Why should I be asked to start using Macs after eighteen happy years of IBM use?

Harvard is the worst place to learn about computers. At Virginis Tech, there is one computer assistant hotline, staffed by a competent group of technicians who can actually answer any question you might have.

While doing research for this piece, I tried to get in touch with the Office of Information Technology (OIT) to get information on how a Harvard undergraduate could access the Lexis/Nexis information database. This service can access government documents, legal decisions and briefs, news archives and other useful tidbits of information.

First, I called OIT General Information. The receptionist referred me to a promising number--the Computing Hotline. The person who answered the phone transferred me to something called network information. There, I was advised to call network consulting.

Finally, I was given the number for Harvard computer user assistance. I was greeted by voice mail, which put me on hold while my call was "transferred to a user assistant." I let the phone ring for about six minutes. Finally, a friend told me to press 0 before the voice mail message started, and I got connected to the user assistants in the basement of the Science Center.

Most of the assistants didn't even know what Lexis/Nexis was. The one that did referred me to the librarian's office. They referred me to the government documents division, where I finally discovered that undergraduates do not have easy access to Lexis/Nexis. What little access, they do have, they have to pay for. (Similar access at Virginis Tech, incidentally, is free.)

Lexis access is only available to Law School faculty and students. If I wanted to do research using Nexis, I would have to make an appointment with the Kennedy school and pay a fee to do a search. I also discovered that Nexis is available for a fee at Baker Library, but this is such an obscure bit of information that I doubt anyone knows about it.

So imagine that you are a clueless frosh trying to figure out how to get access to the Lexis/Nexis services or how to send e-mail to his or her significant other at Princeton. The OIT bureaucracy can be a frightening place.

This is the lament of the computer addict. Woe be unto all ye hackers who choose Harvard! Beware the flickering terminal! Dread the OIT bureaucracy! Clutch thy IBM to thy bosom!

Harvard has contrived to make an undergraduate computer-addict's life miserable. What a senseless waste of $5.1 billion.