v. 1 no. 1
February 1997

 

Tables of Contents

Welcome to IR Connection...

This is the inaugural issue of Lehigh University Information Resources' general newsletter, one of the ways IR seeks to communicate with faculty, staff and friends. We chose Connection as the title to emphasize IR's central mission of connecting the Lehigh community to information and technology that support the academic program and campus life. Other more specialized publications like technical bulletins and user guides will be forthcoming, all to be available in print, on the World Wide Web, and the network server. This issue of IR Connection also includes an updated, tear-out version of another IR publication, the Quick Reference Card. We recognize that communication must be two-way; IR needs both formal and informal channels for clients to communicate with and advise IR. Thus we have recently formed the advisory, review and support structure described in the accompanying article. I thank those who have agreed to serve on these committees, the IR staff who have worked so industriously to keep us connected in many ways, and the entire Lehigh community for its patience through the inevitable adjustments of a new organization. Arnold Hirshon, Vice Provost for Information Resources

Advisory Groups Named

To continue the strategic planning and restructuring effort for the new Information Resources organization an appropriate advisory, review and support structure has been developed that includes groups, both on campus and from the wider scholarly and technological community, to provide continuous feedback and advice.

This new advisory structure falls into three categories: standing committees, ad-hoc committees, and support groups like the Friends of the Libraries. Some of these groups are within the purview of IR to charge and appoint; others like the IR Visiting Committee and the Library Users Committee are created by the administration or faculty. The former is formed by the Board of Trustees, which combined the previously separate library and computing visiting committees into one. A proposal to broaden the scope of the latter is under consideration. This article describes only the advisory groups created by IR.

The Advanced Technology Advisory Committee provides advice regarding institutionally significant emerging technologies to be pursued by IR. The Committee aids in the assessment of the effectiveness of on-going technology initiatives and generally monitors activities of the IR Advanced Technology Group (see article on page 4 of this newsletter). Members will actively solicit needs, ideas, and opportunities from within their colleges and departments. The Committee held its first meeting on February 3, 1997. Membership: Bruce Hargreaves (A&S); Don Hillman (Engineering); Nick Ladany (Education); Tom Meischeid (Finance & Administration); Don Trippeer (Business). IR Group Leader for Advanced Technology Kevin Weiner serves as chair. The Computer Store Transition Advisory Group is an ad-hoc committee whose work is to be completed by December 15, 1997. It will consider the desirability and practicality of long-term solutions for providing campus with ongoing personal computer procurement and maintenance services. The Committee held its first meeting on January 15, 1997. Membership: Barry Bean (Biological Sciences); Ray Bell (Education); Terry Delph (Engineering); David Joseph (Residential Services); Doug Moesel (Business); Mike Kozma (student). IR Group Leader for Administration & Planning Services Sue Cady serves as chair. The Learning Innovations Committee facilitates the development and implementation of innovative learning methods, particularly those that employ technology to enhance learning inside and outside the classroom. As funds permit, the Committee annually supports projects to address the needs of students. The members of the committee elect the chair. Membership: George DuPaul (Education); Don Trippeer (spring semester Business); Susan Sherer (fall semester Business); Natalie Foster (Chemistry); Michael Notis (Engineering); Arnold Hirshon (IR Vice Provost). The chair for the spring semester is George DuPaul and for the fall semester Susan Scherer. Resource staff: Dina Wills (Faculty Development Coordinator); Kevin Weiner (IR Advanced Technology Group Leader). The Council and corresponding sub-councils in each College offer input on purchases of expensive resources (e.g., microforms, new electronic information access services) and current periodical subscriptions. The Council will make recommendations on requests to subscribe to new serials and corresponding cancellation decisions. Members include all department faculty representatives , the corresponding Information Retrieval Consultants, and the Collection Management Group Leader, Christy Roysdon, who serves as chair. Councils meet at least once per semester, with all-university meetings scheduled as appropriate. The Council held its first meeting December 5th. Contact Christy Roysdon by e-mail at cmr0 or by phone at 83049 for a complete list of members. The Council provides general oversight of the image of Lehigh University on the World Wide Web, nationally via the Internet, and internally. The NIC reviews and recommends technical and page design guidelines, and reviews the underlying organizational structure of the Lehigh home page but not the generation of the content itself. Its first task will be to review the newly designed Lehigh University home page. The Network Information Council will hold its first meeting in February. Membership: Frank Benginia (Registrar); Terry Boult (EECS); Bob Fisher (University Communications); Frank Harvey (Education); Steve Kraweic (Biological Sciences); Dan Reed (student); Kathy Trexler (Business). IR Group Leader for Information Management Services Joe Lucia serves as chair. The Software Advisory Committee considers and recommends significant academic software purchases (e.g. one-time purchases greater than $500) to the Collection Management Group Leader. The Committee will also review renewals of software originally requested through its action. The Committee held its first meeting December 4th. Membership: Marilyn Greenstein (Business); Dave Johnson (Mathematics); William Schiesser (Chemical Engineering); Wally Trimble (Journalism); Greg Tonkay (Industrial Engineering); Lee Tuscher (Education). IR Group Leader for Collection Management Christy Roysdon serves as chair.

Uniform Web Interface for Library Databases

Many commercial electronic indexes and full text databases on the Web to which Information Resources subscribes are now integrated into a single, convenient menu interface. Users reach the menu directly from the Lehigh home page by choosing "Virtual Library," then "Electronic Databases." The new IR Interface is the first selection on the page. Once inside the interface users can select the resource needed from either an alphabetic listing or a subject guide. ASA, the online catalog, is included in this listing with a Web-based interface. Lehigh University was one of the first institutions in the country to purchase and install the WebZ software from OCLC, Inc. that makes this integration possible. See page 2 for more on new index and full-text Web databases.

New Resources on World Wide Web

The Expanded Academic Index known as Infotrac, a general academic index, with many full text articles and some accompanying graphics, is now available on the uniform Web interface described on page 1. Options are offered to reformat the text and graphics for printing from the Web browser, Acrobat (a PDF plug-in viewer), or post-script. To appreciate the power and immediacy of this new version, try searching "growth GDP" as a keyword term to find several articles with graphics.

Contemporary Authors contains in one file information on more than 90,000 writers of fiction and non-fiction, prominent print and broadcast journalists, even selected authors who write in languages other than English. Most entries are for writers active during the last 30 years; however, literary "greats" of the early twentieth century are also included.

From February through April, IR will conduct campus-wide trials of two new Web-accessible database services--Congressional Compass and Proquest Direct. Congressional Compass, from Congressional Information Service provides a full range of legislative and public policy resources. The Proquest Direct trial will offer Web access to the ABI Inform business database, plus a broad group of full text articles in various formats, including image. Links to both services will appear early in February on the Virtual Library, accessible from the Lehigh home page.

Upgrades Compensate for Increased Internet Usage

By early fall, multiple upgrades to the computing and networking infrastructure supported the rapidly escalating use of local and global information resources. Every 18 months Lehigh's traffic on the local backbone and the Internet doubles, requiring constant upgrades simply to maintain the same response levels. Likewise, the use of computing cycles increases annually to such a degree that new resources are consumed quickly. The recent upgrades delivered substantial increased capacity in central servers, Internet connectivity, the high speed backbone, and telecommunications, notably voice mail.

The IBM RS/6000 Compute Server cluster was upgraded, replacing the CS2 system with 3 IBM RS/6000 model CTs, thus multiplying cluster CPU performance by about 270%. There was a net increase of 640 megabytes of memory and 10 gigabytes of disk space as well. This upgrade in turn allowed the old CS2 system to be moved to the Network Server cluster as a dedicated Oracle database server freeing other resources for expanded Web support. Lehigh's Internet connection speed was increased from 1.5 megabits per second to 4.5 Mbps by switching to a new Internet Service Provider, FastNet.

The last phase of residential networking on the main campus was concluded, adding the remaining contiguous fraternities and sororities to the backbone network. There are currently 1600 students using high-speed networking services from their rooms. Additional ports were also added to the voice mail system..

Lehigh Joins Internet 2 Project

Information Resources has joined the Internet 2 project on behalf of Lehigh University. Internet 2 seeks to develop a robust national technological infrastructure and related advanced applications for research, teaching and learning. The project came into existence in October 1996 when thirty-four universities announced a new partnership of major academic institutions,

selected federal government agencies, and private firms to create an alternative to the present Internet which has become congested since its recent privatization and commercialization.

As a charter member, IR has committed to providing staff for development and testing of applications, and to establishing broadband end-to-end Internet connectivity using high end new technologies such as fast Ethernet and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). IR will also participate at the executive level in the overall management of the project. Arnold Hirshon and Kevin Weiner recently attended a meeting of Internet 2 members.

Network development efforts will be directed to enabling a new generation of applications (e.g., media integration, interactivity, and real time collaboration) that fully exploit the capabilities of broadband networks. Teams of university faculty, researchers, technical staff and industry experts are expected to develop "beta" versions of a number of applications that will be in operation among the Internet 2 participating universities within eighteen months. More information about Internet 2 is available at its Web site: http://www.internet2.edu.

Laptops and Projectors for Classroom Use

Laptop computers, overhead projectors, and computer projectors have been purchased by Information Resources to address the need for improved classroom technology identified during the strategic planning process. About 25 Gateway multimedia laptops are available now for short-term rental to students, faculty, and staff.

These machines have Intel Pentium processors, active matrix screens, sound cards, built-in speakers, and a bay for a floppy or CD-ROM drive. During the fall semester the laptops were loaned on a pilot basis with no fees. The fees have now been set at $5 daily and $25 weekly. There is no fee when laptops are used in conjunction with the multimedia projectors for classroom presentations.

The InFocus multimedia projectors offer a compact, bright, and highly portable substitute for the more elaborate LCD panel/overhead projector combination or the more expensive built-in classroom units. These machines can project from VCRs, laptop or desk computers (640 x 480). Approximately ten of these new multimedia projectors can be booked for classroom use; several others will be installed in selected classrooms.

In addition ten new standard overhead projectors are being housed permanently in classrooms.

Bookings and rentals are made through the Media Center (call 83059), a facility operated by IR's Instructional Support Services Team, which also loans other instructional equipment including VCRs, slide projectors, and audio cassettes players.

New Software Suites, Windows 95 Added

Information Resources has entered into Educational Site License agreements for WordPerfect Academic Suite 7 from Corel and Scientific Workplace from TCI Software. In combination with the upgrade of public sites to 16MB of RAM and Windows 95, users have increased power and functionality for both general and scientific word processing.

The WordPerfect suite includes an Internet Publisher to help the novice create home pages or other html documents for the World Wide Web. There are several other useful new features in the word processor. The Corel CD is available to Lehigh students, staff, faculty, and departments from the Bookstore for $10. It is free to students in the WIRED program.

Scientific Workplace offers technical word-processing with many features specifically designed for mathematical applications. For instance, it will create mathematics and text on the same screen, export ASCII LaTeX documents across operating platforms and the Internet, produce professional-quality documents via the TeX typesetting language, and use multiple font types. Scientific Workplace is quickly becoming the standard scientific publishing software. A subset of Maple is built into Workplace to facilitate solving problems of modest complexity.

Professor William Schiesser in the Chemical Engineering Department has been using this software for two years. In an interview he noted that Scientific Workplace is particularly useful for teaching Engineering 1 because he can project lecture notes during class, then output them to a LaTeX file and mount them as online lecture notes. In the future he may require the 400 students in Engineering 1 to write their reports using Workplace.

The software can be obtained by contacting Client Services Software Specialist Doris Oravec by e-mail at dao1 or by phone at 84592.

Advanced Technology Group to Collaborate with Faculty

Leadership in technology is essential for building Lehigh University's competitive advantage. As part of its new structure, Information Resources has established an Advanced Technology Group (ATG) under the direction of Kevin Weiner to evaluate emerging trends relative to client needs and to deploy them in real services as soon as practical.

New technologies under consideration are those not already in use on campus or in use only in a very limited way, or those proposed for an especially innovative application. The ATG is particularly committed to supporting and coordinating interdisciplinary efforts leading to the widest possible utilization on campus.

Many research programs on campus are geared specifically toward advancing the state of the art in areas related to IR service offerings. By combining the expertise in these academic areas with IR resources, Kevin expects results that far surpass what IR could accomplish alone. IR will offer professional analysis, design and project management services, test beds for live research, equipment, and some funding opportunities.

An internal IR task force has identified promising areas for initial activity and a structure in which to address them. The task force has clustered together a manageable number of technologies for evaluation, pilot testing, and investigation. The complete list and further information about the ATG can be viewed at http://www. lehigh.edu/~inatg/atg.html.

IR staff members who have been named to the Advanced Technology Team are: Blair Bernhardt, Joe Lucia, Mark Miller, George Motter, Steve Roseman, Tom Smull, and Randy Wambold.

Faculty input was garnered during the planning stage and will be continued on a permanent basis through a formal Advanced Technology Advisory Committee. See page 7 for the membership of this Committee. Faculty are invited to contact the Group by calling extension 83991, or sending e-mail to krw1. ATG welcomes ideas and insights related to advanced information services from all members of the campus community.

New Desktop Consultants

Client Services Group Leader Tim Foley announces the names of three new Desktop Computing Consultants: Gale Fritsche, Bob Kendi, and Brad Price. Bob Kendi and Brad Price transferred from the Computer Store into the Business and Engineering College Teams respectively. Gale Fritsche comes to Lehigh from Albright College where he coordinated academic computing services. He is assigned to the College of Arts and Sciences Team. Recruitment is currently underway for additional Client Services Consultants in Information Retrieval, Desktop Computing, and Enterprise Information.

Journal Tables of Contents Online

Faculty can now keep current with the publication of literature in their field by receiving journal tables of contents directly to their own e-mail accounts on a weekly basis. Each user creates an individual profile by selecting up to 50 journals from among the 17,000 offered. Up to 25 keyword searches on topics of interest can also be formatted to run weekly on new entries

to the contents database. For example, you might wish to follow the literature on "attention deficit disorder" or "Bosnian refugees" this way. As of January 20th the database was expanded to include an average of 600 new book titles weekly as well.

Uncover Reveal, as the service is known, has already proven widely popular at other institutions. More than 80 faculty and staff members have enrolled in the program since its initiation at Lehigh this past fall. Several librarians at Lehigh have used it for more than a year and have been impressed with its timeliness, convenience, and ease of use.

Articles of interest not owned by Lehigh can be borrowed through Interlibrary Loan. Like most other services Interlibrary Loans requests can be placed electronically via the network server (choose LIBRARY, then REQUESTS). It is also available through the World Wide Web (choose Virtual Library, then Request Forms).

To enroll in this free service faculty may register using either the Network Server (choose Uncover) or the World Wide Web (http://www.carl.org/ reveal). A mailing to faculty at the end of the fall semester offered self-help directions to enroll in the service. Contact your college or stem Information Retrieval Consultant for assistance in the registration process.

Izenour Donates Papers to Special Collections

George C. Izenour, noted theater architect and acoustical engineer, recently donated his papers and personal library to Lehigh University. Mr. Izenour designed the acoustics in the theaters of the new Zoellner Arts Center. His gift includes correspondence, photographs, and glass slides which are being processed for use by students and scholars. They will be housed in Special Collections and an additional gift of his architectural drawings, planned for later this year, will be housed in the Lehigh University Art Galleries..

IR Teams Offers Store Services

As of January 2, 1997, the Information Resources Client Services Group and the IR Technical Installation and Maintenance Services Team began providing the technical advice and maintenance services respectively that were formerly offered through the campus retail Computer Store. IR continues to offer departments both warranty and after-warranty on-site maintenance for recommended computers: Zenith, Gateway, IBM, and Apple. All former Computer Store regular staff have been retained within IR and are closely involved with providing services in which they have developed expertise.

Separate guides for departments (blue) and students (ivory) were mailed at the end of the fall 1996 semester detailing how services would be delivered in the new model. For instance, purchase of computers by campus departments will be done through the Purchasing Office. Student and departments will be able to purchase Ethernet cards and cables at the Lehigh Bookstore. The Bookstore will also expand its collection of computer software and supplies. IR will no longer provide after-warranty maintenance services for staff who purchased computer systems from the Store. After-warranty services to students will expire as those students graduate from Lehigh.

An online copy of the guides and additional information relating to computer hardware and software purchase and maintenance such as maintenance policies, links to vendor Web pages, and a question/answer board are available at http://www.lehigh.edu/~inmic/ir_chwsw.html.

The ad-hoc Computer Store Transition Group described on page 7 has established a conference on the network server to solicit input on future campus services and service models relating to the purchase of computer hardware and software. This conference is called COMPFUTURE and offers the campus community a broad avenue for contact with the Group although Group members will not necessarily respond to individual postings. As their work continues and progresses, additional opportunities for more focused input will be developed. The COMPFUTURE conference is also accessible from the Web page.

About IR Connection

IR Connection is the newsletter of Lehigh University Information Resources, 8A E. Packer Avenue, Bethlehem, PA 18015-3170. IR is a new unit merging computing, libraries, and telecommunications services. This news-letter is published 4 times per year and mailed to faculty and staff. Please address questions and comments to Susan Cady, editor, by phone at 610-758-4645 or by e-mail at sac0@lehigh.edu. The Web version is located at http://www.lehigh.edu/~inluir/connect/.