CERN Accelerating science

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Visitors to the User Area in building 513 will have noticed plenty of changes recently. The book shop has moved to the first floor, the area has been replenished with brand new PCs and Macs and now the UCO is going to be open longer and be staffed by two persons.

In the last CNL we explained about the outsourcing of the front-line staff and our efforts to improve service levels. As of the publication of this CNL the UCO will be staffed by two persons from 9.00am until 18.00 without interruption (except at lunch time, between 12:00 and 14:00, when there will be only one staff).

Computing Help Desk

The Help Desk "counter" will be opened to visitors when there are two staff present (from 9.00 to 12.00 and 14.00 to 16.00). With the new time schedule we feel it important to put extra effort in the telephone system and the response to mail enquiries. Two measures have been taken in that sense:

• The book shop was moved to allow the support staff more time to work on user queries.
• We have upgraded the telephone system such that we can accept several calls simultaneously, thus ensuring that user calls should always be answered.

Together with the new phone number, a new generic address has been setup such that mail should be sent to:

Computing Book Shop

There was a news item recently on the move of the book shop and the new organisation is described in this Newsletter (article "News from the User Support Bookshop"). Please inform Cobs.Service@cern.ch if you have any comments on the book facility.

User Area

The User Area has been upgraded due to the extensive usage of the service in general. There are still 6 X-terminals and the collection of high volume printers as well as colour printers for both paper and transparencies. The two MACs have been upgraded to the latest G3 models with a scanner attached and recto verso printer. With the 2 PC scanners, 6 brand new 300Mhz PCs have been installed capable of running either W95 or NT (please note that the two PCs with scanners attached run only W95 for software compatibility). PCs are 128MB RAM with 4Gb disks and one PC has a local printer. Should you have any comments on these new facilities or suggestions for new acquisitions, please note that the person responsible for the User Area is Hannes Schwarzbauer (Hannes.Schwarzbauer@cern.ch).

Documentation and Registration

New facilities have been put in place so that self-service documentation and registration forms are available 24hrs a day by recuperating specialised shelving from the old Computer Science Library. Manuals not available on self-service may be printed via a dedicated PC and locally attached printer. There are two display cupboards with samples of the books from the book shop.

For matters related to this article please contact the author.