B-School's HOLLIS Delayed

The Business School's Baker Library will not offer Harvard's new computerized catalog system to the public until next month, the library's director said yesterday.

Late equipment deliveries and a slower but cheaper installation process have delayed the HOLLIS system's arrival, said Baker Librarian Mary V. Chatfield.

Baker is the only major school library at the University without the system except the Graduate School of Design, which uses HOLLIS only for interlibrary record keeping.

Chatfield said yesterday that the library chose to transmit HOLLIS signals to the public terminals by standard telephone lines instead of by "relatively expensive" specialized HOLLIS cables. She also said "a small technical problem" was causing difficulties in the linkup between Baker and the main HOLLIS computer.

"We're not doing the cabling that some of the other libraries are doing," Chatfield said, adding that the decision was mainly based on University plans to renovate Baker in the next few years. Any extra wiring in the building, now almost 60 years old, would probably be replaced during the renovation.

Chatfield added that there will be several differences between Baker's hardware and the HOLLIS machines in other libraries but said the changes will be invisible to the user.

Baker's HOLLIS terminals will also have new, additional software when the system opens to the public. The programs, available primarily for B-School students, will search more efficiently within the Baker collection, Chatfield said.

Although the Baker staff has had access to HOLLIS for several years, several library workers said the system they now have is too complicated for easy use.

Most of Baker's materials acquired since 1979 are listed on HOLLIS, Chatfield said, so those looking for materials at the library can use HOLLIS terminals anywhere on campus.