University of Virginia Library

'Soundings'

U.Va. Directory
Called Inaccurate

By John Casteen

The University Union should
think seriously about ending its
working agreement with Plains
Publications, producer of the current
University Directory, and finding
some other means to prepare
future directories. Specifically, the
Union should investigate use of
University facilities, including the
Computer Center and perhaps the
printing office.

This year's Directory is a notably
poor piece of work. It is
incomplete, frequently vague, frequently
inaccurate, and not especially
well produced. Both the
Cavalier Daily and the Daily Progress
ran articles exploring its many
faults when it first appeared last
fall. One or two representative
defects (and there must be hundreds
of them) will serve to indicate
the range of faults that exist on
virtually every page.

First, important numbers are
often either not listed or needlessly
hard to find. In the Departmental
Directory (blue pages with black
borders, except that the borders
don't begin until the letter M), the
English Department's main telephone
number (extension 3058) is
not listed. If you need to find that
number, you must run your finger
through the sixty-odd listed names
until you find the names of the
department's secretaries, who are
listed out of alphabetical order at
the end of the department. Then
you must cross-check the name of
the first-listed secretary in the
Faculty and Staff Section (blue
pages without borders), where you
find the department's number listed
beside Mrs. Emily Boudman's
name.

Second, the Directory is often
short on needed or helpful information
and long on useless or little
used information. Under "Libraries"
(page 16) you will find
single-entry listings, without staff
names, for each of the Alderman
Library's divisions. Don't look
under "Alderman Library," because
there is no such entry. But for the
Law and Medical Libraries (still
listed under "Libraries") you will
find complete listings including
shelvers and secretaries. Under
"Clinch Valley College" and
"George Mason College" you will
find complete faculty listings for
each department (although you will
not find these persons' names in the
separate Faculty and Staff Section).
But under "General Studies, School
of" you will find only administrators,
secretaries, and librarians
for each of the other associated
colleges and centers.

Third, listings are often inaccurate.
Students' numbers often
prove wrong when dialed. Staff
names are about as often as not
misspelled or simply wrong. And
even office numbers are frequently
incorrect. There seems to be no
consistency about listings. Useful
information is generally hard to
find. Apparently useless information
leaps out at the reader from
every page.

The problem is that the Directory
is a jobber's product rather
than a University Union product.
We cannot find even a single
reference to the Union's sponsorship
of the Directory, and an
announcement on page 189 suggests
that it is completely Plains
Publication's baby. The programmers
and printers who made it
up know little or nothing about this
university's make-up. They print
any number of directories each
year, and all of them are alike.

There is precedent for cancelling
the deal with Plains Publications.
Recent directories at the University
of Illinois were prepared - more or
less - by this firm. After reviewing
the sloppy job done on last year's
directory, University of Illinois
administrators investigated their
own computer and printing facilities
and learned that they could
produce a better, more accurate
and serviceable directory - at a
lower cost per copy - right in
Urbana. Accordingly, this year's
University of Illinois directory is a
locally done job, and it has turned
out to be exactly what it promised
to be - a good directory.

We can do the same thing here,
and we should. A poorly done
directory is almost as bad as no
directory at all. As the University
community expands, its reliance on
its internal communications system
becomes greater. And that system is
no more useful than its directory.
The University of Illinois is three
times as large as we are. Its
experience with a locally prepared
directory shows that we are not too
large to do our own. The University
already has a large computer
installation; others can be leased if
the University's is overworked. The
University also has a well established
printing office which
produces most other University
publications. There is simply no
reason for us to continue tolerating
bad work from the folks at
Lubbock, Texas 79417.