Radcliffe to Introduce New Hotline for Women

Students and administrators at Radcliffe College are putting together a new computer database to collect all the information related to women around Harvard and the Boston area into one easily accessible form.

The Women's Information Services Hotline (WISH) will be an on-line system--much like the University libraries' Harvard On-Line Library Information System (HOLLIS). It will be accessible through a terminal in the Lyman Common Room or by calling reference assistants in the common room.

The system, which is scheduled to be released as early as this May, is billed as a "comprehensive" system by students and administrators working on the project.

Not only would it catalogue women's groups at the College, but also in all the University's graduate schools and in the Boston area, they said. The system will also serve as a formal networking tool--listing tutors, graduate students and professors who are researching women's issues.

Finally, the service will list doctors at the University Health Services (UHS) that are particularly sensitive to certain issues, such as eating disorders and rape. It will also list alternatives, such as community health clinics and Boston area hospitals, to UHS, project coordinators said.

"Instead of doing this by word-of-mouth, which is the way most of this sort of information is passed, [WISH] will be a more accessible and less haphazard system for doing this," said Margaret H. Robertson '92, the hotline's main organizer.

Administrators at Radcliffe say they are delighted with the new system and hope that it will be a valuable resource to women at the University.

"I'm really pleased both that an idea I had is coming into fruition and that it is being matched by needs expressed by the students and that they are doing such a good job of putting it together," said Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson.