In the past, UNM has printed a new campus telephone directory every fall. But that’s not the case this year as UNM’s directory has gone to a new and powerful online telephone directory with excellent search capabilities.
“The new online directory is more complete than the paper directory and it’s current and up to date,” said Chief Information Officer Bill Adkins. “The printed directory is a point-in-time copy of the online directory, which means that the printed directory is out of date as soon as it goes to press. The online directory’s self-service feature provides the ability for daily updates, so it is as accurate as the last update entry throughout the year.”
In the past, approximately 16,000 directories were printed for distribution across campus. Typically, many of those directories ended up in the trash.
Additionally, many departments across campus did not distribute directories to every member of their staff and CIRT ended up with about half of the directories to recycle. The possibility of printing fewer directories was explored, but that option wasn’t cost-effective.
“In conjunction with the executive leadership of the university, including the president, provost and senior leadership at the Health Sciences Center, we decided to join other universities and discontinue printing an environmentally unfriendly book containing information that rapidly becomes obsolete,” Adkins said.
University officials are also aware that not all employees have online access as part of their daily jobs. Information Technology Services will remedy that by producing PDF files of the various departmental and faculty/staff portions of the directory. The PDFs, which will be created twice a year in the fall and spring, will provide the ability to print one or more of those sections on departmental printers on demand.
Adkins also said that UNM Digital Printing and Document Services will print the PDF files on demand for whoever wishes to pay for the service.
The online directory can be found on the UNM homepage or at: Online UNM Directory.
Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at December 5, 2006 04:32 PM