Environment Center Funded

Instead of hunting through Harvard's approximately five miles of bookshelves, students will soon be able to access all materials pertaining to the environment in one central location.

Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Provost's Educational Innovation Fund, Lamont Library will soon add an Environmental Information Center (EIC) offering Harvard resources and access to data from other schools.

The center will "support the University-wide program on the environment and will be a resource center for information," said Sidney Verba '53, director of the Harvard University Library.

"[It will] attempt to coordinate all the materials at the School of Public Health, Widener Library, the Law School, the Business School, and others," Verba said.

This type of center is found at "very few other universities," said Michael B. McElroy, chair of the University Committee on the Environment and acting chair of the environmental science and public policy concentration committee.

"We have been strongly pushing this for some time," said McElroy, Rotch professor of atmospheric science. "The center will be a unique University resource."

McElroy stressed that undergraduates will be welcome at the new information center. "[The University Committee] recognizes the need for student research," he said.

The center will draw information from the Internet, a global high speed communication network, according to Larson Librarian of Harvard College Richard De Gennaro.

"Libraries are becoming, more and more, gateways for information" located in other places, Verba said.

A director has not yet been appointed for the new information center.