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*TELEPHONE TRAVAILS*

Phone Office Problems Persist Due to Software, Late Lists

By Kevin S. Davis

Countless curious callers querying Harvard operators for student phone numbers this year have either gotten last year's listing or, almost worse, been passed on to the Registrar's Office.

Several of the University's graduate schools have been foiled by technical glitches in attempts to submit new student phone numbers to the central directory, said Nancy M. Kinchla, telephone production manager for the Harvard Student Telephone Office (HSTO).

Many of these graduate schools updated administrative software this year--but the new and better programs were incompatible with HSTO's phone directory database, Kinchla said.

But beyond faulty technology lies just plain human error.

Some of the graduate school registrars' offices have been late in submitting lists of students, Kinchla said.

The HSTO is still awaiting listings from the Law School and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and only received the Business School's listings last Friday.

Kinchla said undergraduate listings, however, were submitted before the start of the year and should contain fewer errors.

"I think that [this problem] is a one-time thing," Kinchla said. She said the HSTO anticipates all the problems will be resolved by tomorrow.

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