Serving Congress is the Library's highest priority. During the year, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), along with other Library service units, ensured timely congressional access to the Library's resources, both personnel and collections. CRS delivered nearly 800,000 research responses to members of Congress and committees. CRS developed an electronic briefing book on "Elections Reform" and continually updated the electronic briefing book on the subject of terrorism.
Congress turned increasingly to the online Legislative Information System (LIS), as evidenced by a 20 percent increase in system use from last year's level. During the year, a new LIS Alert service was offered, which notifies users by e-mail when new bills are introduced and provides updates on their status. In addition to this enhancement, an LIS disaster recovery server was tested, and software was developed to detect inadvertent or unauthorized alteration of legislative files.
The Law Library staff answered more than 2,000 requests from congressional users and produced 578 written reports for Congress. In response to congressional interest in the approaches to anti-terrorist strategies undertaken by legislatures around the world, the Law Library compiled several multinational, anti-terrorist studies, including a 347-page comprehensive analysis of anti-terrorist legislation, regulations and enforcement initiatives covering 24 European jurisdictions.
During the year, the Law Library made progress on the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), an online parliament-to-parliament cooperative exchange of laws and legal materials from some 40 countries and institutions. Seventeen of these jurisdictions contributed records themselves; the records of an additional 23 countries were entered by the Law Library staff. Legal analysts in the Law Library added 2,663 laws to the GLIN database covering 23 jurisdictions. The GLIN Web site was accessed more than 400,000 times during the year.
The Copyright Office provided policy advice and technical assistance to Congress on important copyright laws and related issues such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the setting of royalty rates for webcasting, distance education, and Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) reform. The Copyright Office also responded to numerous congressional inquiries about domestic and international copyright law and registration and recordation of works of authorship.
In addition to assisting members of Congress and their staff in making use of the Library's collections, services and facilities, the Congressional Relations Office, along with other Library offices, worked with member and committee offices on current issues of legislative concern such as e-government, digital storage and preservation, construction of the Capitol Visitors Center, and documentation of the experiences of the nation's veterans and the history of the House of Representatives.
