(CNN) Secretary of State John Kerry has tapped a former career diplomat as an "email czar" to coordinate the State Department response to the myriad of document requests mostly related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which have strained the department's resources, officials familiar with the appointment tell CNN.

Janice Jacobs will serve as Kerry's State Department's Transparency Coordinator, charged with responding to Freedom of Information Act and congressional requests faster and more efficiently and improving the State Department systems for keeping records.

Kerry has sought to balance between trying to ensure the department promptly responds to the various requests without directly undercutting his predecessor and the Democratic party's presidential front-runner. Privately aides say he has been annoyed at the distraction the controversy has caused for his department, which has at times overshadowed his diplomatic efforts.

One senior official said Jacob's appointment was "born out of frustration" on Kerry's part that the State Department has come under fire by federal judges and members of Congress alike for not being responsive to requests by the public and Congress for documents, particularly over the past six months as questions about Clinton's use of a private email server have prompted an influx of inquiries and lawsuits.

Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Hillary Clinton, while U.S. secretary of state, checks her Blackberry on a military plane in October 2011. Clinton said she used a private email account for her official work at the State Department and that she did so out of convenience. But she admitted in retrospect "it would have been better" to use multiple emails. Hide Caption 1 of 7 Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Clinton checks her phone after addressing the U.N. Security Council in March 2012. Hide Caption 2 of 7 Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Clinton looks at her phone after attending a Russia-U.S. meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in July 2010. Hide Caption 3 of 7 Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Clinton types on her phone during a visit to Brasilia, Brazil, in April 2012. Hide Caption 4 of 7 Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Clinton hands off her phone after arriving to meet with Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal in The Hague, Netherlands, in December 2011. Hide Caption 5 of 7 Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Clinton speaks on a phone in the lobby of a Honolulu hotel before briefing reporters on the Haiti earthquake in January 2010. Hide Caption 6 of 7 Photos: Hillary Clinton email controversy Clinton looks at a phone with Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Philip Gordon as they wait in a Munich, Germany, conference room for a bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian President in February 2012. Hide Caption 7 of 7

The official added, "He is also bothered frankly by unfair criticism of some of our public servants that have been working hard without enough resources."

In July a federal judge lashed out at the State Department for what he called "dragging their feet" by delaying for four years FOIA requests from the Associated Press about Clinton's schedules at State and documents related to Clinton's close aide Huma Abedin's special employment status at State.

Both Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and Trey Gowdy, chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi have both accused the State Department of stonewalling document production to their many inquiries.

"Now that the agency is dedicating itself specifically to resolving the backlog of requests, I expect to begin receiving responses to my questions in a rapid fashion," Grassley said in a statement Tuesday.

A spokesman for Gowdy's committee, Jamal Ware, said the appointment reflected an admission by the State Department that it had not been complying with the group's information requests.

"Adding another person to State's bureaucracy to address the problems caused by former Secretary Clinton's unusual and unprecedented email arrangement will mean little if State does not address the obstacles that currently exist with its compliance," Ware said. "The proof will be in timely production, not late promises."

Officials say Kerry tapped Jacobs for her experience in leading reform efforts. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services in 2002, she was at the center of a major effort to revamp visa issuance policies and how the State Department shared information with law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The State Department was under pressure at that time to show it could prevent terrorists from entering the country with valid U.S. visas in the future, which led to historic changes in Jacobs' office.

Photos: Photos: Public figures, private missteps Photos: Photos: Public figures, private missteps Public figures, private missteps – CIA Director David Petraeus stepped down Friday, November 9, 2012, citing an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Many questions surround the affair, including why it was necessary for Petraeus to resign and the future of his marriage to his wife, Holly. Here's a look at other U.S. sexual scandals that led to political stumbles and downfalls. Hide Caption 1 of 14 Photos: Photos: Public figures, private missteps Public figures, private missteps – Former actor and California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made headlines in 2011 when his longtime wife, journalist Maria Shriver of the Kennedy clan, filed for divorce after learning Schwarzenegger had fathered a son with the couple's housekeeper. Schwarzenegger recently began talking publicly about the affair, released an autobiography and made a return to acting . He has said he hopes to win Shriver back Hide Caption 2 of 14 Photos: Photos: Public figures, private missteps Public figures, private missteps – Former president Bill Clinton's denial of his affair with then-intern Monica Lewinsky jeopardized his seat in the Oval Office. News of the affair surfaced in 1998, and Clinton became the second president to be impeached by the U.S. House when he was brought up on charges of lying to a grand jury and trying to influence the testimony of others but wasn't removed from office. He is still married to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Hide Caption 3 of 14 Photos: Photos: Public figures, private missteps Public figures, private missteps – Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, issued an apology "for a very serious sin in my past" after his phone number showed up in the records of Pamela Martin and Associates, and escort service run by Deborah Jeane Palfrew, aka the "D.C. Madam" Vitter is still serving in the Senate and is still married. 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Prosecutors accused Edwards of illegally using hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to keep his pregnant mistress under wraps, but he was granted a mistrial on May 31, 2012. Elizabeth Edwards died in 2010. Hide Caption 7 of 14 Photos: Photos: Public figures, private missteps Public figures, private missteps – Former Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, agreed to step down temporarily as the leading Republican on Senate committees after details came out about his 2007 arrest in an airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Picked up during a police sting targeting lewd behavior in the airport's restrooms Craig pleased guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge in August 2007. No sexual contact is alleged to have taken place but the officer who arrested the senator said Craig moved his foot to touch the officer's foot in another stall. Craig, who is married, said he did not make any "inappropriate contact." He called his guilty plea a "poor decision" and denied being gay. 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She would later become Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs in 2008, until she retired last year. In that post, she was tasked with clearing up a backlog of passport applications following new requirements for travelers entering the US by air to have passports. The record number of applications led to a massive backlog that caused long delays for millions of Americans attempting to travel abroad.

Officials said a "large volume" of the FOIA requests and congressional inquiries over the past six months have been related to the widening controversy over Clinton's email usage.

The ever-increasing number of requests and investigations, they say have put a burden on State Department personnel. In addition to bureaus who need to vet the emails for possible redactions, legal advisers and other personnel have also been brought in to deal with various lawsuits that keep growing.

Separate from the Clinton email release, the department is the defendant in more than a dozen other FOIA lawsuits relating to Clinton's tenure, with additional document production deadlines to meet for those requests.

Requests are also now piling up for documents from her former aides. In addition, the House Select Committee on Benghazi investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission has tasked the State Department for all documents related to Libya over a several year period -- a request that officials say could take years.

In May John F. Hackett, the Acting Director of the Office of Information Programs and Services wrote about the problem in a letter.

"Even though we are trying to be responsive, there is still a perception we aren't cooperating because when one is closed out there is a new one," another official said. "This is a problem that just builds on itself. "

In instances where the State Department has met its document release obligations, the review process itself has come under criticism for failure to redact certain sensitive information, including information from foreign government sources, which some in congress and the broader intelligence community say should be classified.

The State Department has been working in conjunction with a team of intelligence community personnel to vet Clinton's 55,000 pages of emails ahead of their public release, making redactions and classification upgrades as they go. In July, the State Department fell behind in meeting its monthly production quota set by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, but reviewers made up the deficit in August and ultimately exceeded their goal by releasing more than 25% of the former secretary's total email trove. The senior official said Kerry hoped Jacob's appointment would give "new energy" to that effort.

"There is a lot of red tape we need to clean up," the senior official said. "We need someone to cross cut the agencies and bureaus, get information cleared as soon as possible and tie this together."

The volume is not just related to the Clinton documents, however. State Department officials say FOIA requests for documents have tripled since 2008 and that the small State Department office which processes the requests is ill-equipped to deal with the volume. As a result, the senior official pointed to a "stove-piping of requests that has not led to efficiencies."

"Secretary Kerry's view is that the FOIA process is overwhelming and not properly resourced. The result has been a fairly sclerotic process and he wants to get someone in here working through all this."

In addition to ensuring documents are provided to Congress and released publicly in a timely manner, Jacobs will be expected to work with other agencies and the private sector to implement best practices and new technologies to improve the State Department's systems.

"This can't be done with just a band-aid or piecemeal," a third official said. "We need to be doing things in a better way."

Jacobs will also be responsible for helping the State Department meet targets under a new Presidential executive order for digitally archiving federal government records by 2019 and implement recommendations by the agency's inspector general. In an effort to respond to mounting criticism of his department's responsiveness to information requests from the public, Kerry requested in March that Inspector General Steve Linick conduct an expedited review of department efforts underway to improve records management.

Republicans were quick to point out that Jacobs contributed $2,700 -- the maximum allowed -- to Clinton's campaign on June 22, according to Federal Election Commission records. Jacobs, who made the donation before she took the new post, is a 49-year career diplomat who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that the department was not aware of the contribution, but "it bears no relevance on her position whatsoever."

Kerry "wholeheartedly believes that she's the right person for this job," Kirby said, adding that there is "nothing wrong" with federal employees making political contributions.

"This is a democracy," Kirby said.