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will take place throughout 1993. Of course, quantitative data, while important, do not measure quality, significance, depth, or many other important factors about CRS and its products and services.

Demand Management: As demand for services continued to grow while resources decreased, CRS appointed a group to develop strategies for how the Service could manage demand without sacrificing the quality and scope of CRS work. The group reviewed the guidelines and practices for accepting requests, establishing priorities among requests, and choosing appropriate levels of services to respond to requests.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

Like all research organizations of its kind, CRS must constantly regenerate a staff characterized by years of experience and significant levels of expertise on a broad range of issues. This regeneration depends, of course, on the Service's ability to hire, train, and retain staff. In conjunction with building the future capacity of its staff generally, CRS remains committed to pursuing the high priority goal of staff diversification. Both of these goals -building a quality staff and becoming more representative become especially difficult to

pursue in times of fiscal constraint. We have only limited opportunity to add or replace personnel. However, these twin goals remain an urgent and critically important undertaking for the Service.

Training and Development: The increasing demand placed upon CRS staff to remain on the cutting edge of the growing number of complex issues being considered in the Congress, coupled with the constraints placed upon the Service's ability to replace expert staff and finance training opportunities, pose challenges to the Service's ability to maintain and deliver

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the breadth and depth of expertise needed by the Congress. Resources to recruit, hire, and train have diminished greatly or disappeared. CRS must, therefore, explore all means to continue to build on the successes of recent years.

The Service is exploring creative ways to help provide needed professional development opportunities for its staff. For example, CRS is seeking to enhance opportunities for staff by providing in-house details, by filling positions as they become vacant with more entry level staff, by fostering promotion opportunity at all levels, and by searching for efficiencies which could free up resources for hiring to continue the diversity effort. Some staff have been reassigned in order to perform needed tasks in other positions; CRS has recruited experts in several active issue areas to work as consultants on a "no cost" contract basis; CRS has tapped into the in-house expertise of its staff to provide training both in issue areas and in new technologies; and CRS has used seminars, informal brown bag luncheons, and workshops to invite national experts to discuss national and international policy concerns with its staff as well as congressional staff (these experts often come at no or minimal cost to the Service). While these measures have been helpful, they are no substitute for developing the capacity to meet the critical training and development needs of CRS's diverse staff.

Staff Diversity. In recent years, CRS has established and vigorously pursued the objective of diversifying the CRS professional staff to make it more representative of the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the nation as a whole. Consequently, we developed and implemented nationwide recruiting programs, for which Library staff may also apply, to attract women and members of minority groups to our professional positions. Pursuant to an agreement with the Congressional Research Employees Association (CREA), we also implemented an internal

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staff members. CRS has also developed a strategy for implementation of the Library's MultiYear Affirmative Action Plan that is intended to eliminate under-representation and grade level disparity among minorities, women, and persons with disabilities.

In past years, we have devoted considerable financial and other resources to these programs. Our recruitment planning at the beginning of each fiscal year sets aside vacant positions and funding for these special programs as our first priority. We enlist the active involvement of senior managers and supervisors throughout the Service to conduct targeted recruiting for women and minorities. We also devote a considerable proportion of our travel budget to affirmative action recruiting, and pay for recruitment advertising in major national newspapers as well as publications with large numbers of minority subscribers. In an effort to sensitize managers and supervisors to the cultural differences that summer program participants may bring with them, we contracted with a Stanford University affirmative action official to conduct an awareness program. This enabled us to learn, through a neutral third-party, the reactions of participants to their experience here so that we could adapt our program to make the summer experience more beneficial both to CRS and to the participants. We have also expended a great deal of time and managerial effort in program planning and in recruiting, selecting, supervising, and evaluating program participants.

Through special outreach efforts beginning in 1987, we have added twenty-six members of minority groups and twenty-one women to our permanent professional staff. Although we have lost five minorities and three women through attrition, these programs have still had a significant impact on the make-up of our overall staff. As of August 1992, we had increased the proportion of minority analysts in every research division of CRS, with an overall increase

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from six percent to twelve percent. We also increased the proportion of women analysts in six of our seven research divisions.

Employment Programs for Post-Graduates and Graduate Students: We began these programs by hiring students for entry level professional positions using both 90-day temporary appointments and the Library's Graduate Cooperative Education Program, which offered the opportunity for 13-month extensions of employment upon completion of degree requirements and the temporary appointment.

In 1987 we negotiated and signed an agreement with the Congressional Research Employees Association (CREA) to implement the Graduate Recruit Program, which permits placement in a permanent position upon completion of graduate degree requirements and a temporary summer appointment. Permanent placements under the Graduate Recruit Program depend on the participants' success in the summer temporary appointment and on the availability of funding and vacant positions in the subject areas for which the participants qualify. In 1988 we negotiated and signed an agreement with CREA to implement the Law Recruit Program, which places selectees directly in permanent positions, provides for an accelerated recruitment and hiring process, and permits us to compete effectively with law firms and other employers of law students. That program permits third year law students to compete for permanent positions that are made effective upon completion of their law degree.

The Graduate Recruit Program and the Law Recruit Program have a strong affirmative action emphasis. Under these two programs alone we have added 35 recruits to our permanent

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Librarian of Congress instituted a Library-wide hiring freeze which is still in effect; as a result, we have been unable since then to continue our recruitment efforts under these programs.

CRS Target Series Development Program: The Target Series Development program, initiated in 1989 through an agreement with CREA as an interim measure pending implementation of the Library's affirmative action plan, was designed to reduce identified under-representation in professional positions in CRS. This two-year program (limited to Library employee applicants) provided participants with on-the-job training, developmental work assignments, and continuous counseling and support, including financial support for external training, to assist in achieving the potential to advance to the target position.

Since the fall of 1989, CRS filled six (6) permanent professional positions under this

program.

Recruiting for Other Professional Positions: To recruit for professional positions filled through regular vacancy announcements, CRS supervisors and managers are required to develop and implement an affirmative action recruiting plan to attract women and minority applicants for the position. The plan targets those groups that are under-represented in the job category of the position being filled. When funds are available, we place classified recruitment advertisements in national and local publications. For our senior positions we place advertisements in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other national publications, and in at least one other publication that has a large number of minority subscribers such as the Hispanic Link. Our supervisors and managers also network, contacting colleagues in their specialty area to make them aware of a vacancy. In all these recruitment activities, we emphasize our strong interest in attracting women and minority candidates.