a project that costs about $100,000.

So they're right in there keeping their part of the bargain.

Mr. Yates. Okay. And you mentioned that you've got to raise the balance from private funds. Do you anticipate that none of it will come from appropriations?

Mr. Harwit. That's what I was told. [Laughter.]

Mr. Yates. Well, you're an apt student. Okay, thank you very much. I'll just accept that answer. [Laughter.]

AUTOMATION NEEDS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN

HISTORY

Mr. Yates. Let's see now, Spencer Crew. Spencer, how about your museum? Are you going to be hurt by the budget?

Mr. Crew. Yes, sir, in a couple of ways. Automation is one area in which we find ourselves slowing down in terms of our ability to do collections and information systems. The computer systems are fairly old, and we're looking at ways to replace them.

The collection information system for us, the computer system is fairly old. And as you know, these things change very quickly.

Mr. Yates. I thought you had that wonderful computer show.

Mr. Crew. Yes, but we

Mr. Yates. Oh, but you had to turn those back.

Mr. Crew. That's for the public, right. But we have our own computer needs for our own collections and information systems and automation.

Mr. Yates. How much do you need?

Mr. Crew. In the neighborhood of $800,000 to get our system up to modem-day standards. We're about nine or ten years behind, and in computer years, that's quite a distance.

Mr. Yates. Now, if the money were made available for you to do that, Connie wouldn't take that, would she?

Mr. Crew. Oh, I'm sure she wouldn't, she would give it directly to us. [Laughter.]

Mr. Yates. Where else would you be hurt?

Mr. Crew. Also where we're hurting now is in the fact that to meet the budgetary reductions we face

Mr. Yates. Before you get into that, can we phase the $800,000 in?

Mr. Crew. Yes. We're looking towards ways in which we can do it over a two to three year period. It would slow down the process and slow down our schedules that we set forth. But we could do that over a period of time.

Mr. Yates. Where else do you need the money?

budget situation at the national museum of AMERICAN HISTORY

Mr. Crew. Well, the other place where we're feeling it is that we've been in pretty much of a flat situation in terms of hiring and firings the last few years. Through attrition is the way we have met the challenges before us. As a consequence, throughout the building and in the various parts of the Museum, the staffs have had to do more with less, as Martin was talking about. It's meant that people are beginning to feel that strain, taking on more and more burden without more and more relief. So for us, we feel it sort of rippling through the Museum itself in different ways.

Mr. Yates. How is that wonderful store of yours doing?

Mr. Crew. It's doing fairly well, not well enough, though.

Mr. Yates. So you don't get enough money?

Mr. Crew. We get portions of it, not enough, ever, but portions of it. And I think we also have all been hurt by the fact that the economy and the visitorship is down. That translates directly to our ability to get resources from there.

Mr. Yates. Okay, thank you.

BUDGET SITUATION AT THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Alan Fern, I saw your CD ROM. It was beautiful. Will you be hurt by the budget?

Mr. Fern. Yes. If we talk about 1994, we started this year with a $200,000 deficit, which we've been hacking away at, trying to raise private money for exhibitions. And we've succeeded to some degree. And we've still had to adjust constantly in our educational

public programming. That's been very badly hurt. And we've put a complete stop on supplies and equipment until we liberate money.

As you know, personnel costs are like that PacMan that keeps eating away at our other objects budget, and that's become smaller and smaller, so that this year it shrunk to 9 percent of our budget—the amount available for programs and equipment and everything else. Two years ago, it was 16 percent. Wlien I came 12 years ago, it was about 25 percent. So this has just been continual shrinkage. And I anticipate next year we will be in about the same condition if we do get federal funds to cover the locality pay, even if we make up the deficit items that we've had this year.

Mr. Yates. How can you operate a museum if your income constantly goes down?

Mr. Fern. I wish I had a really good answer to that. We are trying to raise more private money. We're spending a lot of time talking about that. But as you've heard from everybody else and from the National Gallery, the corporations and foundations are just not contributing as much as they used to.

Mr. Yates. Is lack of money hurting your art exhibitions? Your art, portraits and things hanging on the walls?

Mr. Fern. At the moment, no. That's a high priority for us. That is one of the main

Mr. Yates. Have you got adequate guards?

Mr. Fern. We have adequate guards. That is not in our budget, and I am dependent on central Smithsonian service for that. So far, things are fine.

Mr. Yates. What about the condition of the walls?

Mr. Fern. That is a very big problem. Building repair is one of the things that we are deferring. I talk all the time to our facilities services people. They are well aware of our needs.

Mr. Yates. Why do they spend all their money putting up those scaffoldings and doing the tuck-pointing of the Renwick?

Mr. Fern. I suppose it's the squeaky wheel syndrome. We've already dropped one piece of plaster, and it did get their attention. It was a beautiful rosette in an elegant stairway, and they came right over. [Laughter.]

But ours is an 1836 building.

Mr. Yates. And it deserves more attention.

Mr. Fern. And they know that.

Mr. Yates. But they don't give it?

Mr. Fern. It's a question of allotting the money where it is most needed.

Mr. Yates. Maybe they don't have the money.

Mr. Fern. Maybe they don't. They've been attentive to our needs, but they can't do everything. I'm very concerned about it.

Mr. Yates. Well, I will be too, then, thank you. Could you use money?

Mr. Fern. Sure.

Mr. Yates. How much could you use?

Mr. Fern. I think that in the coming year, we will probably be short about $150,000 to $200,000.

Mr. Yates. Where?

Mr. Fern. In the programming areas, in the maintenance of the building, and its equipment and supplies. Spencer Crew mentioned

computers. We have the same issue here. Our computers are 10 years old, some of them, and that means that they are ready for the Smithsonian—well, no, that isn't what I meant. [Laughter.]

And that means that they have to be upgraded and replaced if they're going to handle the larger programs that we now use. And we are doing that whenever we can liberate a little bit of money, the same way that we do our education programs. If any money becomes available, if a position remains unfilled for longer than we anticipated, we will use the savings in one of these areas: public programming or equipment.

Mr. Yates. Thank you.

PROJECTS AT THE COOPER-HEWITT MUSEUM

All right, now, we have Dianne Pilgrim. Welcome, Dianne. I look at all the material you send me from time to time.

Ms. Pilgrim. I left you another folder there, right underneath your papers.

Mr. Yates. Oh, this handsome Cooper-Hewitt book?

Ms. Pilgrim. Yes. It's a little light bedtime reading for you.

Mr. Yates. It is.

Ms. Pilgrim. And I felt it was important, because 1993 and going into 1994 I think have been very important watershed years for us. I truly believe that our mission is beginning to get across to people, and the importance of that mission. And we have done four shows, because we have a new show that's just opened, which have all received international recognition. And one of them I am thrilled to say was here at the International Gallery, opened this past November, 'The Power of Maps" exhibition. It's the first time in 26 years the Cooper-Hewitt has had one of our exhibitions on the Mall. And that was one of my objectives when I took the job, that as the National Museum of Design we have visibility here in Washington.

So I was very pleased and excited about that.

So between that and our renovation project, which will begin this fall

Mr. Yates. Do you have enough money for renovation?

Ms. Pilgrim. We have enough money pretty much for the bricks and mortar. We will have to raise the money for the interior furnishings for the study collections, etc. But we're very pleased to have the R&R money. We've combined a number of projects under James Polshek, who is also doing the Suitland project. I have to say that the Smithsonian will be extremely proud, because we will have a model of how to deal with landmark buildings, and at the same time make them accessible to all people. If we all survive three more years, everyone will be able to walk in the front door, everyone will be able to walk in the staff entrance. You will be able to visit what will become our research center—Miller/Fox House— with three departments, plus our master's program in the history of decorative arts, and you will also be able to go to the terrace and the garden. The architectural integrity of all those buildings in that landmark district will be virtually intact. It's a very exciting project. I think the Smithsonian will be very proud of it and be able to use it as a model.

Mr. Yates. Good.

FUNDING FOR THE COOPER-HEWITT MUSEUM

Ms. Pilgrim. So that part's great. I have to say that my original mandate, also along with having visibility in Washington, which was for us to make up for lost time because of the history of Cooper-Hewitt within the Smithsonian system, that still is a long way off. And certainly, unfortunately my timing is such, I certainly didn't realize in the fall of 1988, as I don't think many people did, that the Federal deficit would be such a major problem, and that we would also suffer such a severe recession. Because as you are probably aware, we are more dependent on trust funds than other museums within the Smithsonian. Only 45 percent of our budget comes from Federal monies, and that is just for staff, maintenance and with the one exception, with your help and this committee, we now receive Federal funding for education. But we have never had a Federal appropriation for exhibitions, publications or acquisitions. So that's where we still have a long way to go. We've made some very important headway, for which I'm grateful. But the basic issue about which you were so wonderful, pgirticularly at that first hearing in 1989, is still a very big problem. We are understaffed, and we have always been understaffed. So any cuts are hurting. If you look at our collections as art, we are the largest art museum within the Smithsonian. We have almost 250,000 objects.

Mr. Yates. Okay.

Ms. Pilgrim. And we have less staff and less budget. So we still have a lot of work to do, but we have come a long way.

Mr. Yates. You're a pretty good example for the other museums.

OUTREACH AT THE COOPER-HEWITT MUSEUM

Ms. Pilgrim. We have done some pretty wonderful programming. And spesiking of outreach, we have started a new program called "City of Neighborhoods". We know that it's futile to think about changing the curriculum in the City of New York, so our education department has come up with a program where in fact we are teaching teachers how to take visual literacy back into the classroom using the existing curriculum. And we do believe that this can become a model program for the rest of the country.

Mr. Yates. Thank you very much.

funding shortfalls at the freer and sackler galleries

All right, Mr. Sears. Mr. Sears, how goes your empire?

Mr. Sears. It goes relatively well, sir.

Mr. Yates. Well, good for you.

Mr. Sears. You know that the Freer reopened last May, after being closed for a number of years

Mr. Yates. For construction.

Mr. Sears [continuing]. And that has been a wonderful but two-edged sword for us. The luxury of only having to concern ourselves with operating one art museum for a previous period of almost five years led us to be a little asleep at the wheel. The shock of May 9th of last year when we reopened to the public, and realizing that we were operating two fully functional museums for the first time, because the Freer, as you may remember, had closed almost as soon as the Sackler Gallery had opened, was quite a realization.

So we have really learned just this year, for the first time, what it really takes on the part of our rather astonishing staff to keep both of these museums open and viable.

Mr. Yates. Are you short on funds at all?

Mr. Sears. We are short. We are short primarily in three areas. We have been managing this year to keep our heads above water, but quite frankly, how long that will be able to continue is really hard to say. One of the areas is in just the building management function for the Freer Gallery. While the Freer was closed, we took a number of positions that were used to maintain the building, and since we didn't need them during that period of time, we reassigned those positions to cover shortfalls in our requests for previous years for activities in the Sackler Gallery. And we have found now that we have reopened the Freer, since it has been expanded rather considerably, mostly underground but nevertheless expanded in terms of square footage, we need those and in fact more positions. And we are unable because of the demands of all of our programs to really give them back to ourselves.

So, that infrastructure need is something that we're now concerned about. We are operating the physical plant of the Freer with a third less staff than we did even before it closed.

Mr. Yates. Is that adequate?

Mr. Sears. It's barely adequate. And we're concerned because for one reason, the attendance at the Freer has soared. By the time we have been open a year, come May, we believe we will have welcomed about 750,000 people, which is by my counts, about twice as many people, almost twice as many, as ever really attended the Freer before in any given year for which we have statistics.

So in some ways, we're a victim of that success. The more people we have in the building, the more it's a problem to keep the facility clean. It takes more people, more staff time, more materials, etc. We're finding it very difficult to have those resources available.

admission fees for the freer and sackler galleries

Mr. Regula. Do you think if you charged a nominal admission fee that your numbers would drop off?

Mr. Sears. I think it's very likely that they would drop off rather considerably. We are now in the process of doing visitor audience research surveys. We're really beginning to find out for the first time who's coming to our museums and why, in a demographically valid way. But our suspicion is that while we have a very loyal following of people who would probably come regardless of what admission was charged, we believe that we're seeing new faces in the Freer, and in fact by extension in the Sackler Gallery. We're seeing younger people come in, we're seeing more people with families. It's those kind of people who I think would be hard hit by any kind of admission charged, no matter how nominal it might be.

Mr. Regula. But what if there isn't going to be enough money to maintain the facility and do all the things you'd like to do? Do you have to choose?

Mr. Sears. We will probably have to choose to reduce the number of programs that we offer, the number of exhibitions that we offer, the number of public programs that support those exhibitions, in favor of maintaining the infrastructure. And that is an es-

pecially difficult decision to make, because we are finding that demand for our public programs has increased even more dramatically than the attendance at the Freer. We recently, for example, screened a film at the Freer in the auditorium which was recently renovated with private funds. We had people show up for an auditorium that could accommodate 307. We had to turn away almost four times as many i>eople as could be seated.

Mr. Regula. Why will people pay $6 or $7 to see The Fugitive and wouldn't pay a dollar to come and see your screening?

Mr. Sears. It's a good question. I think those of us at Sackler, almost to a staff member, really believe that for the type of people that we're trying very hard to reach out to, in our emphasis with our programs and other activities, that to charge an admission would put up yet another barrier to their participation that we think would really be counterproductive. There is no real way to know that for sure unless we try it, of course. But our preliminary hunch tells us we are seeing people in the museum now that probably would choose not to come otherwise. This may not be true for all the museums in the Smithsonian, but I think especially so ones for Asian art, because it is—^by the general public—thought of as being a very difficult subject to really begin to understand and learn from. We're heartened just by the fact that so many additional people are coming now, and I think we would be very ill-advised to do anjrthing that might dampen that enthusiasm, at least until the enthusiasm is firmly seated.

Mr. Yates. Well, obviously you can use more money. Thank you.

Mr. Sears. Thank you. I think we shouldn't let this moment pass, though, ending on a pessimistic note. The wisdom and the foresight that this committee saw in appropriations for the renovation and extensions of the Freer is something that all of us in the Institution take great pride in. It's through your efforts, in large measure, that this has come about. This is something I think regardless of the difficulties we have in the shortrun will stand for decades as being an important contribution to what we're about.

Mr. Yates. Thank you very much.

ANACOSTIA museum

All right, Mr. Newsome. Hi, Mr. Newsome. You have the Ana-costia Museum. How is the Anacostia Museum doing?

Mr. Newsome. The Anacostia Museum is doing okay. I would be crazy to say we don't need more money, we do.

Mr. Yates. What are you losing as a result of not getting more money?

Mr. Newsome. We're reducing programs, we're not expanding in terms of some of our outreach activities. We're sort of plateauing, but we're not really losing anything just yet.

Mr. Yates. If you had more money, where would you use it?

Mr. Newsome. We would use more money in curatorial and educational activities. The Anacostia Museum has a new mission, a new research focus, and obviously, we could use more curatorial force. And we would want to expand our innovative educational activities.

Mr. Yates. Curatorial for research?

Mr. Newsome. Research and collections development.

Mr. Yates. All right, thank you.

exhibitions at the hirshhorn Mr. Demetrion?

Ms. Newman. May I make a correction here. He is also the Chair of the Council of Bureau Directors. He is on the first list because of that. It's not that one list is more important than the other.

Mr. Yates. Okay, Jim, tell us about the Hirshhorn. How are you doing?

Mr. Demetrion. Well, we're doing reasonably well in some respects. Our attendance jumped by over 100,000 people this past year. I think that was due primarily to the fact that we completed the renovation of the fountain area and the plaza, and it's much more attractive than it had been.

Mr. Yates. More important than your exhibitions?

Mr. Demetrion. It is a part of our exhibitions. We exhibit works of art on the plaza. Previously, the surface out there was breaking up during the winter and creating a real hazard for people. And in addition to that, we felt it needed some greenery or softening up. And through the help of appropriated funds, we were able to get the project completed. I think that helped with our attendance, certainly.

Mr. Yates. What about your exhibitions? Are you going to have to cut them back?

Mr. Demetrion. We have cut them back to some extent already.

Mr. Yates. How about the Dubuffet?

Mr. Demetrion. No, the Dubuffet exhibitions, our so-called three larger exhibitions, we're still maintaining those. We've cut back somewhat on the smaller exhibition programs, which in some ways is a shame, because they tend to be more exploratory and more experimental. We're trying to raise funds by circulating part of the collection. We are sending some works to Taiwan and to Japan this coming year.

Mr. Yates. As part of the total Japanese exhibit?

Mr. Demetrion. No, it has nothing to do with that at all. It's a completely separate thing. We were approached by the Taiwanese initially and subsequently by the Japanese about sending them parts of our collection.

IMPACT OF funding ON HIRSHHORN MUSEUM

In terms of sending other parts of the collection around, our de Kooning exhibition is currently in Barcelona. It will then travel to Atlanta and Boston and Houston in this country. We're suffering the same kinds of problems that other institutions are. We're using the same rugs that went in 20 years ago when we opened up the place. The seats in the auditorium—they're starting to show through, and in some instances they get a lot of wear and tear. And it obviously is an area where we're going to have to do some renovation.

Mr. Yates. What's under the rugs? Cement?

Mr. Demetrion. Yes, and it's very irregular, and consequently it's not very easily taken care of. But we didn't have to cut back on the auditorium program. We're operating with six positions un-

filled, which in smaller museums such as ours is a considerable amount.

Mr. Yates. How are you hurt by that?

Mr. Demetrion. Well, there are other people doing those jobs. The same thing that's happening at Air and Space, that we heard fi-om Martin Harwit and others, that people are having to fill in.

Mr. Yates. Temps?

Mr. Demetrion. No, not temps, people on the staff" already.

Mr. Yates. Two jobs.

Mr. Demetrion. And maybe not doing either job as well as had previously been the case.

Mr. Yates. How can you tell?

Mr. Demetrion. You can tell through the quality of the work. One of the positions that's unfilled is that of the graphics designer. And we have someone else on our exhibit staff doing that work, and although the person tries very hard, you can tell.

Mr. Yates. Anything else?

Mr. Demetrion. Nothing else at this time except that we're in the same position

DISCUSSION of artist JOSEPH BEUYS

Mr. Yates. Are you still purchasing the Joseph Beuys?

Mr. Demetrion. We haven't purchased the Joseph Beuys yet. I understand you had a conversation about him with one of my friends in Chicago not long ago.

Mr. Yates. I did have.

Mr. Demetrion. We'll get one. But the prices are so high.

Mr. Yates. I know. I wonder about that. As did your board of directors.

Mr. Demetrion. That's correct. They were wrong. [Laughter.]

Mr. Yates. Thank you very much.

Jim, will you tell Mr. Regula who Joseph Beuys is?

Mr. Demetrion. Joseph Beuys is a German artist who died about four years ago, and who was very, very influential on European artists after World War II, in much the same way that Jackson Pollock was. He uses nontraditional materials and disturbs a lot of people, it's hard to sell his work. [Laughter.]

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

Mr. Yates. All right, now let's see who else we should have. We have Rick West and we still have Sylvia Williams. Rick, we stopped you in full flight, I think. What else do you have to tell us? You are starting out, you don't suffer from lack of funds, do you?

Mr. West. Our problems are of a different nature. It's not a question of sort of a fiscal deconstruction

Mr. Yates. Those will come later. [Laughter.]

Mr. West. Yes, we have to get there first before we have to downsize. But we will, for us it's more a matter of not being able to expand at a rate which we might like. But honestly, we are doing, I think, relatively well, all things considered. But we have had to cut back in certain program areas. We haven't been able to bring positions on as rapidly as we would have liked.

And the only concern that that really causes me is that we are of course right in the middle of a national campaign to raise the

private match for the Federal money for the museum on the Mall. So I think it is very important for us to have an effective public presence at the time we're trying to raise these monies. And it's in that context that I have concerns about having to cut back on some programs and positions that I think we need to do the program most effectively.

But I think we're making our way.

Mr. Yates. And is $13,648,000 in this budget—an increase of $2.9 million of which $2.4 million and 39 work years goes to the Custom House.

Mr. West. Yes, it's heavily aimed toward the Custom House, as we think it must be.

Mr. Yates. Has that been opened yet?

Mr. West. That will open on October 30th, 1994. It will open this fall.

Mr. Yates. Is that David Rockefeller and his million dollars?

Mr. West. No, he gave his million dollar gift to the construction fiind for the facility on the Mall. But his interest, in candor, is very much in New York and in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, that is true.

NMAI COLLECTIONS AND CULTURAL RESOURCES CENTER

Mr. Yates. Tell us about the Suitland project.

Mr. West. All right, I'll be glad to.

Mr. Yates. What's the expected total cost?

Mr. West. The expected total cost of the facility is $50 million, which is Federal money. And $40 million of this is what is in the request before you. And that of course, you should understand, is money that will be expended over a two-year period. It's not that all of that will be expended in one year.

I would have to ask Bob Dillman how it would actually be divided up, with some allocation as between the first year and the second year. My understanding from talking with Bob is that it is slightly front loaded; in other words, you'd have to have slightly more than half in the first year with the rest of it at the back end.

Is it appropriate now, Mr. Chairman, to talk about this?

Mr. Yates. Sure.

Mr. West. I just wanted to give you some notion of where we are. You have looked at the model over there behind you, right before lunch.

Mr. Yates. It's a beautiful model.

Mr. West. And these are just some representations, which I ac-tuadly will pass

Mr. Yates. It's supposed to be storage?

Mr. West. It is, it's a collections facility, that's correct.

Mr. Yates. It looks like sort of a museum.

Mr. West. Well, it is, if you're saying that it does not look like a warehouse or a box. That is indeed probably true. It does not look like a box, but I would emphasize that this is the collections part of the National Museum of the American Indian. It has nothing to do with exhibitions, which will be both on the mall facility

Mr. Yates. Will you be allowed to go through there?

Mr. West. Yes, we will receive the public, but only as that public is interested in working with the collection and in researching the

collection. And this facility, which is about 145,000 gross square feet, houses the collections and the staff that support those collections.

And again, that's to be contrasted from the facility on the Mall or the facility in New York, which are exhibition spaces.

Mr. Yates. I must confess I have not been to Suitland. Suitland is where you have your storage modules for the other museum.

Mr. West. That's the Museum Support Center, that's correct.

Mr. Yates. As I remember, those modules I think are pretty well packed to capacity. Is my information right?

Ms. Newman. They will be in 2000.

Mr. Yates. How do you know they will be? Are you making additions? I mean, you're getting more bugs to put in there?

Mr. Adams. The material moves out slowly because the staff that's moving it is not very large. The schedule is difficult to project unless you know how many cubic feet you've got to go out.

Mr. West. But they have begun accelerating, to my understanding.

Mr. Yates. Are you going to have to build more modules out there?

Mr. Adams. Yes, we are.

Ms. Newman. Yes.

Mr. Yates. When are you going to have to build them? Before 1998?

Ms. Newman. We're prepared to talk about the Suitland five-year plan and how

Mr. Yates. All right, we'll do that after Rick gets through. Where is this storage facility in reference to your other storage facilities?

Mr. West. Well, apropos of that question, I just happen to have a little map here which I will give you. You can see when you look at this, our facility is right here. This is the rest of the campus. The Smithsonian owns the land. We anchor the east end of it, and then the current Museum Support Center sits to the west of us. Then some of the other facilities are farther to the west. But that's the general location of the existing facilities out there.

Mr. Regula. Why do you need such a fancy building for a warehouse?

Mr. West. I would not really call it a fancy building. You mean because it's

Mr. Regula. You could have four walls and a box for a warehouse.

Ms. Newman. Rick, why don't you go to the consultation process?

nmai cultural resources center—facility planning

Mr. West. Sure. I'll be glad to.

In designing the program for the facility. Congressman Regula, what came back as a result of that consultation was a very clear vision of what we hoped the building would be. And what we hoped the building would be would accomplish at least two things immediately. One would be that it would be a safe and secure home for the collections themselves, which it is. The other is that what we learned from the Indian community when we were doing this consultation, and which applies to the non-Indian users of the facility, is that everybody wanted it to be a welcoming, more accessible fa-

cility, both in terms of physical access to the facihty as well as what can actually come out of that facility.

And apropos of some of the questions you were asking this morning, this is the facility from which information can emanate in a variety of ways that reaches beyond the four walls of this museum, throughout the country. And this facility will actually be hardwired with coaxial, fiber optic and telephone cable, so that the data base and the information that is put on the data base can indeed turn up on somebody's computer in Ohio or in any other area, or in a school.

So it was that vision, I think, which came out of this facility. And there is no question also that this design is a direct result of the very strong collaborative effort which occurred as between James Polshek and Associates, who was the non-Indian architectural firm involved, and the Native American Design Collaborative, which was a consortium of Indian architects and interior designers and landscape architects that worked with James Polshek.

And the design, I think, was intended to convey symbology that I think, in an architectural manner, speaks to the native materials that it actually holds. I would also say

Mr. Regula. But this is not a visitor facility.

Mr. West. No, but it speaks of the cultural materials that it holds, I think, and there will be the public that does use the facility. It was felt that it would be important to do that.

The other thing I would point out. Congressman, is that the cost of this facility is not materially different than the cost which was projected initially by the Office of Design and Construction at the Smithsonian.

Mr. Regula. Do you know the number of cubic feet?

Mr. West. It's actually less. It's actually a fewer number of cubic feet. But the cost is not materially different from that cost, which is

Mr. Regula. You're getting less for the money you're spending.

Mr. West. No, I think we're getting probably

Mr. Regula. For storage space.

Mr. West. I think that as a totally functioning facility, we're probably getting more for the amount of money that we're spending, because I think that this facility, in terms of its accessibility, will actually serve the public even better in terms of making the materials here accessible to the public and generating information that can be used even beyond the four walls of this facility.

So I think in terms of the architectural program, this is a far more versatile facility for housing and working with the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. So I don't consider that we got less for our money. I think in the end we got more for our money in terms of the kind of facility this can be, and the ways in which it can be used by the public.

And if I may, I would just like to quickly show you, just so you have an understanding of what the spaces are within the facility. As I said, all of these spaces are directly related to the collections themselves. This is not, as I emphasized a moment ago, an exiii-bition area. The collections are housed here. Around here you have staff, whether it's registration, collections management, maintenance, data communication, archives, library. We have housed all

of those things which relate to the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian at this facility. And this is on the first floor.

And then the second floor, which is actually where most people would enter, you will see again that there is a collections area here, where the collections are housed. Curatorial and repatriation, conservation, all of these are functions that support these facilities as well as public spaces over here that support those researchers who have come in to work with the collection. So that is the space that you see over here.

And then finally, on the third floor, which is only this portion of the facility here, you see an area that is intended to house collections that are of particular sensitivity, whether they are sacred or ceremonial materials that we may actually hold.

So the other thing that I would point out with respect to this facility is that it ties directly to the support of our public exhibition spaces on the Mall and at the Greorge Gustav Heye Center. In other words, because our footprint on the Mall is relatively small and our projected visitation is so high, in the range of 6 to 8 million people a year, we were constrained to try to move some functions that normally would have been on the Mall to support its public programs and exhibitions back to this facility.

And so you see there is a very direct tie-in and, really, two peas in a pod relationship between the collections and cultural resources center and our public exhibition facilities on the Mall and at the George Gustav Heye Center. We must have areas, whether it's conservation, exhibition production, collections management, that serve as a staging area for our public exhibitions and public programs on the Mall and at the George Gustav Heye Center.

So this very much ties in with our public exhibition programs in Washington and New York, also.

Mr. Regula. Thank you.

SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE RESEARCH VESSEL

Mr. Yates. All right. We've heard from Dr. Shapiro. We haven't heard from Mr. Rubinoff. Mr, RubinofT, you've got a show and tell piece, I'm told.

Mr. Rubinoff. I have some things to show you, if I might.

Mr. Yates. Sure.

Mr. Rubinoff. This is a photograph and a sketch of the research vessel for which the committee approved the reprogramming and we have purchased.

Mr. Yates. So you're the admiral of that boat.

Mr. Rubinoff. I'm the admiral of the boat.

Mr. Yates. It's a handsome boat. I think it compares to Donald Trump's. [Laughter.]

Mr. Rubinoff. I haven't seen his boat.

This vessel exists; it's a used vessel commissioned in 1987. It has already been purchased and is in Fort Pierce, Florida at the moment. It will be leaving by the end of the month, and should arrive in Panama one week later. And we'll start research work immediately; it's ready to go.

Mr. Regula. What are you going to do with this?

Mr. RuBiNOFF. We're going to use it for our marine research program. It is replacing a vessel that was retired a year and a half ago, because it was no longer seaworthy, a vessel that was over 35 years old.

MASTER PLAN FOR BARRO COLORADO ISLAND

This is an aerial photograph of more or less the same location taken a year apart of the master plan construction on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. And if you look at this, you'll see that this area here now is occupied by the new laboratory, still under construction. That is a new housing unit that has been added and another one exists that's not showing in the photograph. That foundation will be the residence for the staff that reside on the island overnight, the game wardens, cooks and launch operators.

CENTER FOR TROPICAL FOREST SCIENCE

A third item that I want to talk about very briefly is the Center for Tropical Forest Science.

Mr. Yates. Where do you live down here?

Mr. RUBINOFF. I live in Panama City, about 30 miles from Barro Colorado Island.

This site is where investigators who come to work in the forest stay.

Mr. Yates. How do you like Panama City?

Mr. RUBINOFF. Well, we're moving towards a democratic election in May, and it should be very interesting.

This is a presentation on the Center for Tropical Forest Science. It was about 15 years ago that we became aware of the fact that while there was lots of concern about the world's forests, there was really very little in the way of systematic information available— information that was gathered from around the world using identical methods. We tried to address that problem by establishing a 50-hectare plot on Barro Colorado Island using very precise methods. These methods have now been adopted by other research sites around the world.

And in this same 15 year period, if we look at this table right here, you see that, we had about 200,000 or 150,000 trees under observation in 1985, when this program began. And we have now almost 2 million trees in plots around the world that include these countries: Panama, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Singapore. We will add this year a new site in Cameroon, which will be the first one in Africa.

Mr. Yates. Why not Brazil?

Mr. RUBINOFF. We just had a workshop in Panama last week in which the nations that have tropical forests in the new world attended to discuss the priorities for the new world. And it looks like we will have one or two in Brazil emerging from the work that transpired last week.

This map illustrates a bit of Smithsonian collaboration, as Dianne Pilgrim mentioned, her first exhibition on the Mall was the "Power of Maps." She was kind enough to invite us to participate in that exhibition. And this map was prepared for that exhibit. It is a map of the 50-hectare plot on Barro Colorado Island showing four of the species in different colors. This illustrates the kinds of

information that we're getting. The profiles here, in red, are individual trees that prefer steep slopes. The green ones are on a plateau. The species that are here, in black, in the center, prefer swampy, wet areas. And this species here is the new species to science, and it's the only place it's found in the world.

And this program is I think one of the most significant things that we're doing to address the problem of global tropical deforestation. It is giving the people who have to make decisions, politicians, information based on long-term observations, gathered in a uniform matter so that we can compare what's going on in one part of the world with another. The method seems to be catching fire, and plots have been founded in many places. The infrastructure is currently funded principally through a grant from a foundation.

SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE FUNDING NEEDS

Mr. Yates. Are you being hurt by the budget?

Mr. RUBINOFF. Yes, we are.

Mr. Yates. In what way?

Mr. RUBINOFF. It's been impossible to move with the speed that I would like, for example, in this program, to federalize the positions that were provided by the MacArthur grant, positions necessary in order to keep this going for a long time. The Smithsonian offers a commitment to long-term study, something that the universities cannot do.

And universities will not commit to anjrthing longer than the tenure of an individual professor. I hope this program, the Center for Tropical Science, will continue beyond my tenure as director and perhaps the next one as well. We need that long term body of information on the forests, forests which mature slowly. Without that, we are unable to make policy or management decisions on the forests in a sustainable way.

The other area which we got caught short on relates to the research vessel. We thought we were going to be building this research vessel over the next year, the new vessel. When that wasn't possible we purchased a used vessel but the funds for the operating costs of that vessel had been put off for another year. So now we have a vessel and we're ready to go to work but with no operating funds.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Mr. Yates. All right. Sylvia, how goes the Museum of African Art.

Ms. Williams. Very well, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Yates. Do you need any money?

Ms. Williams. Let me say it for you this way. Since I have been in the Smithsonian, I, like my colleagues, have seen the budget change, radically, from the portion of funds that we had in programming at inception, or let's say since 1987, and today. That meant that we had to try to find new ways of work. And one of those new ways of work, one of them is for us to do a reversal in proportion of small shows to big shows. Large undertakings are one a year. Smaller undertakings are three, possibly four, a year.

That's not bad in terms of content and scope of programmatic work. But it does change how your public programs and educational programs are going to unfold.

So I guess I find it difficult just to answer, yes, you do have enough, or no, you don't have enough. It's how you're having to work within the constraints that you find yourself. We brought a major show that we did that just ended titled "Astonishment and Power." And that had a lot to do with teaching children in this area about history, their own history, other peoples' history, respect for history, the vicissitudes of history in Africa.

That was important. And the more you can do that, the more pleased you are, if you're in my position. When you can't, or when you find other ways to get at it, you do the best you can.

Mr. Yates. Okay. Obviously all museums could use more money, I guess, if we could find it. Thanks, Sylvia.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY EXHIBITION HALL REINSTALLATION

Mr. Ortner? Mr. Ortner, you've taken over the Natural History Museum, and you're going to be one of the great institutions of the Smithsonian out there. But you're going to be more beautiful because of the construction. Are you going to be suffering for lack of funds?

Mr. Ortner. I think the problem that I see at the moment is our public face. I'm very concerned about our exhibits program. Stafi" in my museum assures me that we should produce a new exhibit hall a year, one a year. Right now, we have funding to produce a new exhibit hall about once every four to five years.

Some of our exhibit halls, as you may know, are beautiful. Our paleontology complex I think is quite new and quite appropriate. A lot of our halls are very old and very dated, and do not reflect the latest in science and scholarship. But I think basically, they don't do justice to the American people who come through them.

I would very much like to see that change, and we have been discussing that with our national board. Given the shortfall of Federal funding, we have to look for other options for trying to make up the difference so that we can reach that capacity in revising and redoing our exhibit areas in our Museum. I'm very concerned about that.

Mr. Yates. Are you cutting back on your exhibitions at all?

Mr. Ortner. I hope not. We receive from Federal money about $1.5 million a year for new exhibit construction and renovation of exhibit halls. It takes between $4 million and $5 million to do a new hall, on average. I think more and more we're realizing that we've got to go out and raise these kinds of funds from public sponsors, patrons of one kind or another, corporate sponsors.

Mr. Yates. Are you able to do it?

Mr. Ortner. Yes.

Mr. Yates. That's good. Thank you. I think that covers all the museums, does it not?

Mike, do you have anything to say about whether you are hurt by the budget?

national zoo staffing needs

Mr. Robinson. I would love to, if you have time to listen.

Mr. Yates. I've got about two minutes to listen. I'm going to let you go, not you, but the Smithsonian go, because we're going to have at least half an hour of voting. And I don't want all this valuable time to be wasted just sitting around here waiting for us to come back. We're going to have a series of questions for you to answer, and if by some chance we want you back later on to answer something more direct, we may do that at that time.

All right, Mike.

Mr. Robinson. Things are really looking up in one sense. The Zoo is becoming increasingly used by the community in which we live, which is marvelous. It's a resource for recreation and concerts in the evenings. The other side, in which I'm most personally disappointed, is that we finished our Amazonian Gallery which accompanies the Amazonian exhibit, which has been visited by three quarters of a million people since it opened and we can't open the Gallery because we don't have the necessary staff to look after the collection that would go in there, since it would be a living

Mr. Yates. Will your new budget permit that?

Mr. Robinson. No. We have applied for staff over the last four or five years to staff that exhibit, and of course, they have been eliminated by the cuts. And of course, there is probably no way of doing that, and then we're going to have to put inanimate objects in there, and it's not going to fulfill the purpose for which it was designed.

So if there is any hope of anything like that before I shuffle off this mortal coil, it will be marvelous. But otherwise, everything is going well.

Mr. Yates. I've got to vote. We'll see you.

[Additional Committee questions and answers for the record follow:]

ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

Design of the National Museum of the American Indian Mall Facility

Question 1: The increase requested for the Smithsonian is due mainly to the requested increase of $39.6 million for Construction. Included in the amount requested is $4 million for the Air and Space Museum Extension; $40 million for the American Indian Museum Cultural Resources Center; and $3 million for the Indian Museum on the Mall. What is the amount of nonappropriated funds being used in 1994 to continue design of the museum on the Mall?

Answer: The Smithsonian expects to obligate about $2.4 million in FY 1994 for continuing planning and design. Of this amount, $.3 million is to be made available in nonappropriated funds. The Institution will use an additional $3 million in nonappropriated funds for future design phases.

Question 2: When will the conceptual design be completed?

Answer: The Institution is currently in contract negotiations. Assuming a July start, concept design will be complete in early summer 1995.

Question 3: Will detailed design begin with the funds being made available in 1994?

Answer: Once concept design is complete, the Institution will use remaining nonappropriated funds (approximately $3 million) as well as the appropriated funds requested in FY 1995 ($3 million) to complete schematics and begin detailed design.

Question 4: Will the $3 million requested in 1995 complete the design? If not, what are the remaining costs?

Answer: A complete design will cost a minimum of $3 million more in FY 1996.

Question 5: How are Indian tribes being involved in the design process as it proceeds?

Answer: American Indians are involved throughout the design process by participating in several consultations across the country as members of a standing design advisory group and as members of the design team.

Restructuring

Question 6: Last year, the Committee agreed to Phase I of a proposed restructuring and downsizing of the Smithsonian, which was necessitated by shortfalls in both Federal and Trust funds available to the Institution. Phases II and IE were to follow, after completion of various studies. What is the status of this effort?

Answer: The Institution has completed Phase I of the restructuring and the studies. The Under Secretary has reviewed all of the study recommendations and implementation has begun where appropriate.

Several factors have influenced the pace of Phases n and HI. First, the Institution is faced with the need to meet federally-mandated decreases in personnel levels. Current downsizing efforts are focusing on achieving these reductions. As a first step, the Institution intends to provide an opportunity to employees to partake of buy-out and early retirement offers. If these actions are not sufficient to meet the required levels, the Institution will then review other options including reductions-in-force.

Secondly, the Institution is currently conducting a search for its 10th Secretary as Dr. Adams has elected to retire. Any further restructuring plans will be presented to the new Secretary for review and approval.

Question 7: Have the studies on expanding the chargeback system for certain administrative services: the structure of various units such as the Zoo, Natural History, the Libraries. Folklife Programs, and the International Center; and federalizing parts of other units such as the Archives of American Art and Cooper-Hewitt, been completed'.'

Answer: Yes, the studies have been completed.

• OPlantS initiated chargebacks for its exhibition services and non-routine maintenance services in FY 1994.

• An outside panel of experts undertook a comprehensive assessment of the Zoo's Conservation Research Center (CRC) in Front Royal. The Institution is now considering the panel's recommendations and implementing them where feasible.

• The study of the management of the libraries at the Institution was completed. The Under Secretary approved the study and provided guidance to the SI Libraries for its implementation.

• A panel of outside scientists undertook a peer review of NMNH's research activities and related resource requirements. Based in part on this review, NMNH has recently proposed a restructuring of the research activities in the Museum.

Study of Office of Folklife to include: 1) feasibility of federalizing part of workforce and 2) presenting the festival in alternative years. The Institution has concluded that federalizing the work force cannot be undertaken at this time. The festival is one of the principal means for exhibiting the work of this office. Therefore, it is important that the festival be presented each year even if the length of the festival had to be shortened as it was in 1993.

The study of the purpose, structure and responsibility for International Center and International Relations was completed. No major changes resulted.

The studies of the feasibility of federalizing portions of Visitor Information and Associates Reception Center, Cooper-Hewitt and Archives of American Art were completed. All studies concluded that this is not the appropriate time to seek such funding.

Question 8: When do you expect to submit the proposal for Phase II restructuring to the Committee?

Answer: Given the current plans, the Institution does not anticipate that there will be a formal set of restructuring measures which would require Congressional action. The Institution will, of course, keep the committee infonned of the results of the buy-outs and any other significant changes as they occur.

SALARIES AND EXPENSES

FY 199.5 Pay Increases

Question 9: The request for .salaries and expenses is $319.2 million, an increase of $17 million over 1994. Of this amount. $14.2 million is for mandatory increases, mostly for pay costs, and $2.7 million is for program increa.ses. Will the amount requested for I99.i fully cover all the regular and locality pay increases anticipated? What are the assumptions used in detennining the amounts involved for both types of pay increase?

Answer: The amount requested will fully cover all anticipated regular pay and locality pay increases for FY 1995. The Smithsonian calculated regular pay increases for three-quarters of a year at an anticipated rate of 2.6 percent. FY 1995 locality pay increases were calculated using anticipated rates of 2.1 percent for the Washington, D.C. area and 2.7 percent for Boston for three-quarters of a year.

Utilities

Question 10: Included in the mandatory increase is $3 million for utilities, communications and postage. What is the latest status of the requested 10.9% electricity rate increase?

Answer: The Potomac Electric Power Company's pending request for a 10.9 percent rate increase was reduced to 3.4 percent by the District's Public Service Commission. The new rates were effective on March 16, 1994, for the District of Columbia. PEPCO is appealing the decision and may be granted an unknown additional increase.

Question 11: 'What part of the electricity increase is due to upgrading of exhibit halls, and how was this figured'?

Answer: In general the Institution projects a slight increase in overall electrical consumption in FY 1995. There are several factors that contribute to the estimated increase, but specific data are not available to estimate each component separately. In the aggregate, the Institution estimates that consumption will increase by approximately 500,000 KWH in FY 1995. The major factors involved are: full year operation of the Custom House in New York City, increased automation efforts, and upgrading of exhibit halls.

Question 12: 'What basis has been given for the $894,000 increase needed for D.C. water and sewer in 1995?

Answer: The Treasury Department has advised the Institution that the FY 1995 total includes the base estimates from the District of Columbia ($2,404,117), plus an adjustment for FY 1992 actuals vs. estimate ($123,203), plus a rate increase imposed by the District in 1994 as calculated by Treasury ($438,885). The total due is $2,966,205. The Institution's FY 1994 base is $2,072,000, resulting in a net difference of $894,205.

Question 13: Provide a breakdown of the assumptions and bases for the $713,000 increase for communications.

Answer: The estimated increase is based upon the following assumptions:

$419,000 increased usage of data communications networks and

services associated with new institutional automated systems (financial, personnel, library and electronic mail) by Smith.sonian bureaus and offices, including those outside 'Washington, D.C.

100.000 FTS2000 increases primarily associated with Museum of

American Indian programmatic expansion

129,000 annualization of FY 1994 telephone company rate

increases associated with local message unit charges

65.000 annualization of FY 1994 telephone company rate

increases associated with installation charges

$713,000 total estimated increase

Federal Workforce Reduction

Question 14: The budget includes S3.1 million for Federal workforce reduction and $2.2 million for administrative expenses reduction. Have you determined how the workforce reductions will be accomplished?

Answer; The Institution will take advantage of the provisions of the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act that was enacted in March. It is anticipated that the Institution will be able to meet its mandated reductions through these buy-out mechanisms and normal attrition.

Question 15: If early retirements or buyouts are offered, what costs will be involved and how will they be covered?

Answer: Answer: The Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994 gives authority to agencies to pay separation incentives or "buyouts" to employees who resign or retire voluntarily. The Act requires the employer to fund the following costs:

• the lesser of severance pay or S25,0OO payable to the employee;

• an amount equal to 9 percent of the final basic pay of each employee who takes an incentive and voluntary early retirement; and

• an assessment of S80.00 per employee on the rolls as of March 31st in fiscal years 1995. 1996, 1997, and 1998.

The 9 percent and the $80.00 assessment are mandatory payments to the Civil Service Retirement Fund. The Institution will fund authorized separation costs with salary lapse.

Question 16: Do you have estimates as to which areas of the Smithsonian will be affected by the reductions?

Answer: Although final decisions have not been made, it will be the Institution's preference to offer voluntary separation incentives Institution-wide. The only estimates available to the Institution come from lists of those individuals eligible for optional and early retirement using age and length of ser\'ice as criteria. From these lists it is possible to determine which bureaus and offices would be affected. However, it is not possible to anticipate which individuals are likely to accept the offers. Until that is known, the final decision regarding the buy-out policies cannot be announced. At the time of the decision, the Committee will be informed of the elements of the policy.

Question 17: What has been your experience to date with workforce reductions in 1993 and 1994? How many positions have been eliminated, and what costs if any have been involved?

Answer: In Phase I of the restructuring process, 26 Federal positions were identified for elimination. Most of these redirections were accomplished through normal attrition. Some severance pay and employee counseling costs were incurred, but there were no additional administrative costs associated with the reductions.

Question 18: How do you plan to achieve the administrative expense reduction?

Answer: Each bureau and office will receive a targeted reduction amount. They will be asked to submit a plan to meet that reduction. Those plans will be then reviewed by the Under Secretary, with the assistance of the Office of Planning, Management and Budget, to assess the feasibility of the plans and to make any adjustments that may be necessary.

Question 19: If the amount of the reduction was calculated based on all appropriation accounts, why will it all be taken from salaries and expenses?

Answer: The FY 1995 reduction represents the second year in a multi-year process associated with the government-wide Federal administrative expense reduction proposed by Executive Order 12837 and the National Performance Review. The 0MB methodology used total funding from all accounts (including the Smithsonian's capital accounts) to determine the "administrative expense" baseline, and therefore, the reduction. The FY 1994 OMB Passback took the first-year reduction only against the Salaries and Expenses account; the Institution has taken the second year reduction in the same manner. This treatment of the reduction is consistent with the fact that only the S&E account supports administrative expenses.

78-792 O-94-7

Latino Programming Pool

Question 20: In addition to the two Institution-wide pools created last year for research equipment and information resources, $1 million is requested in 1995 for a program on Latino exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming. Will there be a requirement for all of these funds to be matched? If so, what will be the amount of the matching requirement?

Answer: The requirement will not be for the funds to be matched dollar for dollar, rather the project proposals must demonstrate the ability for the funds to leverage other funding, particularly from private sources. As conceived, the pool is intended to fund those meritorious programs with the best potential to leverage future dollars which would then sustain them on a permanent basis.

Question 21: How were the museums that will receive $900,000 of these funds for pilot programs selected?

Answer: The museums selected were those believed to have the greatest potential for creating programs that could leverage additional funding for this year and develop into long-term enterprises. However, the plan is for this pool to be used as seed money each year. What follows from that idea is that in the subsequent years, there may be an entirely different set of museums and ofTices that will have the opportunity to prepare proposals for the pool.

Question 22: How long will the pilot programs last?

Answer: The intent of this pool is to provide seed money for programs which the museums are then expected to continue on a long-term basis. It is the museum's responsibility to leverage funding to sustain the programs. The pool would continue from year to year, but would provide the seed money to new programs in each year.

A review panel, including representatives from the Latino Task Force, chaired by the Under Secretary, would review submissions on a yearly basis to determine those projects with the best potential for growth into long-term programs.

Question 23: How will Americas Endeavor use the remaining $100,000?

Answer: It is anticipated that the recommendations flowing from the report to be generated by the Latino Task Force as well as explorations by the Americas Endeavor will include programming concepts. Those concepts would be the basis for the long-term efforts of the Americas Endeavor. It is expected that the $100,000 will be used to leverage internal and external funds to support the efforts of the project.

Question 24: Is it expected that future expansion of this program will be non-Federal

only?

Answer: This depends on the number of projects submitted which meet the criteria and are worthy of funding. If the pool is providing a stepping off point from which a long-term, permanent Latino programming results, then the Institution might well deem it in its interest to increase the amount of seed money available. However, the continuation of the programs using the seed money must come from other sources, either through reordering of priorities or through non-Federal money.

Question 25: What is the reason for instituting this effort as a pool rather than letting individual museums develop their own programs within their budgets?

Answer: One does not necessarily preclude the other. All of the Smithsonian bureaus and offices are being encouraged to increase the diversity in their staffs, programs and collections. This pool provides an additional incentive for those projects that can benefit most directly from the infusion of seed money.

On May 10, 1994 the Latino Task Force submitted their report on Latino programs and employment to the Secretary at his request. On May 12th the report was distributed to the bureaus and offices for their review and comment. Their responses, due June 3, will include suggestions for Institution-wide action as well as concrete proposals related to their area of responsibility. Therefore, it is contemplated that there will be solid plans from the individual museums using their existing funds as well as proposals to use the seed money from the pool.

SCIENCES

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Question 26: The request for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is $15,715,000, an increase of $1,452,000. Part of this request is $180,000 and 2 workyears for two senior high energy astrophysicists for the AXAF Science Center which SAO is operating for NASA. Why weren't these two personnel included in the contract with NASA?

Answer: In its proposal to NASA to develop and operate the AXAF Science Center, the Smithsonian agreed to provide salary support for two senior scientific personnel, the two senior high energy astrophysicists, which are the personnel required to complete the fulfillment of the Smithsonian commitment. Modest cost-sharing by the Smithsonian enhanced the proposal to NASA and helped SAO to be selected in a very competitive process. Other competing propjosals also contained various forms of institutional commitment and cost-sharing.

Question 27: How many other personnel is NA5A paying for at the AXAF Center?

Answer: In FY 1994 the number of personnel funded through the contract with NASA at SAO for the AXAF Science Center is 25.5. For FY 1995, the number of FTE's will be 47.6.

Question 28: There is also a request of $319,000 and 6 workyears associated with the submillimeter telescope array. Is there any reason other than inflation for the change in the total exf)ected cost of this project from the previous estimate of S44.5 million, to the figure in this budget of S46.9 million?

Answer: About $1.6 million of the stated change in total cost is due to the fact that the budgets for the unfunded years in the FY 1994 budget submission to Congress (i.e., for FY 1995, 1996 and 1997j were stated in 1991 dollars whereas in the FY 1995 submission these budgets are stated in 1993 dollars. However, we also estimate a SO.9 million increase in the Federal salaries and benefits attributable to construction of the telescope array: approval of new positions by the Congress was delayed compared to the original plan, thus causing an overall delay in completion of construction and consequent increase in the total salaries and benefits attributable to this construction.

Question 29: Why is the 1994 amount now shown as S7.I million, comoared to $6.9 million contained in last year's justification?

Answer: The figure of $7.1 million shown in this year's justification includes information not available when last year's justification was submitted. The new information consists of an increase in salary and locality pay f$70 thousand), and the amount of rent properly attributed to the array project ($100 thousand). TTie total increase of $170 thousand appears as an increase of $0.2 million, due to roundoff to the nearest $0.1 million

Question 30: What is the reason for the changes in the amounts included for 1995 through 1997, compared to the amounts included in last year's justification?

Answer: The amounts stated for future years in the FY 1994 submission to Congress were in 1991 dollars, whereas in the FY 1995 submission these amounts are in 1993 dollars. Further, the FY 1996 and FY 1997 budgets have been increased solely—constant dollar for constant dollar--to offset the decrease in the prior year's appropriations relative to the original plan. An additional $0.9 million is a "bookkeeping" entry to account for the increased salaries and benefits attributable to construction instead of to operations, due to the delayed transition from construction to operations.

Question 31: Why are all 6 positions requested needed to be hired in 1995?

Answer: To accept the first antennas on Mauna Kea in 1996, SAO needs to hire these staff in FY 1995, as considerable preparatory work is needed. This work includes communications wiring, computer-systems installation, security-equipment installation, and training of the appropriate personnel. All present staff are now needed full time to complete the construction and testing at the temporary site in Westford, MA. If SAO were to wait until FY 1996 to hire additional staff, neither the Mauna Kea site nor the personnel at that site would be ready to function during the transition move of the antennas from Massachusetts to Hawaii, which is scheduled to begin in mid 1996.

Question 32: Funding is also included under Major scientific instrumentation for the Multiple Mirror Telescope. A new footnote in this year's justification indicates that the estimates for this project do not include funding to develop and build new instruments to be used with the converted MMT. Since this statement is appearing for the first time, does this represent a change from what has been assumed to be included in the estimates in the past?

Answer: This footnote does not present a change from what has been assumed to be included in the past. Since FY 1992, funding for instrumentation for the converted MMT has been included in the Major Scientific Instrumentation line item. For FY 1995, for economy of presentation, the descriptions and requests for the MMT conversion and for its new instrumentation were combined. In view of this combination, the footnote was added this year to make explicit the fact that the funding profile for the conversion and for the instrumentation had previously been separated.

Question 33: If not, why was $313,000 included in last year's request to develop and build instrumentation for the MMT? Where was this money located in the budget?

Answer: The $313,000 was included in the Major Scientific Instrumentation line item of the FY 1994 budget. Beginning in FY 1992, a section was included in the Major Scientific Instrumentation line item to describe the instrumentation for the converted MMT. In the current budget, for economy of presentation, the discussion of the instrumentation was combined with the discussion of the conversion; both are essential for accomplishing the scientific objective described.

Question 34: Explain how the 1995 request of $1,921 million relates to the $1.6 million included in the table.

Answer: The $1.6 million in the table that lists all Smithsonian costs for the conversion of the MMT refers to FY 1994. The $1,921 million requested for FY 1995 consists of $0.3 million to complete the conversion of the MMT and $1,621 million for instrumentation for the converted MMT.

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Question 35: The request for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is $7,785,000, an increase of $154,000. How do you plan to use the $1 million to be made available from the Tupper estate in 1994?

Answer: The $1 million that STRI expects to receive on May I, 1994 will be added to the Tupper Restricted Endowment Fund. STRI will use the income from this endowment to support research and fellowship programs at the Institute.

National Zoological Park

Question 36: The request for the National Zoo is $19,585,000, an increase of $1,319,000. When will Phase n of the Amazonia exhibit be completed?

Answer: As explained at the Appropriations hearing, the new facility needs additional staff to complete the exhibit as originally intended. The National Zoo requires a biologist, three animal keepers and one tropical gardener ($179,000) to support this new facility. Absent the possibility of obtaining these positions, the National Zoo has been reconceptualising the Gallery contents for non-living exhibits and expects to have one third of it occupied by early 1995. Further static exhibits should be opening periodically after that, and it should be completed by the end of FY 1995. These exhibits can be easily dismantled to enable them to be replaced by living exhibits should staff become available.

Question 37: How much are you spending in 1994 and planning to spend in 1995 for the Migratory Bird Center?

Answer: NZP plans to spend $369,000 for the Migratory Bird Center in FY 1994 and $389,000 in FY 1995.

Question 38: What progress, if any, is being made in reversing the decline in migratory bird populations?

Answer: The progress on reversing the decline in migratory bird populations cannot be measured at this time. However, much progress has been made on addressing the short-term goals essential for achieving the long-term goal of reversing songbird declines. The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) was established to contribute to the effort to reverse the ongoing declines in birds that migrate between temperate zone and tropical forests. These declines are related to the conversion of forest to agricultural habitats and the decay of forest ecosystems throughout the hemisphere. Because of the scope and complexity of the underlying issues, the effort to maintain migratory bird populations will require a long-term commitment to sound habitat management throughout the hemisphere. The SMBC plays a key role in the overall conservation effort by researching creative and realistic ways

of improving land management for migratory birds in the Neotropics and North America, communicating these approaches to appropriate groups, and providing information, internationally, to the interested public on migratory bird issues.

On the tropical end, the SMBC has focused on ways that improvement in management of agricultural lands could favor songbird populations, particularly forest-loving species. In addition, SMBC staff is conducting research on the impact songbirds have on insects in managed forests and agroecosystems; this will increase the value that farmers place on migratory birds. By focusing on songbird conservation in managed forests and farmlands, these efforts complement existing conservation programs in the region. SMBC has ongoing field research in Mexico and Panama on the value of various land use practices to migratory bird conservation. The goal is to identify practices that can be easily incorporated into rural development programs and communicate the value of these practices to appropriate agencies. Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). The SMBC hosted an international symposium on the role of managed forest patches to biodiversity conservation and rural human land use. Working with a land use policy authority, SMBC completed a "white" paper on this topic and presented workshops on the issues to forums at the World Bank, USAID, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund and the Biodiversity Support Group. SMBC is preparing a similar policy paper on the role of traditional coffee cultivation in the conservation of migratory birds. The results of this synthesis are being presented to development agencies, conservation organizations as well as coffee companies and trade groups. SMBC regards this as a particularly important initiative as coffee can be grown in a "bird friendly" manner, while providing profits to growers and distributors.

In North America, SMBC is conducting research on the effect of landscape composition and forest area on populations of migratory birds in the face of increasing urbanization of much of the eastern deciduous forest. These data are of immediate use to park planners in these regions, and are of long-term value as part of the national Breeding Biology Research Database (BBIRD) program. This project also includes one of the first systematic assessments of the value of forest corridors to migratory birds.

The Migratory Bird Center also has supported or conducted research on the role of cowbird parasitism in the declines of migratory birds, the use of genetic markers for mapping migratory bird populations, and the role of mating systems and genetics in declines due to breeding grounds fragmentation. Research conducted or supported by the SMBC already has resulted in over 3S scientific papers in reviewed Journals or international symposia and has involved the cooperation or collaboration of over 50 different agencies and organizations.

Training for career development is supported through SMBC internships for Panamanian and Mexican students (to work both in country and on projects in North America) and the SMBC established the first training course on migratory bird monitoring held in Chiapas Mexico in 1991.

The SMBC has played a creative role in providing education and outreach to the general public. The Center coordinated the 120 events held in the U.S.,Canada and Mexico for the

first annual International Migratory Bird Day in May 1993, and hosted events, including a migratory bird fair, at the NZP. The SMBC is co-coordinating the event with Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society for 1994. SMBC has developed materials in Spanish and coordinated efforts in Latin America.

The Migratory Bird Center has develof)ed educational booklets and materials that are used by all of the Federal agencies, as well as many non-governmental groups throughout the hemisphere. This includes two Spanish language booklets and one full color english booklet. SMBC is publishing a book-length citizen's guide to migratory bird conservation in eariy 1995. In collaboration with BirdLife International, SMBC is pioneering the use of the migratory bird issue in educational programs. The two groups initiated a pen-pal exchange program which links primary and secondary schools in the Washington, DC. area with schools in Latin America and the Caribbean. Students are exchanging art work and letters on migratory birds, their habitats, and their conservation. Through this. SMBC hopes to carry the concern for the plight of migratory birds throughout the hemisphere into the next generation.

Smithsonian Institution Archives

Question 39; The request for the Smithsonian Institution Archives is SI, 338,000, an increase of $90,000. What was the reason for the reprogramming of $316,000 into this program in 1994?

Answer: The $316,000 is related to the restructuring at the Institution which took place in FY 1993. Two offices, the Office of the Registrar and the Joseph Henry Papers Project were merged with the Smithsonian Institution Archives as a result of the restructuring process.

Question 40: Since this exceeded the Committee's reprogramming guidelines threshold, why hasn't a reprogramming been submitted?

Answer: The merging of two offices with the Smithsonian Archives was part of the restructuring/reprogramming request submitted to and approved in FY 1993 by the appropriation committees.

National Museum of Natural History

Question 41: The request for the National Museum of Natural History is $37,953,000, an increase of $1,680,000. What is the status of the asbestos removal project, for which $700,000 was provided in 1994?

Answer: TTie $700,000 appropriated in FY 1994 was for the decontamination of materials stored in Building 26 at Suitland. The National Museum of Natural History is

currently working with the Smithsonian's Office of Design and Construction and an outside architectural/engineering firm to detennine the types and amount of work required to decontaminate the asbestos-covered collection objects and other materials presently stored in this building. The Smithsonian will use this information to develop the scope of work required to hire a contractor to perform the necessary decontamination. The length of time it will take to accomplish the decontamination will be known when the scope of work is completed in June, 1994. The Smithsonian will let the contract no later than September 30, 1994. This is a difficult project since many large, heavy, fragile objects must be properly decontaminated and relocated. A conservator will provide oversight for the treatment of the collections. Experienced riggers will carefully decontaminate, specially crate and relocate the objects using heavy duty equipment.

Question 42: What funding was involved in the Archaeobiology program, recently established at the Museum Support Center? What was the source of the funding?

Answer: In FY 1992, Congress authorized an increase of $196,000 to NMNH for the Human Ecological History program, which focuses on the long history of human modification of ecosystems and human responses to changing environments. About $100,00 of these monies are used for the Archaeobiology Program to fund two positions — an archaeozoologist and a museum technician - and operations of the laboratory established for analyzing archaeological plant and animal remains.

Question 43: What is the cost of the new Alaskan office of the Arctic Studies Center? Has it opened yet?

Answer: The Smithsonian cost of the office is one-half the salary ($30,000) of a temporary archaeologist to conduct scholarly research, promote outreach and manage the office in Anchorage, Alaska; one-time costs for a computer and facsimile machine; and annual estimated costs of $5-7,000 for supplies and travel. The Anchorage Museum of History and Art (AMHA) provides space, and facilities and administrative support for the Center. The National Park Service is providing some support in FY 1994. The office opened in mid-April 1994.

Question 44: Will the cost of the office come from Federal funding, or other sources?

Answer: The Smithsonian position and costs for the office are supported from Federal funding-part of the increased support authorized by Congress in FY 1988 and FY 1991 for Arctic Studies. National Park Service support is currently from Federal funds. The Municipality of Anchorage and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art provide the facilities and administrative support. In return, the Arctic Studies Center office will offer curatorial assistance to AMHA, participate in educational programs and conferences, and bring some of the Museum's Arctic collections back to Alaska for study and exhibition.

Question 45: Is it expected that costs will increase in the future for this office?

Answer: A five-year agreement was signed in December 1993 between the Smithsonian/National Museum of Natural History, the Municipality of Anchorage and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Expansion of existing minimal presence and base resources at the office in Alaska will be dependent on Museum, Institution, and Congressional priorities.

Museum Support Center

Question 46: The request for the Museum Support Center is $4,905,000, an increase of $556,000, of which S400.000 and 15 workyears are for the move costs. Will you be able to meet the January, 1995 deadline for moving collections in the East Attic with this request?

Answer: The increase of $400,000 and 15 technicians in FY 1995 will greatly enhance our ability to vacate the East Attic by January, 1995. This increase will allow us to increase the number of staff working on the Move by approximately one-third. The timing of obtaining the increase is critical because of the length of time it takes to hire staff.

Question 47: What is the average salary cost of the technicians to be hired with the increase?

Answer: The average salary and benefit cost of the technicians to be hired with the increase is $26,000.

Question 48: How long is it anticipated that this level of funding will be needed to complete the move?

Answer: This level of funding would be required at least through FY 1997. After FY 1997, a lower funding level is required both to complete the Initial Move and to continue to relocate growth collections until the MSC storage equipment has been entirely filled.

ARTS ANDHUMANrriES

Experimental Gallery

Question 49: The request for the Assistant Secretary is $2,533,000, an increase of $139,000. When will the results of the evaluation of the Experimental Gallery be available?

Answer: The results of the evaluation of the Experimental Gallery were printed on November 26, 1993. A copy of the report has now been provided to the Subcommittee for its files.

Question 50: Were any Federal funds used for the Gallery? If so, how do you plan to use these funds after the Gallery is closed in 1994, and continuing into 1995?

Answer: The Experimental Gallery's major source of funding came from private foundations. The Gallery also received funding from a limited source of Smithsonian unrestricted Trust funds for which Smithsonian organizations compete annually. The Gallery received some services from several of the Institution's Federally-funded central support offices (i.e.. Office of Exhibits Central, Office of Plant Services, etc.).

Integrated Curriculum Development Project

Question 51: Funding for the integrated curriculum development project is included in this line item. What difference will the shift to the Office of Museum Programs make in the administration of the program?

Answer: The Office of Museum Programs is responsible for training and educating museum professionals. Staff in this office have extensive experience in curriculum development and can provide necessary resources for the integrated curriculum project, especially in the area of museum studies.

Question 52: How much is included in the budget for the project in 1995, and how does this compare to 1994?

Answer: The Institution is not requesting any additional funding for 1995 for the integrated curriculum development project. The total budget will remain at a funding level of $315,000.

Question 53: What activities are contemplated under the project in 1995?

Answer: During the current fiscal year, the federally mandated advisory board has recommended that the partner schools engage in evaluation of their past efforts. Based upon the results of the evaluation, the schools will explore methods of publication and dissemination, teacher training opportunities, and the economic and structural feasibility of replicating the process and teaching the curriculum at other schools.

Enola Gay

Question 54: The request for the Air and Space Museum is $12,833,000, an increase of $861,000. What are your current plans for displaying the Enola Gay bomber? When will it be exhibited, and what will be the nature of the exhibit?

Answer: Beginning in May 1995, the National Air and Space Museum will display the forward fuselage of the B-29 Enola Gay in a major exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World D. This exhibition, "The Crossroads: The end of World War n, the Atomic Bomb, and the onset of the Cold War," will offer a comprehensive account of the Pacific War in 1945. the decision to drop the bomb, the development of the B-29, the formation of a special Air Forces atomic-weapons unit, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan and the ensuing nuclear arms race.

The Museum realizes that this exhibition will evoke emotions. The exhibit will be assembled around artifacts, memorabilia and historical records, accompanied by as little editorial comment as possible. Visitors will be encouraged to deliberate on the events of the summer of 1945, in their own ways, based on this documented presentation.

Because the Enola Gay is too large to fit within any of the National Air and Space Museum's galleries or buildings, it cannot be shown fully assembled in 1995. However, the decade-long restoration of the aircraft, the largest such project ever undertaken by the Museum, will be completed by 1995. When the Extension building is opened at Washington Dulles Airport, the restored components will be assembled there.

National Postal Museum

Question 55: The request for the National Museum of American History is $19,497,000, an increase of $1,271,000. The National Postal Museum, which opened in the old City Post Office building this past year, is administered by the American History Museum. Has the opening and popularity of this separate facility resulted in additional costs? If so, how are they being met?

Answer: Since the National Postal Museum opened to the public on July 30, 1993, several cost centers have proven to be more expensive than estimated in 1990 when the Museum's initial budget was formulated. These under-estimated and/or unforeseen costs principally include utilities, maintenance of the Museum's heating and air conditioning system, and security services. Representatives from the Smithsonian and the Postal Service will meet to address these under-estimated costs.

American Festival in Japian

Question 56: The Museum is involved in the American Festival to be staged in Japan this summer. Will the amount of funding to be provided by Japan for the Museum's participation in this event be enough to offset the costs to the Museum?

Answer: 'Yes, the amount of funding provided will be sufficient to offset the costs to the Museum.

National Museum of the American Indian

Question 57: The request for the National Museum of the American Indian is $13,648,000, an increase of $2,903,000. Included is $2,400,000 and 39 workyears, mostly for the Custom House. The first part of the request is for 14 workyears and $520,000 for communications and facilities support at the Custom House. Is the technology for the outreach effort to implement the fourth museum concept in place?

Answer: The technology for the "fourth museum" is not yet in place but pilot projects are being planned, and will be brought on line with the opening of the Heye Center this fall. Ongoing construction includes cabling and equipment to enable connections with fourth museum constituents. The developments of the "fourth museum" will grow and serve as underpinning for collaborative efforts with tribal entities, reservation-based institutions, other governmental agencies and academia all linked together via the national information highway infrastructure. Not only will the Mall Museum be completed with its supporting technology, but all NMAI locations — Heye Center/Research Annex (NY) as well as Suitland and the Mall Museum (Metropolitan DC) — will be functioning as an integrated whole through the use of advanced technology.

Question 58: What is involved in the resource center informational programs?

Answer: The Resource Center at the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City will be the Museum's main reference/orientation site for visitors and its principal connection with distant constituents and communities. Several computerized workstations will make available various databases on NMAI exhibitions and collections, as well as those prepared by others on American Indian subjects. It will be connected with on-line library catalogs, Internet, the Native Arts Network, and have video-conferencing capabilities and video links between visitors and staff. While a broad scope of databases will be provided at the opening, their depth will be expanded as more NMAI collections information is entered and processed. In addition, more traditional reference services will include access to videos, sound recordings, books, and tribal newspapers and magazines. Finally, there will be contemporary collections materials for "hands-on-use."

Question 59: Will the five positions requested for the network control center staff be the total required?

Answer: While a staff of five may be sufficient to operate the Network Control Center equipment during a five-day work week, it may not be adequate for supporting the full seven day museum schedule. Additional staff may be necessary to pursue the outreach goals of the Museum to enhance the technology base for communicating more cultural information to remote communities or for developing new capabilities for the Suitland and Mall Museum facilities. The Resource Center at the Heye Center will serve as a prototype in providing essential information for our planning efforts for the Resource Centers at Suitland and the museum on the Mall.

Question 60: How many cleaning and general maintenance staff are currently funded for the Custom House?

Answer: Currently, eight positions, including the facilities manager, have been funded for building maintenance for the George Gustav Heye Center at the Custom House.

Question 61: Will the 1995 request provide the full stafflng for these operations?

Answer: The FY 1995 request will provide full staffing for these operations as they are currently defined. That assumes there is no increase in square footage occupied and NMAI does not take responsibility for areas currently designated as GSA or shared spaces which the GSA has agreed to maintain.

Question 62: There is also a request of 8 workyears and $845,000 for program and administrative support. Provide a breakdown on the 8 positions, and where they will be located.

Answer: The following provides the requested information on the five program support positions and the three administrative support positions.

Program Positions Interpretation Developer Asst. Manager for Programs Asst. Manager for Technology Cultural Information Spec. Photographer

Sub-total: Positions (5)

Salary/Benefits

$47,000

$47,000

$47,000

$39,000

$39,000

$219,000

Location

NYC Resource Center NYC Resource Center NYC Resource Center NYC Resource Center NYC Photo Archives Dept.

Administration Positions Deputy Assistant Director Computer Technician Secretary

Sub-total: Positions (3)

Salary/Benefits

$74,000 $57,000 $26,000

$157,000

Location

DC Administration NYC Administration DC Administration

TOTAL: Positions (8) $376,000

Question 63: What are the additional costs in this request in addition to salary and related costs?

Answer: The costs in addition to salaries and benefits are $378,000 for public programs and $91,000 for collections and curatorial programs. NMAI will use interpretive and educational services, and outreach through programs developed in response to the fourth museum concept. In addition, these funds will support development of interactive databases as a service to the general public, scholars, and researchers; as well as programmatic planning in preparation for the implementation of programs at Suitland and the Mall facilities. NMAI will use the funding for collections and curatorial programs to support conservation of artifacts, information accessibility, preparation for the relocation to Suitland, updating of inventories, and the anticipated heavy workload associated with the NMAI repatriation program.

Question 64: The final piece of the request is 17 workyears and $1,035,000 for Custom House security. What is included in this request in addition to salary and related costs?

Answer: The FY 1995 requested increase is broken out as follows:

• $442,000 - Salary and benefits for 17 guards.

• $501,000 - Contractual services. This money will primarily be used for contract guard services (11 guard positions and 1 supervisor) to supplement Smithsonian security during hours the George Gustav Heye center is open to the public.

• $92,000 - Other services. These funds will be used for travel, training, laundry and dry cleaning, vehicle service, replacement uniforms, ammunition and any necessary service contracts.

Question 65: How many of the 16 positions requested in 1994 have been hired or will be by the end of the year?

Answer: All 16 positions have been filled.

Question 66: Will this request complete the security force for the Custom House? What will be the size of the total force?

Answer: OPS originally projected an estimate of 78 FTE's for the si2e of the security force at the Custom House. The increase of 17 will provide a security force of 72. The final complement will be determined when the exhibits are installed and the museum is fully operational.

Save Outdoor Sculpture Project

Question 67: The request for the National Museum of American Art is $8,221,000. an increase of $444,000. What are the plans for the Save Outdoor Sculpture effort in 1995? When will the program be completed?

Answer: We are pleased by the progress of Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) which is mid-way through the inventory phase. Five states have completed sculpture surveys; another twelve states just began work in FY 1994; and the remainder are in varying stages of completion. Later this year, staff will recommend a plan for the U.S. territories which we anticipate will join the SOS! program in 1995. Once the information is collected, it must be entered into the Inventory of American Sculpture database which is maintained as a permanent research resource accessible to the public at the National Museum of American Art (NMAA).

As the Secretary noted in his introductory remarks before the Subcommittee, the next thrust of SOS! is an integral part of the Museum's expanded outreach and educational programs. Raising public awareness about outdoor sculpture and its required care has been a critical goal of the project from its inception. These initiatives continue in 1995 and beyond. Curriculum materials for elementary classes on the subject of public sculpture — to complement the materials developed in 1994 for grades 7 through 12 -- will be distributed in 1995. In December, NMAA's educational program and curriculum resources on public sculpture will be featured in From An to Zoo, a Smithsonian newsletter that is distributed to 90,000 educators. SOS! will be featured in the National Park Service's Cultural Resources Management in September 1994 and in the 25th anniversary issue of the Smithsonian Magazine in April 1995.

Preliminary reports from the field suggest that as many as 48 percent of the nation's outdoor sculptures require conservation treatment, and all need ongoing maintenance by a properly trained professional. An initial set of regional workshops, organized by SOS! and the National Park Service, on maintenance of outdoor sculpture will be held around the country beginning this year and continuing in 1995. A series of articles and reminders to alert the conservation community to the developing database and the need for treatment information is planned for professional journals. States that have completed at least one year of survey work are encouraged to apply for an incentive award to stimulate Adopt-a-Monument and similar programs for maintenance of outdoor sculpture. A video guide and fundraising kit are under development to assist communities in raising money for sculpture conservation and long-term maintenance. A public symposium is planned for 1996.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sackler/Freer Galleries

Question 68: The requests for the Hirshhom and Sackler Gallery/Freer Gallery of Art are different by $1.2 million, although both Federal budgets provide for 77 Federal FTE's. What is the reason for the difference in the Federal funding level of the two museums?

Answer: While the average grade level is slightly higher at the Sackler/Freer Galleries, a major variance between the Federal budget for the Hirshhom Museum and Sculpture Garden versus that of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art is related to the amount of public program space maintained by each. As the Sackler and Freer operate separate programs and are housed in separate structures, they spend more on exhibitions and related educational programming. Their combined budget is also slightly higher for building maintenance supplies.

FACILITIES SERVICES

Office of Protection Services

Question 69: The request for the Office of Protection Services is $30,891,000, an increase of $1,220,000. How do you plan to proceed with the need to upgrade or replace your security alarm system?

Answer: [NOTE: Because of security reasons, this answer has been provided to the Subcommittee for their files.]

Question 70: Is funding available within this budget to accomplish this need?

Answer: Funding is available within OPS's existing base to make only minimal enhancements to the present alarm system to improve its operational effectiveness. The Army Corps of Engineers does not recommend significant further investments in the present system. After analyzing the long term report from the Corps, OPS will seek future funding to replace the current alarm system.

Office of Plant Services

Question 71: The request for the Office of Plant Services is $53,119,000, an increase of $4,395,000. Included is $200,000 to reduce the backlog of essential maintenance and repair work in Smithsonian buildings. How many unfunded positions will be filled with this request?

Answer: The S200,000 requested will allow OPlantS lo fill four positions and provide equipment, tools, supplies and materials to increase necessary maintenance and repair activities.

Question 72: Where are these positions located?

Answer: The positions to be filled are in OPlantS' Trade and Craft Shops -- Paint, Masonry, Carpentry and Electrical.

CONSTRUCTION AND IMPROVEMENTS, NATIONAL ZOO

Question 73: The request for construction for the National Zoo is $5,000,000, a decrease of $400,000. Included is $1,950,000 for the Grasslands exhibit. Why does the budget say the $1 million received in 1994 is to complete design and site preparation for the grasslands exhibit, when the funds were requested for construction of the African grasslands exhibit?

Answer: The Zoo has determined it to be more economical and cohesive to design the entire Grasslands exhibit before constructing any of the components. The African component will be constructed first, but advance site preparation is needed to upgrade underground water supply, electrical supply and sewage systems.

Question 74: Why have you changed the third part of this project to Australian grasslands (formerly forests)?

Answer: The grasslands concept has been expanded to include African, Domestication, North American, and Australian components. The Forests exhibit has been separated from this complex and its construction deferred.

Question 75: How were the funds received in 1993 ($1.28 million) used?

Answer: The Zoo has have spent approximately $37,000 on preliminary concept formulation. This will soon be completed and formal architectural/engineering design will begin.

Question 76: How exactly will you use the SI.95 million requested in 1995 (last year, it was anticipated it would be used for the American grasslands part of this exhibit)?

Answer: The Zoo will use $1.95 million to finish construction of the African component and begin construction of the Domestication component.

Question 77: Has the total cost of the exhibit changed? What is the current total cost?

Answer: The cost of the Grasslands Exhibits remains at $8,730,950. The Forrest Exhibit, originally estimated at $9.9 million, has been deferred.

Question 78: The request includes $250,000 for design of a consolidated maintenance facility at the Conservation and Research Center. What is the basis for the estimated costs of $2,337 million for this facility?

Answer: The Consolidated Maintenance Facility will be a prefabricated building of approximately 15,500 square feet, based on space requirements and preliminary design sketches. Total facility costs were derived from an estimated cost of about $150 per square foot, which includes costs for final design, site preparation and grading, building construction, and installation of electrical utilities and sewer lines. The construction site has already been surveyed, and soil core sampling has been completed.

Question 79: The request includes $2 million for renovation and repair projects at Rock Creek. Which buUding will be reroofed?

Answer: The Elephant House and Education Building will be reroofed where defective.

Question 80: What are the plans for the renovation of the Great Ape exhibit? Answer: NZP intends to paint, replaster, repair the ceiling, and clean etched glass.

REPAIR AND RESTORATION OF BUILDINGS

Question 81: The request for repair and restoration of buildings is $25.3 million, an increase of $1.3 million. Included is $1 million for the American Art and Portrait Gallery building. How much of this request is for the master plan?

Answer: The full amount ($1 million) will be applied to an architectural and engineering (A/E) contract to compile and update the condition reports on all major physical plant systems, as well as structural and facade elements. Facility needs and system deficiencies will be identified. The A/E will develop concept and schematic designs, prioritize the work, and outline a plan of accomplishment with budget projections. This moves beyond master facilities planning into the first implementation phases of the major capital renewal project.

Question 82: What is the expected total cost of this project?

Answer: Curretitly, we project the cost of the master plan renovations for the American Art and Portrait Gallerv Building at $32 million through FY 2001.

Question 83: Under Facade, roof and terrace repairs, funds are included for replacing windows or skylights at the Air and Space Museum, as well as other locations. At Air and Space, what is the total cost of this effort?

Answer: The total cost of replacing windowwalls and skylights is currently estimated at $25.6 million, but the replacement will be completed over a period of several years.

Question 84: Will it be completed in 1995?

Answer: No, this work will not be completed in 1995. Even if the entire package were funded in 1995, the work would need to be done over a minimum of four years. Phasing this work will allow visitors access to the Museum and the least disruption to other Museum activities during the construction period.

CONSTRUCnON

Question 85: Within this account, there is a request of $3 million for minor construction projects. What will the proposed storage building at the Silver Hill Facility for American History and Air and Space be used for when permanent storage buildings become available?

Answer: This building is necessary to house collections now. The Institution anticipates using this building for artifact storage for its useful life of 20 years. The Institution expects it to take at least that long to program, fund, and complete permanent facilities for collections storage.

Question 86: Is $900,000 the total cost of the proposed building?

Answer: The $900,000 requested will pay for the building; that is, the structure, walls, roof, sitework, and mechanical, electrical, and fire safety systems.

Question 87: There is also a request of $850,000 for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, for two additional laboratory modules. Will this construction complete the laboratory construction at this site?

Answer: Like several others, this project falls outside of the $3,000,000 Alterations and Modifications request for FY 1995. However, if $850,000 is made available for this project in FY 1995 through substitution or redirection, the Institution expects to complete the phased addition of laboratory space to the Mathias Uboratory Wing. This will provide necessary space for the most critical current laboratory needs. The Institution is now developing a long tenn master plan for the SERC facility. Elements of the master plan include additional laboratory buildings. Funding for these needs will be requested in future years Construction program requests.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVES ESTEBAN E. TORRES, JOSE E. SERRANO. AND ED PASTOR

Latino Employment at the Smithsonian Institution

One of the Latino community's biggest concerns is the Si's dismal Hispanic employment record: only 2.7 percent of SI employees are Latino and not one Hispanic fills a major position in the top administration of the Institution. Latinos at SI are represented at level well below their participation in the general labor force (Latinos make up 9 percent of work force) and are little more than half of their representation level within the federal workforce (5 percent).

Efforts to address the lack of Latino employees at SI, such as Affirmative Action, Fair Search, Upward Mobility, Performance Plans have not been successful in bringing Hispanics into top and mid-level professional and administrative positions.

Based on information submitted by the Smithsonian Institution (SI) in response to questions by Rep. Torres: as of September 19. 1992, there were 3.851 employees at the SI. Hispanic employees totaled 313, with 136 of these staff employed solely at the Panama Tropical Research Institution.

The remaining 177 Hispanic employees are distributed among 41 SI offices. The following SI offices had no Hispanic employees:

The Anacostia Museum

The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian Institution Building

The Arts and Industries Building

The average General Service (GS) salary schedule rating for Hispanic employees at the SI is GS-7. Only two Hispanic employees have SR ratings, two have ratings of GS-15. six have a rating of GS-14, seven with GS-13, the remaining are below GS-13.

The Si's Latino hiring pattern during good economic times did not change for the better, during the current time of downsizing, we see no improvement.

The SI has expressed its good intentions to increase Latino hiring, but appears to lack both the resolve and action on the part of top management to achieve meaningful increases in Latino hiring in top and mid-level professional and administrative positions.

The SI formed a Task Force on Latino Issues to ". . . systematically analyze employment and recruitment patterns and statistics at the Smithsonian with regards to Latinos, inventory existing programs focusing on Latino issues, provide recommendations for change within the Smithsonian and oversee the implementation of the recommendations. The task force will report directly to Smithsonian Under Secretary Constance Berry Newman."

The Office of the Under Secretary, charged with administrative responsibility for implementing and overseeing SI initiatives designed to strengthen Hispanic employment and programming had only two (2) Hispanics employed in her entire department.

Question 88: What changes in the actual number of Latinos employed by the SI have taken place since September 19, 1992? Please indicate these changes on an institution by institution basis, listing GS ratings, job titles and length of employment.

Answer: Latinos currently make up 4.8 percent of the Smithsonian Institution's work force. The net change in the number of Latinos employed by the Institution since September 19, 1992 is 11. A total of 29 Latino employees were separated and 40 Latino employees were hired in the following PATCOB categories:

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Question 89: What new, and concrete steps are being taken by the SI to bring its worirforce composition into conformity with that of the general or federal workforce?

Answer: The Institution has developed an Affirmative Action/Diversity plan which is updated yearly. Each bureau and office is required to develop individual plans and provide updates on their accomplishments. In addition, the Institution's plan provides action steps designed to inform, train, support and hold accountable the managers of the Institution who are responsible for hiring. The Offices of Human Resources and Equal Employment and Minority Affairs, in particular, provide support and guidance to individual managers.

Finally, there are specific actions being taken to increase and monitor the Institution's representation of minorities with regard to its conformity with the Civilian Labor Force for various job categories. These actions include, but are not limited to, placing paid vacancy announcements in publications directed predominantly towards specific minority groups, utilizing extended search procedures for professional positions and administrative positions above grade 12, and the establishment of an applicant flow system which provides the capability to analyze data in order to identify areas with low responses from minorities.

Question 90: In the past, special hearings were held to focus attention on the failure of the SI to include minorities in all areas of its activities. These hearings appear to have stimulated increases in certain categories of minority employment, but not for Latinos. Will special hearings be necessary again to prod the SI into achieving specific gains in Latino employment?

Answer: The Smithsonian is weU aware of the fact that there must be an increase in the programs reflective of the Latino culture as well as a major increase in the representation of Latinos in the workforce of the Institution. Because of the recognition on the part of the Secretary and Under Secretary to the need for change, there was a decision by the Secretary to establish the Latino Task Force, a group of people from outside of the Institution, to critique the Institution and to develop recommendations for change. The task force met with the directors of the bureaus and offices, presenting the kinds of questions that would not only provide information, but also stimulate change in programs and employment. In addition, each museum, each research organization and each major office was required to respond to a series of difficult questions posed by the task force. Through those questions, it was made clear that the Institution must make gains in Latino employment. We are assuming that one of the strong recommendations of the task force will concern employment. One final note: As is true of Federal agencies, the Institution is going through a process of downsizing which will affect the number of positions to be filled. However, even in a time of downsizing, it is possible to improve the representation of Latinos, and that will be done.

Question 91a: The Smithsonian's Task Force on Latino Issues has been in existence for over one year. Are participants on this Task Force provided with travel and per diem funds for attending meetings by the SI?

Answer: Yes, the Institution provides travel and per diem funds to Task Force participants for attending meetings.

Question 91b: Does the Task Force maintain minutes of its meetings. If so, will the SI make these minutes available to interested congressional offices?

Answer: The Task Force plans to provide its report to the Institution in May, 1994. At that time, the Institution will be pleased to distribute the report to interested Congressional offices along with any response the Smithsonian may have. At that time, it would also be appropriate, if Congressional offices so desire, to release the minutes of the Task Force meetings.

Question 91c: When will the Task Force's report be released? We suggest strongly that a review board be instituted to monitor the implementation of the Task Force Recommendations.

Answer: The Task Force released its report on May 10, 1994. The Secretary has asked the Task Force to be extended at least through September, when he believes his term will end. The purposes of extending the term of the Task Force are: 1) to have them in a position to participate in the transition to the new Secretary; 2) to begin monitoring the implementation of the Task Force report.

Question 91d: How were the Task Force members selected? To whom do they report? How long is their term of service?

Answer: Secretary Adams and Under Secretary Newman invited Raiil Yzaguirre, President, National Council of La Raza, to be the chair of the Task Force. Together, they then chose the other members, trying to build a group that would be representative of the many Latino groups in the U.S., the different geographic areas, and a wide variety of professional backgrounds. The Task Force members report to the chair, and the entire Task Force reports to the Secretary and the Under Secretary, and through them to the Board of Regents. Their term of service was one year, but the Secretary has asked that their term be extended at least until September.

Issues of Governance

In spite of SI statements from senior management and the Board of Regents, pertaining to the righting the exclusion of Latinos from employment and programming, in the entire history of the Smithsonian, there has never been an Hispanic on the Governing Board, the Board of Regents or appointed as a bureau director. No research or curatorial department at the SI focuses specifically on Latino art, culture and history.

There has been only one permanent exhibition that has focused on His[>anic achievements ("American Encounters" at the National Museum of Arterican History).

From this record it is apparent to use that change at the SI cannot be willed or effected through good intentions and management directives. The facts (numbers) point to the fact that a policy of Hispanic exclusion, unfortunately, is working effectively at the SI.

Question 92: We request that the SI submits to Congress an action plan, detailing its specific strategy for correcting the exclusion of Latinos from employment, programming and governance. This plan should outline specific time tables for goal achievements and detail mechanisms which would hold SI leadership accountability for these achievements. The issue of enforceable accountability by management is a critical aspect to this request. If the SI agrees to the submission of an action plan to Congress, when can we expect to receive it?

Answer: The Smithsonian is awaiting the recommendations of the Latino Task Force convened by the Secretary before completing a comprehensive strategic plan for increasing the Latino presence in the Institution's programming, collections and staff. It is anticipated that the task force will release its report in May. Once the report is received by the Institution, it will be in a better position to develop the next steps. Irrespective of the recommendations of the task force, the Institution will continue the efforts of the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Equal Employment and Minority Affairs to increase the representation of Latinos in the Institution. If the task force recommends major shifts in the strategy for improving the employment of Latinos, there may be a call for changes in the present affirmative action/diversity plans which are developed annually. The Institution will keep the committee and other interested Members of Congress ftilly apprised of its plans and actions.

Another integral part of this effort will be the consideration of the conclusions and recommendations that will result from the report to be generated by the Americas Endeavor project. While the Institution does not intend to wait until the completion of that project to fonmutate a strategy, it is anticipated that the results will make a significant contribution to the Institution's planning once they are known.

Programming Issues at the Smithsonian

In recent years, the Smithsonian has made strides to rectify the Institution's historical oversight of some of our most important communities by establishing museums to recognize and commemorate the contributions of African Americans (the African American Museum Project) and Native Americans (the national Museum of the American Indian).

The Columbus Quincentenary Commemoration at the Smithsonian was a significant first step that was to lead to a "permanent and sustained presence" recognizing Hispanic contributions (The Institute of the Americas).

This "Institute for the Americas" is currently identified as "a study project." This project is no longer an "Institute" instead it is now an "Endeavor."

TTie Si's financial commitment to this effort, according information provided by SI is: "... an Administrative Officer and a Program Assistant detailed from another office in the Smithsonian." In fiscal year 1993 funds for this effort were to be reprogrammed to hire a temporary Project Director and Assistant Director.

A Project Director for the "Americas Endeavor" has been hired by SI.

Question 93a: Describe the process used by SI in selecting the Project Director for the Endeavors Project.

Answer: The Project Director of the Americas Endeavor is a 2-year term position. The vacancy was published under Merit Promotion Announcement #93-10251 which opened on January 26, 1993 with nationwide distribution. A total of 148 candidates responded to the announcement by the closing date of April 12. 1993. Of all the applicants, 41 met the basic qualifications. Three of these had civil service status while three of the qualified nonstatus candidates were veterans with preference eligibility. Two of the veterans were eligible for 5-point preference and a third was eligible for lO-point preference because of a compensable service-connected disability.

One of the ways to hire a non-status candidate for a term appointment is to follow the competitive procedures as set forth in Title 5 CFR Part 332 Subpart D. Using this method involves a legal requirement, commonly knovn as the "rule of three", and requires selections to be made from among the top three candidates available on a certificate of eligibles. Moreover, preference eligibles who have a compensable service connected disability must be entered at the top of the list and an appointing officer may not pass over a veteran and select a non-veteran. Given the background and experience of the eligibles, the Institution believed that selection was not warranted. Hence, the competitive source of candidates was not used.

Apart from the competitive procedures of 5 CFR 332 Subpart D, agencies may also consider candidates who are eligible for non-competitive appointment. Among the acceptable qualified candidates was an applicant from the Peace Corps who was eligible for a noncompetitive appointment under 5 CFR 315.607 for present and former Peace Corps personnel. This candidate was ultimately selected and appointed on December 12, 1993 using this authority.

Question 93b: Over $1 million were programmed for the Columbus Quincentenary. Reportedly, unused SI funds from the Columbus Quincentenary were to be reprogrammed and applied to the Institute/Endeavors for the Americas efforts. Were SI Quincentenary funds reprogrammed in the name of this project? How much as reprogrammed? What project were supported by these reprogrammed funds? Where were these funds used? Who was the SI administrator who authorized these projects? What was that program administrator's expertise in the area of Latino history, arts and culture? In accordance with

SI future plans, will any of the above mentioned funds be reprogiammed for Latino initiatives and hiring?

Answer: All of the funding and positions appropriated for the Columbus Quincentenary were temporary and have now been eliminated from the Smithsonian's Federal budget. The last component was deleted at the close of FY 1993. During FY 1993, approximately $150,000 was reprogrammed to the Americas initiative. The funds are supporting a planning and program development assessment, including the salary of the project director and an assistant. An additional $100,000, which is included in the Smithsonian's Latino pool request, is needed to complete the assessment in FY 1995.

Question 94a: The SI FY 1995 budget request contains a request for $1 million to support the development of an Institution-wide funding pool "... for Latino Exhibitions, Acquisitions and Educational programming." Please detail the proposals to be funded by the SI from this pool, providing the names of the individual bureaus involved, the project staff, and a description of the staffs professional background in the areas of Latino arts, culture, history or education.

Answer: It is anticipated that the museums will submit their proposals for the use of the funds in the early summer of this year. Among the elements of the proposals will be descriptions of the background and expertise of the personnel to be assigned to the project. A key consideration will be a description of the background of the personnel in the area of Latino arts, culture, history or education, depending upon the nature of the project. In this way. the decisions can be made prior to the beginning of FY 1995 so that the museums can be prepared to implement the programs at that time. As such, the specific details of the proposals are not yet known. Once the process has been completed, we will be pleased to provide the details requested by the committee.

Question 94b: Will any Latino pool funds be used in association with any outside organization? If so, please provide a list of names of organizations and contact staff.

Answer: It is anticipated that the museums will submit their proposals for the use of the funds in the early summer of this year. In this way, the decisions can be made prior to the beginning of FY 1995 so that the museums can be prepared to implement the programs at that time. As such, the specific details of the proposals are not yet known. It is conceivable that museum proposals may provide for associations with various outside organizations, either as funders of the projects or as partners in carying out the project activities. Once the process has been completed, we will be pleased to provide the details requested by the committee.

Question 94c: Who at SI makes the decisions regarding allocations from this fiind?

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Answer With the advice of senior staff, the Under Secretary will make recommendations to the Secretary for its use. The Secretary will approve the allocations.

Question 94d: How will this pool build upon the Si's commitment to a 'permanent and sustained presence' recognizing Hispanic contributions?

Answer All of the Smithsonian bureaus and ofTices are continually encouraged to increase the diversity in their staffs, programs and collections. The Institution has developed diversity plans which delineate specific actions and monitor the results. As part of the overall effort, this pool provides an additional incentive through the funding of those projects that can benefit most directly from the infusion of seed money.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE DAVID SKAGGS

Question 95: While I recognize the importance of constructing the American Indian Museum Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland. I am concerned by the statement in your Budget Justification that the "one million cultural artifacts in the Heye Collection are now densely warehoused and largely inaccessible in the Bronx storage facility in New York. . ." I understand that at one time the collection was being kept in warehouses with many of the artifacts in crates, some with no clear identification of the contents, and that many pieces were in various stages of decay.

What is the present condition and status of the collection of artifacts? Do you now have a complete inventory of the pieces? Does the budget allow you to take the appropriate steps to conserve this collection pending construction of the new Suitland center? Will all of the artifacts in storage be relocated to Suitland?

Answer: The collections are stored in a building dating from 1927. The building construction, storage methods, equipment, and environmental controls currently prevent many necessary collections care functions and severely restrict staff and public access. By current museum storage standards, NMAI collections are compressed many times more than they should be in storage drawers or shelving units. These conditions may impede detection of periodic pest infestation and cause inherent pressure and long term debilitation of stored items. Compression also deters constituent and staff access for research, loan and repatriation discussions, and exhibit planning. Retrieval of specific collections involves extensive handling of other collections.

Suitland planning included a comprehensive survey to determine the extent of decompression required by each collection area and to develop specifications for storage equipment to address the needs. A parallel survey identified traditional care requirements and space and equipment configurations for specific items. Findings will be incoiporated into planning for collections equipment for the Cultural Resources Center.

The budget allows us to make limited progress in correcting collections management deficiencies. Following a "triage" approach, we have rehoused selected collections; added shelves to increase storage capacity; relined shelves and storage units with protective materials; and bought 15 storage units for collections being processed. For the most part, however, collections will have to await systematic improvements in photography, conservation and documentation until being processed for the move to new facilities.

With these conditions and physical constraints in mind, however, NMAI has implemented and planned a number of actions to enhance efforts to stabilize climate control and to arrest deterioration and improve facility maintenance. These measures involve both physical plant improvements and programmatic efforts to address most urgent needs. NMAI has added a new conservation laboratory facility to the site, new security procedures have been developed, and storage equipment has been purchased. A modular office facility is

being provided so that additional staff can be accommodated while committing maximum space in the storage and lab facilities for collections care and processing.

The NMAI has had a complete, computerized inventory of its entire artifact collection since 1979. Information from this database was the foundation upon which storage projections were made in planning the new Suitland facility. The database, with new bar-coding technology, will be used to track the movement of each individual object during the move, record the new storage location, as well as provide a complete re-inventory of the entire collection once it is transferred to Suitland.

All of NMAI's one million artifacts, as well as photography, film, video, archives, and library collections will eventually be moved to the Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, Maryland.

Question 96: I understand that there are concerns about the impact of moving and uncrating some of the items. In part because of this concern, it has been suggested to me that the Smithsonian should consider using advanced technology to record the image of, and infonnation about, the objects in the collection before transferring them.

Has the Smithsonian considered using advanced technology in this way, and. if so, what is the status of these considerations?

Answer: Yes. NMAI is moving past the review/study stage of considering the use of advanced technology to improving the process of documenting and moving what is a fragile collection. NMAI is doing this for a number of reasons. There is presently a small prototype effort to use electronic/video imaging of those artifacts to be placed in the exhibits for the opening of Heye Center in New York, October 30, 1994. This effort. The Imaging Project, will create high quality digital images of approximately 1200 objects, using video recording technology and optical storage onto Compact Disks (CD). Once digitized, the images will: become part of a collections database for research, be used in a follow-on project in the Resource Center at the Heye Center, provide images to Fourth Museum efforts over the Internet/National Information Infrastructure, and be incorporated in a CD product similar to the "Treasures of the Smithsonian" interactive CD. In addition, NMAI intends to establish the use of bar coding tied to a collections infonnation database (to be created) as a method for tracking objects as they move in and out of the collections either for moving from one Smithsonian facility to another or while on loan to other similar institutions. NMAI proposes a demonstration prototype effort similar to the Imaging Project to evaluate the feasibility of bar coding before investing in any technological approach for the entire collection of over 1 million objects.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE RONALD COLEMAN

Question 97: I was very pleased to participate in the 1993 Festival of American FoUdife, and congratulate the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies for its Borderlands Program. I also want to thank the Smithsonian Associates U.S. and International Events for its activities in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in May of 1993. I think its is important to continue to highlight the contributions of the diverse cultures of our society, including Latinos. I also believe that the folklife programs continue to play an important role in highlighting this diversity.

Please explain the Smithsonian's plans for folklife programming within its 95 budget. To what extent will this programming interface with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES).

Answer: For FY 1995 the Center will continue its mission to research, present, and conserve grassroots cultural expressions. Major research will be carried out on the cultural traditions of the American South, on recent immigrants to the U.S. from Africa, on the folklife traditions of Iowa, and on the Smithsonian itself. The 1995 Festival will present two programs that examine the continuity and transformation of culture from home country to the United States over the course of several generations. One will be on Cape Verdean culture, involving Cape Verdean Americans largely in New England and people from the Cape Verde Islands. The second will look at Russian and Ukrainian culture in Russia and the Ukraine, as well as in California, Oregon, Alaska, and Boston. Other programs are still contingent upon funding. They may include Remembering World War II (the stories of veterans, home fronters, scientists, USO people, code talkers, Tuskegee flyers, etc.). Working the Chesapeake Bay (connecting the culture of the Bay to its ecology), and a world music program (illustrating the connection between root cultures and their more popular forms). The Festival will continue in its shortened mode.

The Center will also be occupied with research and planning for the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary program and the Cultural Olympics festival (in Washington and Atlanta) both of which occur in 1996, and in which the Center will play a major role in helping to produce. The Center will continue to work on a consultive basis with various communities and states to remount Festival programs "back home."

In FY 1995 Smithsonian/Folkways Records will pnxluce some 30-35 documentary recordings on a wide array of American and worldwide musical traditions. It will, in collaboration with various scholarly organizations, foundations and companies, produce various series for research scholars and for the schools. It will continue to co-produce and disburse its documentary collection through CD-Rom, CD-I and other hi-tech media products. While federal funds support Folkways archive staff and minimal preservation efforts. Folkways recordings are produced entirely from foundation grants, business contracts, and proceeds from sales.

Cultural education activities in FY 1995 will include the completion of two educational kits, one on Native American Cultures growing out of the 1991 Festival, and a

second on Borderlands Culture, growing out of the 1993 Festival. These multimedia kits for teaching school children about their own culture will include lesson plans, videos, recordings and other material, and are being developed in concert with teachers from the appropriate communities. The Center will be touring an exhibit on Workers of the White House, developed from the 1992 Festival, to all Presidential libraries in conjunction with the National Archives. The Center has toured several exhibitions through the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) including the recent Grand Generation on the folklife of the elderly. The Center is currently developing a touring exhibit with SITES on Maroon cultures (including the story of Black Seminoles). featured at the 1992 Festival. The Center will also finish a documentary film on the transformation of a Muslim holiday as it moves from the Middle East to India to the Caribbean to New York over the course of several centuries.

Aspects of Latino culture will continue to be included in research. Festival programs (for example, on the American South-including Texas), Folkways recordings (for example on Puerto Rican and on Cuban musics), and educational kits (on borderlands culture).

Question 98a: I appreciated the communications I have received from the Smithsonian regarding its initiatives to acknowledge contributions of the Latino community. In a letter of March 3, 1993, I was informed that "there has been no long-term plan nor integrated approach to address these contributions" and therefore the establishment of a "Latino Task Force" was announced to strengthen Latino employment and programs at the Institution.

Please review with us the full range and charge of the task force. When will the task force complete its work? How were the task force members selected? To who do they report? How long is their term of service? How will the task force recommendations be monitored and implemented?

Answer: The Task Force was formed to review existing practices and policies, evaluate their efficacy, propose appropriate changes and supervise the implementations of these suggestions. Its range was very broad, encompassing personnel, governance, collections, budget and public programs. The report for the Task Force will be released in May, 1994.

Secretary Adams and Under Secretary Newman invited Raul Yzaguirre, President, National Council of La Raza, to be the chair of the Task Force. Together, they then chose the other members, trying to build a group that would be representative of the many Latino groups in the U.S., the different geographic areas, and a wide variety of professional backgrounds. The Task Force members report to the chair, and the entire Task Force reports to the Secretary and the Under Secretary, and through them to the Board of Regents. Their term of service is one year.

The Task Force report, issued on May 10, 1994 contains suggestions as to the mechanisms that should be put in place for an efficient oversight of its recommendations.

Question 98b: With respect to Latino employment, I am interested in your providing for the record the actual numbers of Hispanics employed by the Institution by its various components, listing GS ratings, job titles, and length of employment.

Answer The total number of Hispanics employed by the Institution as of September 18, 1993 is 324 representing 4.8 percent of the total Smithsonian work force. They are employed in a wide range of occupations in 46 major bureaus and offices in the following PATCOB categories:

The detailed listing consisting of GS ratings, job titles, and accession date follows.

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Question 98c: What proactive steps are being taken to bring employment diversity to the Institution? Are you working with colleges and universities to bring qualified young people to the Smithsonian?

Answer: The Institution has developed an Affirmative Action/Diversity plan which is updated yearly. Each bureau and office is required to develop individual plans and provide updates on their accomplishments. In addition, the Institution's plan provides action steps designed to inform, train, support and hold accountable the managers of the Institution who are responsible for hiring. The Offices of Human Resources and Equal Employment and Minority Affairs, in particular, provide support and guidance to individual managers.

Finally, there are specific actions being taken to increase and monitor the representation of minorities in the workforce. These actions include, but are not limited to, placing paid vacancy announcements in publications directed predominantly towards specific minority groups, utilizing extended search procedures for professional positions and administrative positions above grade 12, the establishment of an applicant flow system which provides the capability to analyze data in order to identify areas with low responses from minorities, and the development and use of comprehensive mailing lists to notify specific minority professional organizational, museums, colleges and universities of vacancies.

In addition, the Institutions participates in collaborative efforts with institutions of higher education such as the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. An example of such a collaboration is a program being cosponsored this summer by the Inter-University Program for Latino Research and the Smithsonian entitled "Interpreting Latino Cultures: Research and Museums." This three week seminar has been designed for Latino graduate students.

Question 99: One of my objectives in raising these issues over the past two years as a member of this committee was to help establish a permanent and sustained presence recognizing Hispanic contributions at the Smithsonian. What is the status of the study call the Institute of the Americas? What is the goal of this study? What is the financial commitment to this project?

Answer: The study called the "Institute of the Americas" is under way. The Smithsonian currently refers to it as the Americas Endeavor, which is a working title. Institute of the Americas is the name of a west coast organization that has asked us not to use its name because of the confusion inherent in such usage. The final name and mission of this entity will be determined by the body of national and international scholars who will be asked to participate in the study, which will be a needs assessment. The Smithsonian has one-time funding of $1.SO,000 available for the assessment this fiscal year, and a request for SI00,000 in FY 1995 budget currently before Congress.

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