In 1984, for the first time in its history, the Copyright Office registered over one-half million The 502,628 claims registered represents an increase of 14,372 claims over the claims during a fiscal year. The Office continued to issue certificates of registration for routine claims 488,256 handled in fiscal 1983. (those requiring no correspondence) within the Office goal of three to four weeks.

constant since 1981. these were:

The registration workload was handled with no increase in staff; the staffing level has remained In addition, a number of work improvements made this increased output possible. Among cross training and redistribution of staff resources to heavy workload areas; a 3 percent reduction in the correspondence rate from 20 percent to 17 percent (two sections achieved an all time low of 10 percent); office-wide streamlining of procedures, including examining practices and cataloging rules, and installation of new and more efficient cataloging terminals.

In addition to the accomplishments in the registration process, the Copyright Office's two other major mission areas continued to experience significant increases in work completed.

The licensing function continued to maintain currency in the processing of cable statements, despite increased workload. This area has shown a 57 percent increase in work completed over the past 4 years; from 8,000 statements and 20 million dollars received in fiscal 1980 to 12,526 statements and 74 million dollars received in fiscal 1984.

In the public service area, high levels of responsiveness were maintained and in some cases improved upon. In one area phone calls were made in lieu of correspondence, resulting in more timely and personal service to the public. Work continues on improving our capacity to awswer inquiries from the public, and we have high hopes for the new automatic call distribution system that will be installed in December.

In fiscal 1986, the Office will take on an additional workload as a result of new legislation calling for protection of semi-conductor chips (mask works). The legislation mandates a Copyright Office response on all claims filed within four months of receipt. In addition to taking on this new activity, we hope to continue to show gains in productivity and in the quality of products and services we provide to the public. We plan to expand our employee involvement and labor management cooperation efforts; to develop inhouse training expertise aimed at minimizing training costs while maximizing the building of skill levels. In addition, we hope, through further emphasis on quality control, workflow improvement, product line processing, and development of streamlined application forms, to continue to produce more timely and higher quality products and services with stable levels

of staffing.