Patricia A. O'Brien's room on the second floor of the Office of the Registrar is orderly and neat--her desk free of papers, everything in its place.

But her job is anything but orderly. O'Brien is one of three people in charge of assigning hundreds of courses to classrooms, a hectic role she compares to putting together a puzzle.

In the months before registration, some courses are slotted into classrooms controlled by individual departments, O'Brien says. But the rest, about 80 percent of all classes, must then be put into about 20 percent of all available rooms.

"It's like a matching game," O'Brien says. "We think of all the factors involved" and try to make "the puzzle fit together," she adds.

O'Brien calls these factors "inventory." They include the room preference of the professor, the expected enrollment and whether audio/visual equipment is necessary.

Requests can be difficult to accommodate because many professors want the same rooms at the same time. O'Brien says this problem sometimes complicates her job.

"[But] professors understand the constraints," O'Brien says. "Usually [it's] something that can be negotiated."

For an office that is in "constant communication" with faculty and administrators, there is little personal interaction. Most contact occurs via e-mail and telephone.