It's 3 a.m. and you want to go to bed, but you have a paper due the next day. Your printer is making funny noises again, so you head off to your House computer lab to find that, of the two computers not taken by people writing e-mail, only one of them is working, and it doesn't matter anyway because the printer is out of paper. Sound familiar?

In response to annual fall student surveys including just these kinds of complaints, Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) recently completed a massive upgrade of House computing facilities, updating computers and making workstations more ergonomic.

According to Rick Osterberg '96, who is coordinator of residential computing support for HASCS and is one of the leaders of the upgrade, "Two years ago, most of our computers were these terrible 486s that were already almost six years old. We used our annual fall survey to establish that the computer labs were being heavily used by students, and we were able to go to [Dean of the Faculty] Jeremy [R.] Knowles to obtain funding to upgrade the computer labs."

Last year, all the House computers were replaced with 74 new Mac and PC computers, none of which is currently more than 15 months old.

"We're mainly interested in raising the quality of house computing across campus, and making each house as equal as possible," Osterberg says. "We try to give each House lab seven Mac or PC computers, as well as a laser printer."

But because the Houses are of different sizes, numerically equal computer facilities may mean crowding in some Houses and easy computer access in others.

Ryan Reiss, a chair of Pforzheimer House Committee, says he is very pleased with his House computer lab. "Our lab is actually really good. It's rarely overcrowded, even during the busy recruiting and thesis periods, and our UAs [user assistants] always come down to help you out if you give one of them a call."

But Pforzheimer has seven computers for about 350 students while Leverett has the same number for about 450 undergraduates.

Osterberg says HASCS is constrained by the space available in the Houses.

"The primary limitation on how many computers a lab can have is the amount of space available, not what computers we have," Osterberg says. "Some houses like Winthrop are very tight on space, so for them we'll only put in five computers, whereas a House like Leverett, with a larger lab, can get up to seven computers."

Osterberg acknowledges that different ratios of students to computers are a problem, but says, "Sure, [Pforzheimer] is the smallest house on campus, but it's also the farthest away from the Science Center. The best thing we can do is to just make everything equal. The Houses are all communities, and it's just better to have them all have equal facilities."

Averting RSI

Besides working to improve the number of House labs, HASCS has been working to improve the comfort and safety of computer use for undergraduates, especially in the wake of recent concerns over Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).

Recently, HASCS began outfitting all the House computer labs with adjustable ergonomic chairs, and are also gradually installing adjustable keyboard trays in each computer lab over break.

Julie Hassel, special assistant to the administrative dean within FAS, says similar steps are being taken to alleviate safety concerns within dorm rooms as well, where most students do most of their typing.