making an attempt to be more reasonable in our requests and understands that when we describe an item as hot, we mean it. As a result, we have had very few problems with printed material not being available at the time of floor This system will only continue to work well if the Scheduling

consideration.

office lets us know when a priority matter is being processed.

LEGIS

We are in the process of changing the LEGIS status step numbers and text and implementing a time stamp feature in the data entry system. This will allow us to more accurately enter status information as it happens on the floor. The time stamp feature will permit the system to order the information it receives in the sequence in which we enter it. As a result, as long as we enter the data in the order in which it happens, the chronological sorting of the data should be accurate. Furthermore, new status step numbers and new text within many steps will permit action reflected in the system to more closely resemble the action which took place on the floor or in committee. The status step system is still not perfect, but it is as close as it is likely to be for some time (provided these new features work out as planned).

The LEGIS system has enabled us to generate for the Congressional Record material necessary for the Record's Introduction of Bills and Joint Resolutions, Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions, and Reports of Committees. The Computer Center has also provided the capability to print a report containing the submission of simple and concurrent resolutions for the Record.

Delivery of Referred Bills

Additionally, there is one specific area where a change in present policy

will save us time and energy in the elimination of unnecessary paperwork. This involves the hand delivery of referred bills to committee. In the past, when a bill was introduced, it was the responsibility of the Bill Clerk's office to hand deliver a copy of the bill to the committee to which it had been referred. We received a copy of the bill from GPO, generated duplicate receipts on our printer, listing the bill title and the committee referral, and then had someone from Office Services deliver the bill and return to us the signed receipt which we then filed. We did this nearly 2,500 times this session alone. The fact is that when an introduced bill is printed, GPO delivers copies of the bill to the committee to which it is referred and keeps a record of this delivery. In addition, the Senate Document Room delivers

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copies to the committees, so it was determined that our work was unnecessary and redundant.

Therefore, on November 24, 1981, we sent a letter to all committees indicating that in January 1982 we would stop this practice.

Several committees complimented us on this reduction in paperwork and its associated cost savings.

Nominations

Again this year, considerable time has been expended on the further implementation of computer programs to automate the routine work of the Executive Clerk. With the exception of the Executive Calendar program, all the changes have been in connection with Presidential nominations. During this session of the Congress, nomination messages (other than nomination lists), committee reference and report forms, receipts and resolutions of confirmation have all been generated from LEGIS.

Executive Calendar and Journal

The program for computer-generated production of the Executive Calendar is now completed, has been tested during the final weeks of the first session, and is expected to be available for the second session of the Congress. As a part of this program, a more complete and detailed report on the status of nominations reported or confirmed by the Senate is now available on LEGIS. Work will continue in 1982 to automate production of the Executive Journal.

Enrolled Bills

In general, the quality of the bills and resolutions have improved typographically. The turnaround time, the time when it is submitted to the GPO for printing and when it is delivered to the Enrolling Clerk, has improved but not sufficiently enough to eliminate the necessity for "hand engrossing" many bills because the printing copy has not returned from the GPO. We will pursue this matter with GPO in 1982.

Precedents

The Parliamentarian's office delivered to the Senate on time an extraordinary contribution to its ability to function well, the computer file of all Senate precedents since the cutoff date for the latest edition of Senate Procedure. As a result, Senators and Senate staff have an up-to-date view of Senate procedures and practices available at all times by using the published Senate Procedure and Precedents file in LEGIS.

The filling out of the computerized file of precedents back to 1834 will certainly stretch the resources of the office, but the objective appears to be worth the effort.

The pamphlet, Enactment of a Law, has been extensively revised and will be published in the first quarter of 1982.

In fulfilling its responsibilities for advising Senators and staff on various parliamentary inquiries, the Parliamentarians answered upwards of 2,000 such requests since January of 1981. The staff has read for reference over 1,800 Senate bills, along with numerous Senate concurrent resolutions, joint resolutions, and House bills and resolutions.

Document Room Requests

The ever-increasing number of phone requests from government agencies and the general public became so numerous that Senate staff members were encountering a busy signal when calling the Document Room. In an effort to be more responsive to Senate offices, a new line for the use of the agencies and public only was installed in March 1981. At the same time, two old ordering phone numbers were changed, with the new numbers being provided only to Senate offices. During extremely busy periods, the Senate lines are given preference. Previously, Senate staffs, agencies, and the public shared the same two lines. The new system appears to have alleviated the problem. The 24-hour-a-day recorded message service for Senate staff use is still in service, and staff are periodically encouraged to make use of it.

Data Collection Forms

A recurring problem which the Daily Digest encounters is the failure of certain committee staff to supply our office with adequate information concerning the status of legislation. Occasionally, staff persons responsible for filling out the data collection forms for particular committees question their need and the manner in which they are picked up. Certain information the Digest office needs to reflect accurate bill status can only be supplied to the Digest office on these forms, i.e., Executive comments requested and received and subcommittee referral action. In addition, certain other information pertaining to committee meeting outcome is also required to be reported on these forms. Some committee staff members view this as duplicate work on their part since they are also required to supply this information by telephone to the Assistant Editor upon completion of meetings. The forms are used to

verify information collected by the Assistant Editor. In some cases, the Digest staff have discovered conflicting reports. Therefore, our Digest

personnel must continually emphasize the needs of the office and the purpose the data collection forms serve.

Scheduling Reports

The Digest office now has four computer terminals, one for each person in the office, and they are used extensively for input of hearing schedule data and committee action data and for retrieval. The staff has been continuously working with the Computer Center to develop automated hearing schedule reports for the day ahead, the week ahead, and the Extensions of Remarks which is published on Monday and Wednesday in the Congressional Record. It is hoped that in January 1982, we will have the capability to automatically produce all three of the hearing schedule reports from LEGIS.

Committee Scheduling Seminars

In March and again in October 1981, the Digest staff had seminars with committee staff to discuss the operation of the computerized system of scheduled committee hearings and meetings. These seminars were held because a number of Senators complained to the leadership about problems they face with conflicting committee meetings.

With the assistance of the staff of the Computer Center, we demonstrated the on-line information which can be useful to committee staff in scheduling hearings and trying to eliminate, or at least to minimize, conflicts in the schedules.

While these seminars have been very productive in the orientation of committee staff with the hearings file and how they may be used in minimizing scheduling conflicts, we feel that little can be done through this media to solve the problem, because the scheduling of hearings is the exclusive province of the committee chairmen or their scheduling staff.

Permanent Digest and Index

At the end of the 96th Congress, by direction of the Joint Committee on Printing, the Digest Index was discontinued. This was brought about after consultation by the Joint Committee with appropriate Legislative Branch personnel. The Digest Index was considered to be of minimal value, and the decision to cease its publication has saved money in both Digest staff time and in the publication process at GPO.

Congressional Record

During 1981, we have implemented new procedures in the Official Reporters office and made some modifications to the Record. The office maintains several

logs. The Staff Assistant to the Official Reporters maintains a log of all speakers and actions in the Chamber during sessions of the Senate. This log is copied hourly and sent to the Chief Reporter. Often aides come to the office before the editing process is complete and before entries have been made in the master log by the Special Assistant. When aides call for remarks that are still being processed, we are able to ascertain immediately, by use of the Chamber Log, the time the Senator spoke and the reporter who reported the remarks. This eliminates much uncertainty about who spoke when and which reporter had the remarks.

During the day, the Chief Reporter accumulates statements which are spoken on the floor but are not germane to the pending business. Uusally there is a request that the statements appear at an appropriate place in the Record. These statements are eventually printed under Routine Morning Business. We maintain a special log of these statements in order to answer inquiries from offices of Senators.

At the request of the Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Administration, there is now under Routine Morning Business a category entitled "Applications." Under this heading all applications for a Constitutional Convention are printed. Semiannually we will print a summary of all such Applications.

Late last year, it was concluded that it would be helpful, and indeed necessary, to indicate in the Record, when the Senate is in session beyond midnight of a particular day, the point at which midnight occurred. Therefore, when the Senate is in session beyond midnight, there is now printed in the Record a bracketed statement clearly indicating actions taken after midnight.

Often the leadership on either side will request that a statement of a Senator who is absent be printed in the Record. Formerly there had been a cumbersome procedure, in connection with such statements, and the text of the absent Senator's statement was printed in small type, while the headline appeared over the name of the requesting Senator.

Our new practice is to print the headline, then a parenthetical statement that it is printed by request, followed by the statement in large type, but preceded by a bullet.