Wednesday. April 27,1955 University Daily Kansan
Page 9
IBM Used for Many Tasks of University Agencies
By ELIZABETH WOHLGEMUTH
The Bureau of Statistical service, responsible directly to the Chancellor's office, has been established for the purpose of performing clerical and mechanical tasks for the various University agencies.
Punched card accounting equipment, developed by International Business Machines, Inc., is able to perform clerical tasks of a repetitive nature with greater speed and accuracy than these tasks can be done by hand. IBM equipment is used widely in business, industry, and on many college campuses.
Contrary to popular belief, IBM is not one big machine but is a series of machines. Another misconception is that IBM equipment can do anything. The machines can only do things that humans can do, only the machines do it faster and with more accuracy.
In clerical work there are basically three operations or combinations of these operations—Listing certain items on cards, sorting cards and putting them together, and typing information from the cards in a file onto another card or a list.
IBM can do the first of these operations by punching holes in a card. There are 80 columns in a card. The holes punched in the card mean something just as our alphabet symbolizes certain things. The numbers in the card may mean
money, people, temperature, or miles per hour. Each column represents something and thus the numbers have meaning. By using two punches, an alphabetical scale is obtained.
The second operation is performed by the sorter. The machine feels with electric fingers for the holes in the card. For each column there are 12 responses and the machine then drops the cards into separate groups. The machine can sort cards at the rate of 400 a minute.
The punch machine is used for posting, if a meaning is assigned to the holes in the card. This machine handles the first basic operation of clerical work, that of listing certain items.
The third operation is performed by the posting machine, which makes a list on a sheet of paper. The fingers feel the holes and
send impulses to the type bar which then prints on paper the information that is on the card. It is typed out so that it can be read.
One variation is the reproducing punch, which can take a card and make one or several copies of the original card. If the card is properly punched the first time there will be no mistakes in copying as there often would be in copying by hand. The machine can record all the information on one card to another or it can reproduce part of the original to another card.
There are variations and refine-ments of these machines which are designed for special jobs.
Another variation is the interpreting machine. Some cards don't have any lettering on them which means that by looking at the card a person can't tell what is on it. This machine takes the card and
tells what is on the card by typing it out.
The collator is another variation, which can take two different files of cards and puts them together or can tell if two decks of cards are identical. The collator is merely an extension of the sorter.
The University already has all of these machines. With more and different machines the Bureau will be able to do more work.
The advantages of the IBM system in clerical work are that the holes can't escape or be misread, accuracy is increased, all operations are performed at high speeds, and the work can be done more neatly.
The machines are rented from the company and cannot be bought. The cost of having the IBM system and having a staff of secretaries adequate to do the same amount of work is approximately the same.
New Yorker Writer To Keynote Conference
Morris Bishop, author of light verse and contributor to the New Yorker magazine, will be the featured leader of the University of Kansas Writers' conference June 27 to July 1.
Mr. Bishop, a member of Cornell university's modern language faculty, is the author of a collection of light verse, "A Bowl of Bishop" (Dial Press, 1954). He has appeared at the University before as a Humanities series lecturer.
Harcourt Brace is bringing out his two-volume "Survey of French Literature" this spring. Mr. Bishop has written biographies of Cabene de Vaca, Pascal, Ronsard, La Rochefoucauld and Champlain, as well as humorous essays for the New Yorker and other magazines.
He will be the conference's nonfiction leader—speaking Thursday,
June 30, at an all-school convention on "The Treatment of Ideas," and to the writers group on "How To Write a Biography."
The fifth annual Kansas Writers' conference will be directed by Miss Frances Grinstead, associate professor of journalism. The Journalism school and University Extension co-sponsor the annual workshop for beginning and advanced writers.
Mrs. Willard L. Boyd Jr., of Iowa City, former reporter on the Minneapolis Star and Tribune and short-story writer, will be the fiction writing leader.
Wonderful things happen when you wear it!
The inevitable choice for the special occasion—because a fragrance is as memorable as the gown you wear. Perfume from $3; deluxe toilet water and dusting powder, each $1.75 (all plus tax). Created in England, made in U.S.A. Yardley of London, Inc., 620 Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C.