which are placed in the reference centers, serve to assure Member and staff awareness of all available material in these areas.

Mr. Chairman, as soon as the focus posters go to our reference centers and we circulate these Updates, we immediately get a flood of orders, rather than the staffs having to call and go to the centers and look, they merely fill out the order form and select the material appropriate to whatever their question is.

This mobilization of efforts which spans all of CRS is essential because the service simply does not have the resources to tailor individual responses to over 300,000 requests each year. Moreover, it is not necessary to do so. A well-designed issue brief or report that is prepared before a problem becomes a matter for widespread congressional concern can efficiently and immediately answer a broad range of potential inquiries.

A thoughtfully assembled "kit" of materials can fulfill the same function. Indeed, one out of every five requests is now handled through use of these prepared CRŠ materials. At the beginning of this session, our second Public Issues Institute provided a successful method of briefing Member and committee staff on forthcoming issues and on available CRS materials. These Public Issues Institutes we hold prior to the opening of Congress. Last January before Congress opened we held a total of 46 background briefings over at Georgetown University in the space of two days, ranging in subjects from alternative energy sources to SALT II and sunset legislation.

This, of course, not only provides an opportunity for staff to question our experts, but also for further distribution of our materials. By these means our research divisions are able to break loose some of their analysts from the press of immediate requests so that they can develop anticipatory response.

One of our major development efforts continues to be a computerized Inquiry Status and Information System (ISIS for the inevitable acronym). The inquiry status portion is intended to put all requests on-line, allowing a rapid transmittal of requests to research and reference action divisions, update and correction, determination of status, and workload planning. A detailed description of the status of ISIS development is included in the summary of responses to oversight studies which I have provided for the record. During fiscal year 1979 the office of every Senator and Member received analyses and reference services from CRS. We also served every full and joint committee of the House and Senate and 92 percent of all subcommittees.

The Service's already staggering volume of work increased to more than 313,000 inquiries answered in fiscal year 1979. This increase of 2.2 percent on a large base is significant in itself. Of greater significance is the fact that output of indepth analyses increased about 4 percent. Since analytical efforts require an average of about 9 hours of direct research time, as compared to well under 1 hour for the average informational request, the impact on our research resources was once again severe. This impact was compounded by an increase of about 19 percent in the number of major research projects requiring input by more than one division.

Our highly trained research analysts and specialists should focus their attention on substantive analytic questions rather than on

routine informational requests. To assure that such requests are handled at the appropriate level, however, efficient mechanisms for referral and transfer of requests is necessary.

I am pleased that, in the face of our increasing workload, research divisions handled 23 percent fewer purely informational requests this year than last. That means the pressures on the Congressional Reference and Library Services Divisions have been intense. It also helps to explain how we were able to increase the output of analytic products that anticipated congressional requests. Outreach assures that CRS products get to our congressional clients as quickly and efficiently as possible. CRS Reference Centers-featuring a combination of prepared CRS materials, basic reference sources, and trained reference personnel located physically in several of the congressional office buildings-assure that an increasing number of requests can be dealt with almost immediately. The number of requests handled in these centers has increased by 15 percent in the past year.

Mr. Chairman, we have a chart here. I think it graphically shows what has happened to workload in CRS. This bar is based on percentages. In fiscal 1973 there were 181,000 responses in that fiscal year and this bar is fiscal 1979, 313,000 responses.

You can see that the share of the work in the Reference Centers has doubled in that span of time. Our in-house reference services have decreased in share to an extent, but the prepared materials component of our work has doubled from 8 to more than 16 percent in that period of time.

As to information components of our research divisions, that workload has reduced substantially which indicates a shift of workload to our Reference Division and out to our Reference Centers. In turn, we have been able to increase the amount of research and analysis, the research and analysis component of our workload, from 12 to 15 percent.

Now that is just an actual measurement of increase in percentage of workload. It does not look significant, but it represents many more hours of research work than would be indicated on that chart. I think this indicates the shift in productivity and what we would like to do further in CRS.

[The information follows:]

Mr. GUDE. In addition, our legislative institutes have trained client staffs to perform quickly a range of reference work which heretofore would have resulted in calls to CRS. I would like to give a little illustration, Mr. Chairman, of the type of thing that we approach in these institutes to give congressional staff, whether they are located in committee or in Member's offices, a better handle on what they are doing.

We think we have high caliber staff on the Hill, on the Senate and House side, but there is a need to know how to work with CRS, how to work with basic reference materials, how to get a handle on the type of work the legislative assistant has to deal with.

One of the items in our basic legislative institute is what we call our basic reference shelf, including such humdrum things as dictionaries, as world almanacs, et cetera.

Just to illustrate how this type of training can be helpful and meaningful to a legislative assistant, we had a request from an office for a printout on the events in Cyprus for the years from 1974 to 1979. This we could have gotten from the New York Times Information Bank and so the project was sent out to one of our reference centers; the technician there, rather than running it, found that it would require 600 abstracts, would have cost $180 and would have taken about five hours of work.

So the technician thought he should call the office and indicate the extent of this request, which he did; the response was, that really what they wanted was the chronology of events in 1974. So we went back to the New York Times Information Bank and found out that the number of abstracts needed would be 800 for 1974 which would have cost $240.

At that point, when we called back with the second higher price tag, the requester said, what they really wanted to know was just the chronology of the Cyprus conflict in 1974.

With that, the specialist in the reference center indicated that we had an issue brief that already had the chronology in it and was available, a little further digging showed that the World Almanac, which should be on every legislative assistant's desk, already has the chronology in it.

In other words, within about a minute the legislative assistant could have procured the information that was originally requested and would have cost anywhere from $180 to $240.

We are not depreciating the congressional staff in this. We feel that by inculcating professionalism and helping them to think through a problem before they get into it, we can go a long way to serve members more efficiently and economically. This is just one example of the type of thing that we are endeavoring to do in our legislative institutes.

Our district staff institutes, which we are operating in conjunction with the House Administration Committee and the Senate and the House leadership, is a very successful program. We have a waiting list for it. One of the most popular items in that institute is the Grant and Foundation Workshop, which has been very successful.

Also the efficacy of training that is afforded by our Scorpio training staff is illustrated by the first statistics from a new measurement by the Library of usage of terminals installed in member

and committee offices. A projection of such direct use by Hill staff indicates that at least 20 CRS staff-years would be required to provide the same service to Hill staff.

Systems analysts of CRS have made the service a leader in the utilization of new technologies in the storage, retrieval, and transfer of public policy information. These analysts serve the Congress directly as consultants in word processing and micrographics, on the Hill-wide policy coordinating group, are playing an increasing role in joint projects with GAO and, most germane to this testimony, have made most significant contributions to the internal operations of CRS.

Applications of word processing technology through rental equipment have enabled CRS to cope with a workload whose growth has far exceeded growth in staff.

For example, to achieve the same production that one staff support member can achieve with a word processor, CRS would require 2.4 typists with typewriters. It would have required additional appropriations of more than $2 million during the 1974-79 period to provide the same level of service, had we not made these productivity gains.

It has become increasingly apparent to me that one of the neglected areas in CRS has been staff development. As the Service has grown and stabilized, more people choose to spend larger portions of their careers serving Congress. This increases the need for updating employees' basic skills, and broadening individuals' perceptions of and potential participation in related disciplines.

It is also apparent that the Service must invest more time and, as necessary, training funds, in management training, to enhance supervisors' ability to lead and to cope with ever more complicated labor-management relations. We have made significant progress in bringing outside experts in to train groups of CRS employees, often the most cost-effective method.

There is an expression, "the bottom line," with which I'm certain, Mr. Chairman, you are familiar. The bottom line in this budget submission is that I am requesting $31,589,000 for the fiscal 1981 budget. This is $2,899,000 more than fiscal year 1980 appropriations, but a good deal of this-$1,283,000 to be exact-is to maintain current levels of service. This includes a request for 73 new positions; most of these are to enable us to maximize the effectiveness of staff already on board.

Mr. Chairman, I am not insensitive to the prevailing budgetary winds on Capitol Hill, but I must note that this budget was carefully drawn, and it reflects the minimal needs of the Service as I see them. We are endeavoring to give the most efficient, economical service possible without sacrificing the high-quality service which CRS delivers to the Hill. I believe that, while we implement a certain increase of belt-tightening, we also must present the priority needs of a legislative support agency to its client, the Congress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Thank you, Mr. Gude.