Statement by the President Upon Signing Order Creating the President's Committee and the National Advisory Commission on Libraries.
OUR NATION is providing better education to more citizens today than ever before. The result of this expanding effort in education is a rising demand for information-and a tidal wave of new information touching every aspect of our lives: health, education, jobs, national defense, goods and services, transportation, communications, and environmental use.
But merely piling up valuable new knowledge is not enough; we must apply that knowledge to bettering our lives.
In our effort to do this, we depend heavily upon the Nation's libraries. For this reason, the Federal Government will spend, next year, more than $600 million in the library field.
But money alone cannot do the job. We need intelligent planning and advice to see that our millions are spent well. We need to ask serious questions about the future of our libraries:
--What part can libraries play in the development of our communications and information-exchange networks?
--Are our Federal efforts to assist libraries intelligently administered, or are they too fragmented among separate programs and agencies?
--Are we getting the most benefit for the taxpayer's dollar spent? To help answer these questions, I have signed today an Executive order creating the National Advisory Commission on Libraries, composed of distinguished citizens and experts.
I have asked the Commission to appraise the role and adequacy of our libraries, now and in the future, as sources for scholarly research, as centers for the distribution of knowledge, and as links in our Nation's rapidly evolving communications networks.
I have also asked the Commission to evaluate policies, programs, and practices of public agencies and private organizations--and to recommend actions which might be taken by public and private groups to ensure an effective, efficient library system for the Nation.
I believe that this new Commission, aided by public and private efforts, will bring real advances in our progress toward adequate library service for every citizen.
Dr. Douglas Knight, president of Duke University in Durham, N.C. will serve as the Commission Chairman.
Note: Executive Order 11301 is entitled "Establishing the President's Committee on Libraries and the National Advisory Commission on Libraries" (2 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 1192; 31 F.R. 11709; 3 CFR, 1966 Comp., p. 144).
The White House release containing the President's statement listed the remaining members of the National Advisory Commission on Libraries as follows: Verner Clapp, president, Council on Library Resources, Herman Fussler, Library, University of Chicago, Carl Overhage, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., Theodore Waller, president, Teaching Materials Corporation, New York, Wilbur Schramm, director, Institute for Communication Research, Stanford University, Launor Carter, senior vice president, Systems Development Corp., Santa Monica, Calif., Caryl Haskins, Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., William N. Hubbard, Jr., dean, University of Michigan Medical School and Chairman, EDUCOM, Alvin Eurich, president, Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, Colorado, Stephen Wright, former president of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., Harry Ransom, chancellor, University of Texas, Austin, Carl Elliott, former Congressman from Alabama, and Estelle Brodman, Medical Library, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
In establishing the President's Committee, Executive Order 11301 provided for its members as follows: "The membership of the Committee shall consist of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, who shall be the Chairman of the Committee, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology, and the Director of the National Science Foundation, and may include, in addition, the Librarian of Congress who is hereby invited to be a member of the Committee. Each member of the Committee may designate an alternate, who shall serve as a member of the Committee whenever the regular member is unable to attend any meeting of the Committee."
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Signing Order Creating the President's Committee and the National Advisory Commission on Libraries. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238872