Since its creation by the General Assembly in 1957, the Licensing Board and its staff has conscientiously endeavored to provide prompt, courteous and personalized assistance to licensees and consumers alike. However, faced with an ever-increasing volume of licensees, the Board has become more heavily dependent upon computers to perform many routine, standardized clerical functions.

For instance, to aid our records clerk, the Board recently installed a computer terminal linked by telephone to a central file storage system located several miles away. At Princeton, New Jersey, one computer schedules candidates for our licensing examinations, while another one grades the examinations and reports scores to the candidates. Computers print all license renewal applications and pocket renewal cards. Your Bulletin was addressed and sorted for mailing by a computer, and in many states, computers actually issue real estate licenses - an idea which is presently being considered in North Carolina.

An unfortunate by-product of computerization, however, is that numbers begin to assume more importance than names because computers can identify a unique number more easily than a common name and this in turn results to some degree in a loss of personalization which is regrettably unavoidable.

1. During our transition from man to machine, we request your patience and indulgence for any resultant delays in service especially during the upcoming renewal season; and

2. We request that you state your license number (not pocket card number) when communicating or corresponding with our office. This will enable us to retrieve and process your records more quickly and efficiently,