For greenhorn typists prone to mistakes, Kemplesays typing up a paper was especially frustrating.

She says the excitement that arose fromfinishing the composition quickly wore off whenshe sat down to type it.

"Just to type one piece of paper,double-spaced, I always allotted 20 minutes," shesays.

But Kemple says catching and correcting errorsposed an even greater challenge than the timeconstraint. Although Eraseable Bond paper alloweda typist to erase an error with a pencil eraser,the process of fixing typos was nonethelessdifficult.

"You could erase easily but getting the paperback into [the typewriter]" was tough, Kemplesays. "I would clog up--ruin--typewriters becauseI made so many mistakes."

Even with the ability to erase, AssociateDirector of the Office of Career Services Susan M.Vacca '76 says excessive mistakes meant a lot ofwasted time. To avoid such squandered effort, shesays the typist had to plan well, especially inanticipating footnotes that required specificplacement.

"If you made too many messy errors on one page,it was gruesome and you had to retype it," Vaccasays. "Once your margins were set, they were set."

The challenges associated with typing a regularlength essay were com pounded in the case ofsenior theses. Kemple says that as a referencelibrarian, she often saw large groups of studentspacked into one of the Hilles typing rooms, allworking together to type up a friend's thesis.

And technological advances didn't benefit theaverage undergraduate for some time. As Vaccarecalls, the College maintained strict guidelinesprohibiting the use of Erasable Bond paper fortheses.

Acknowledging computers' technologicalsuperiority, many say there's just somethingspecial about typing out a letter on old SmithCorona.

"I don't see how anybody would prefer atypewriter," Kemple says. "[But] it is that sortof aesthetic experience. There's something verynostalgic about it."

Gallant, who has been collecting uniquetypewriters for about tow decades, says hiscollection now numbers almost 20 machines. He saysusing a typewriter forces the writer to pay closerattention to the task at hand.

"It seems to me that one writes at a much moremeasured pace," he says. "You want to form yourthoughts more carefully before putting them on thepage. You're engaged in a more sensual mechanicalprocess."

But Vacca says that best of all, typists werefree from the constraints of a computer's whims.

"There were no hard disk crashes," she sys. "Ifyou could hit the keys, you got copy.