ML20003F342
| ML20003F342 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/19/1980 |
| From: | Felton J NRC OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION (ADM) |
| To: | Norry P NRC OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION (ADM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19284C410 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-81-13 NUDOCS 8104200634 | |
| Download: ML20003F342 (6) | |
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION V
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September 19, 1980 MEM3RANDLii FOR. Patricia G. Norry, Deputy Director Office of Administration FRCM:
J. M. Felton, Director, DRR, ADM SU5 JECT:
NRC's DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEM Entiosed are DRR's coments regarding Mr. Cornell's ce=orandu= cf Septe:.ber 9-1980.
We will be pleased to discuss any questions you :.ay have.
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J. M. Felton, Director Division of Rules and Records, ADM
Enclosure:
As stated 1810420 0 6M
DIVISION OF RULES AND RECORDS '
Response to Questions on NRC's Document Control System A.
General views on the usefulness of DCS In our view, the DCS is becoming an increasingly valuable tool for the storage and retrieval of information, and will become more valuable as the data base expands and the subject indexing capability is implemented. We believe the system definately should be centinued. While we understand that the costs of the system vs its benefits are an issue, we believe this problem can be resolved or minimized in two ways. First, as-the systea be:cmes better known, the various offices are requesting additional special services or equipment wnich, in turn, result in greater costs. We suggest that a review committee be established, cc prised of the primary users, that wculd be enp:wered to review all requests for se" vices and to assign pricrities within available funds. Seccnd, we believe a much core careful look must be taken at the type of documents which are being entered into the system to determine if their importance and expected use justify the C:st of entering them into the system. TIDC now has such a review underway, and my views on the ccst/
benefit aspect of the review are set forth in the enclosed cesorandum dated September 16, 1950. Additi:nal thoughts en hcw tc improve the general "afulness of DCS are discussed in item 4 below.
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Response to spe:ific questions (1) Are you satisfied with the services that the DCS has provided to ycur office?
We have found TIDC to be very responsive to the needs of this office and have held a number of meetings with TIDO, to resolve specific issues facing
2 the FOIA and Local Public Document Room (LPOR) programs. For example, we are quite pleased with the two new accession lists being generated especially for the LPDR Branch - the one for TERA backfitted dockets and the other a weekly list of documents transmitted to the LPDRs in place of the Central Files chron sheets.
(2) To the extent possible, estimatethe savings in terms of dollars or staff years per year you achieve now or will achieve when the system is fully implemented.
After subject indexing is imolemented and a data base develops, we believe there will be some manpc. er savings to the program and staff offices in not having to do as detailed a search for dccuments subject to FOIA recuests as has been done in the past.
In 1979, these Of# ices spent abou 3,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> responding to FCIA requests. With subject indexing and a good data base, it should be able to cut that time in half.
(3) If the DCS were terminated, what effect would that have on your office?
If the DCS were terminated, the program ecst seriously affected wculd be the LPOR program. A survey earlier this year indicated that a;crcximately on-half of the. LPDRs will run out of space in the next year and would have to be moved if microfiche is not available. The LPDR Branch has on order
.icrofiche reader / printers and related equicment for 62 LPDRs at a cost of approximately $110,000. It is in the process of switching the filing system previcusly used in most of the LPDRs to the filing system used in the DCS, and is using the accession lists and special computer printouts generated by the 005. The Branch also uses the DCS video terminal to assist it in answering reference questions posed by the LPDR staffs and their patrons.
3 All of the LPDRs have been informed of the microfiche plans, and are looking forward to the new system.
With respect to the F0IA program, if the DCS were terminated, it would limit our ability to quickly determine whether documents relative to a certain FOIA request exist.
It would further limit our ability to quickly gather information relative to a specific document; e.g. the number of pages, author, author affiliation, recipient, recipient information, file locations etc. Additionally, it vould inhibit our ability to quickly obtain a hard copy of a desired document from the DCS microfiche system.
(4) What might be done to make the DCS more useful to your office?
General comments:
We believe that the DCS would be more useful to our office and other offices within the agency if the staff were kept better informed of what the DCS can do for them. A monthly newsletter / bulletin type publication addressing present and future capabilities of the DCS (such as subject.
indexing) might go a long way in this regard. Also worth thinking about might be informal demonstrations, perhaps during lunch time, on terminals in the Phillips Building by TIDC and/or TERA since there are many people i
1 who cannot spend the time to attend the TERA training course held in the Ford Suilding.
Specific comments to nake DCS more useful to DRR:
(a) We would like to see the cpntinuation of the 24x backfit. As indicated above, about one-half of the LPDRs will run out of space in the i
next year, and the 24x backfit offers the only means of resolving their space problem.
In this regard, we con:ur in the findings of Don Grimsley's recent study entitled "A Review of the t;RC Microfiche Program."
4 (b) We would like to see the fjTIS monthly Docket 50 microfiche pregram begin again as soon as possible, and the program include all documents generated since March 1980 when it was terminated. We understand that under the new contract the NTIS microfiche will now be sorted by docket number and date instead of randomly fiched as was done for the microfiche received for January,1979 to l'. arch,1980. One cuestion concerning the NTIS microfiche that remains unanswered and is "Will mutliple 24x microfiche cards be made of documents that are filed in more than one docket so that each docket collection will te complete?" This is very important for the file integrity of the LPDRs which, in most cases, have the docket collection for only one clant and to not have access to the docket collections for other plants which a utility may own.
(c) We wculd like to have the accessicn number and file category pia:ed on each of the documents received frcm TERA as TERA is now doing for the F3R. The LPDR Sranch sends over 5,000 documents per month to the LPDRs, and they now must enter the accession numbe. and file category on each document by hand.
(d) We would like to have all FOIA re;uests backfitted and subject indexed to reduce the amount of staff time spent processing new requests on the same subject.
(e) We would like to see a more consistent format regarding TERA's input of FOIA recuests into the DCS data base, thereby allowing a relatively inexperienced searcher greater success in the search. The recomended format would be "FOR-FOIA, "ame of Recuester (full), FOIA Number, and date.
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(f) At such time funds are available, we would like the entire FOIA file microfiched, thereby eliminating the need for many file cabinets.
(g) We note in many cases that records displayed en the video tenninal and hardcopy prints of these records are of poor quality.
(This may be 1
a result of poor quality records sent to TERA in the first instance).
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