Allen E. Janik, a monograph cataloguer at theDivinity Schools' Andover-Harvard TheologicalLibrary, said in an e-mail message to The Crimsonthat his library uses e-mail for "memos,information sharing, questions/answers, meetingagendas and minutes, social activities andpersonal messages."

Kyungmann Kim, a statistcian at the School ofPublic Health, says he reads news items ofinterest via Usenet and does some research usingvarious information servers available over thenetwork.

In addition, Many faculty members are using thenetwork in their classes. Assistant Professor ofComputer Science Margo I. Seltzer, who teaches herdepartment's introductory course, "ComputerScience 50," is one of several faculty members whorequire their students to have e-mail accounts.

Some courses such as "Literature and Arts B-77:Worlds of Music--Africa," have set up their ownnews groups for announcements and discussions, andteaching fellows and professors in virtually allfields communicate with their students overe-mail.

"It's pretty clear that within the next year orso some significant number of the faculty willwant to use computers in their work," says Dean ofthe Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin,who co-chairs the Faculty of Arts and Sciencescommittee on information technology.

Martin says that even those professors who donot currently use the network may have to learnhow.

"Students have found it useful and effectivefrom the soundings we've done and the pulses we'vetaken," Martin says. "Once the vast majority ofstudents are using computers, they will tow theprofessors."

But with so many students crammingHarvard's stretch of the information superhighway,there have already been numerous traffic jams.Some undergraduates report that slowdowns on theHarvard computers connected to the Internet havedelayed e-mail messages for as long as five days.

"They're trying to put more users on but theirefforts to keep the system up to that level arejust not there," says Corwyn Y. Miyagishima '96,who is editor-in-chief of the Harvard ComputerReview. "Things are getting better but they arenot as good as they should be... They should justmake it so there isn't so much stress on thesystem."

David A. Sherwood '95, a transfer student fromColumbia who concentrates in computer science,says Harvard's computers are "very slow" incomparison with those he used at Columbia.

"The system is so slow here," Sherwood says."The main systems crash all the time. They areoverloaded."

Ouchark acknowledges that the University'ssystem is simply not equipped to handle thecurrent volume. He says that, for at least an houror two each week, the high volume of e-mail andother work on the network disrupts Harvard'ssystem. There is no immediate way to fix theproblem, Ouchark says.

"We're basically in a reactionary role,"Ouchark says. "We don't have the people or budgetresources to deal with it."

Steen the HASCS acting director, says he hasordered a second computer server--which should bein place within 45 days--to help increase thespeed of network.

The director says HASCS is going through"growing pains."