TEXT PROCESSING AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (AMENTA).

Text processing and records management systems provide Senators, committees, and administrative offices of the Senate timely, cost effective control over the growing volume and diversity of congressional documents. Senate offices allocate substantial staff resources to the production, collection, filing, and disposition of a wide variety of publications which they generate and receive. Effective management of these documents is crucial to providing information to Senators and committees for their legislative, investigative, and agency oversight activities.

The objectives for implementing computer assisted records management and text processing systems in the Senate are to reduce the cost of drafting and printing congressional documents, improve the timeliness and quality of legislative documents, and provide rapid and reliable access to office and committee information.

Developments in each of the major application areas are discussed

below.

ELECTRONIC COMPOSITION AND PRINTING

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

The Congressional Record is the largest volume document produced by the Congress. Over 40,000 copies are printed daily and distributed as provided by law (44 U.S.C. 906). At the close of each session of Congress, about 2,500 copies of the daily proceedings are consolidated, indexed, printed, and bound as the official edition of the Record.

In January 1980, the Government Printing Office (GPO) began composing the House and Senate Journals electronically as a pilot test toward automation of the Congressional Record. The Journals were selected as the pilot project because of their similarity in format to the Record, and the fact that the Journal text can be composed and proofread over a period of several days in a production environment. In April, the GPO began electronic composition of the Extension of Remarks portion of the Record. All the required software has been tested and proven for electronic composition of the remaining portions of the Record in January 1981.

In conjunction with the long-range objective of reducing costs, waste, and duplication in the composition, printing, and distribution of congressional documents, the micrographics task force of the Joint Committee on Printing (JCP) surveyed the current uses of the Record with a view towards reducing costs of the Congressional Record program via microform production and distribution. In the coming year the task force will analyze the results of the survey and make recommendations to the JCP.

The objective for automating and standardizing the Congressional Record index is to provide informational content of the Congressional Record easily and rapidly to the Members of Congress as generators and users of the information. In the coming year the task force will continue to work toward automation of Congressional Record indexing procedures.

BILL DRAFTING

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The computer aided bill preparation system provides comprehensive capability to the Office of Legislative Counsel for drafting bills, amendments, simple and concurrent resolutions, treaties, and other documents required by the Senate.

In the past year the Legislative Counsel was provided an additional capability to print formatted committee print bills on demand with the Xerox 9700 page printer. Due to a limited number of Xerox fonts available, it was not possible to closely duplicate a GPO typeset bill. The remote site printing is used as a backup to the ATEX line printer and as an alternative to typesetting committee prints at GPO. Software enhancements were made to the bill preparation software to allow the Legislative Counsel to format and print two column tables compatible with composition at the GPO. In December, four additional computer terminals were installed in the Office of the Legislative Counsel for use by the attorneys.

Plans for the coming year include making enhancements to the system for improved productivity.

HEARING TRANSCRIPTS

On April 12, 1978, the Rules Committee approved the preparation of hearing transcripts on magnetic tape by commercial reporting firms in a format compatible with electronic composition at the Government Printing Office. Application of computer technology to the preparation of hearing transcripts enable the Senate to reduce the cost of printing hearings by the elimination of duplicative keyboarding, and to increase the timeliness of printed hearings for the Senate. As a result of Rules Committee approval of regulations, nearly 85% of all transcripts of hearings are supplied to Senate committees and subcommittees in this form. With this high degree of committee acceptance of the new technology, the cost of printing committee hearings has been reduced substantially.

In January 1980, the Secretary of the Senate, in cooperation with the Committee on Rules and Administration, began providing a verification of page counts based on computer analysis of the magnetic tape to accompany vouchers for payment.

COMMITTEE LEGISLATIVE CALENDARS

Committee staff use the Advanced Text Management System (ATMS) to prepare their Legislative Calendar for electronic composition at GPO, and the Senate Computer Center's generalized programs to extract key data from the calendar data base, and to create indexes of the calendar for publication. Ten committees are currently

using this system to maintain and print their calendar four to six times a year.

All committee calendars have been converted to the uniform typographic standard adopted by the Joint Committee on Printing to reduce the cost and to improve the timeliness of these congressional documents.

AUTOMATED RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

COMPREHENSIVE RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

A Comprehensive Records Management System is being developed to enhance the rapid and reliable retrieval of information from computerized committee data bases and micrographic information storage and retrieval systems for legislative, investigative, and oversight activities.

In February, the Rules Committee approved development of detailed design specifications for a Senate wide records management system. The design effort for the new indexing facility is in progress. The system is expected to provide improved services to the various offices of the Senate by providing on-line records management, indexing, reporting capabilities and retrieval through a modified SCORPIO data base management system. The system will be generalized to support the unique needs of the various offices and the ad hoc needs of the Senate committees by allowing each office to tailor the configuration to its individual needs. Stage one of the project will provide the user with records and report definitions, on-line data entry, term indexing, and on-line batch reporting. The Stage one facilities, once implemented, will be used to gauge user acceptance by selected pilot offices to assist in determining ways of upgrading the system. Stage two will provide additional reporting capabilities and the conversion of existing automated indexing system files and interfaces, such as the Correspondence Management System and the Newsletter Mailing System.

Plans for the coming year include review of the detailed design specifications for consideration, and if approved, initiate implementation of the system.

SPECIALIZED SYSTEMS

The Senate has developed several specialized systems for individual offices to create indexes to documents and/or document abstracts, cross-referencing, searches, sorts, and printed reports.

Plans for the coming year include an evaluation of all specialized indexing systems for possible upgrade or replacement and review of a proposed design of an automated records management system for the Senate Printing Clerk.

EQUIPMENT INVENTORY RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Equipment Inventory Records Management System provides the Sergeant at Arms with an automated method for maintaining accurate up-to-date status of equipment inventory, and for generating detailed and summary information from the data base in a timely manner.

The Sergeant at Arms submitted a requirements analysis for upgrade of the Equipment Inventory System into a comprehensive Accounting System for the Sergeant at Arms, and a recommendation to proceed with the development of a detailed design of the system. A proposed design has been submitted to the Rules Committee for approval and is now under review.

COMPUTER OUTPUT MICROFILM (COM)

COM is the process of direct recording of output from a computer onto film in microimage without the intervening medium of paper copy. COM is also the term used to describe the film resulting from the process, in either roll or fiche form. Microfilm provides offices and committees with ready access to office files, reduces storage space occupied by the same records on paper, and eliminates time spent in sorting and filing paper records.

As a result of the pilot test completed in February, the COM equipment will remain on lease to serve the Senate. A variety of capabilities and production improvements will be tested in the coming year.

APPENDIX

APPLICATION SERVICES TO SENATORS AND COMMITTEES

The Committee on Rules and Administration and the Sergeant at Arms provide a variety of computerized support services for the costeffective operation of the Senate. These services are available to Senators and their committees in three general categories. The Senate's Information Retrieval Systems provide Senators and their staffs with responsive access to information that will assist them in their legislative tasks. The Senate's Policy Analysis Support Systems provide the computer capability and technical support needed to effectively assist the Senate in the analysis of policy issues. The Senate's Office Automation Systems respond to Senators needs for orderly, controlled and cost-effective operation of their offices.

These systems are listed in alphabetical order beginning on the next page (p.#21).

TRAINING AND ASSISTANCE

Training and user assistance is provided by the Sergeant at Arms. The Senate's Educational Services staff will answer general questions relating to terminal use, and provide assistance in accessing the computer. Training courses for Legis, Scorpio, and ATMS include personal instruction, training manuals, and practice in using the systems via terminals (phone 224-1517).

CMS training is provided to offices by the CMS-Senate User Representative staff (phone 224-5912).

Questions concerning policy on computer usage should be directed to the Committee on Rules and Administration (phone 224-9078).

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