University Times

Each November, the Tooth Fairy puts together updated information for the 600-plus page books of names, phone numbers and campus addresses of Pitt community members known as the telephone directory.

Uhh … not quite.

The book that magically appears in campus mailboxes in mid-November is actually a project of a team of staff from Network Services, who work for several months with contacts across the University. Personnel who are involved in the directory compilation include those from Payroll, Student Affairs, check distribution centers, University switchboard operators, Human Resources, Parking, Transportation and Services, Institutional Research, University Mailing Services, the Provost's office, deans, directors and department heads, UPMC Health System area representatives and the regional campuses.

"It's a job that's never really complete," said Maurice L. Gordon, director of Network Services. Since staff are hired or transferred year-round, offices are relocated and buildings are renamed, no printed directory is ever completely up-to-date, he said. "The publication date is necessarily arbitrary and our deadlines for receiving information are set accordingly."

In addition to information on individual employees of Pitt and UPMC Health System and students on the five Pitt campuses, the directory includes sections on general campus information, University services and departmental listings.

The book goes to press in October but work on it begins much sooner. Letters go out each spring to offices throughout the University asking for updated information about services, and follow-up letters in early summer urge stragglers to comply. Eventually, Network Services gives a drop-dead 48-hour deadline by phone, threatening to re-run last year's information if no update is provided.

"The response is usually very good," according to Joyce Tytke, who manages the project for Network Services. She said the biggest crunch time is with the faculty and staff individual listings, which Network Services receives in late September. "We would work with August data, except that people are away and may not be available to update information, and we want to list new faculty, who usually start receiving pay in September," Tytke said.

That's because individual listings are drawn directly from September's payroll data, which is processed by the Payroll department by Sept. 25, Tytke said. That information is then collated with information from "list 85," named for the form responsibility centers fill out for directory exceptions.

The list 85 group refers to individuals who do not receive a September paycheck. "It might include volunteers working on research projects, some graduate assistants, retired faculty members and others listed at the discretion of department or unit heads," Tytke said. Such requests must come from the responsibility center and not the individual, she said.

The list 85 information is keyboarded by Network Services staff. "These lists are proofread at least four times," Tytke said. "Usually, I do it. But other staff help as their time allows. We try to never allow the person who keyboarded the information to also do the proofreading."

When the lists are collated, the information on faculty and staff is ready to go to press, along with information in the other sections that has been gathered over the previous six-to-eight months. "Our deadline to get to the printer is Oct. 5. They need from four to six weeks to print the book, so that's why it's a mid-November delivery. We try as hard as we can to get them out by Thanksgiving."

Network Services contracts with College Directory Publishing, Inc. of Conshohocken, Pa. The contract runs for three more years, Tytke said.

The publisher accepts "yellow page" paid ads from University departments and commercial concerns, but solicits these independent of Network Services. Pitt prints a disclaimer in the directory disavowing endorsement of advertised products and services.

The directory's student information for all campuses comes through the Office of Student Affairs on the Pittsburgh campus and is based on students who have officially registered for fall classes by the first week of September, Tytke said.

Students may opt out of the directory, under the Buckley Amendment covering student privacy, by filling out a form in Student Affairs.

Faculty and staff are excluded only under special circumstances and with approval of their department, Gordon said, "although typically, listing home phone numbers and e-mail addresses is the option of the employee."

But departmental administrators must be careful to poll their employees about the individual listings. The list Network Services prints is generated from the employee's record as it reads on file in the Payroll office. "If box 59 on the Employee Record form is not checked, the system defaults to include home numbers and they get listed," Tytke said. "We only print what we get," she said. "If we get a call complaining about why a home phone number is listed, we put that person in touch with the department's personnel administrator."

Network Services will not honor any directory request from an individual faculty or staff member, she said. Only personnel administrators can authorize exceptions.

In the general information section of the directory, campus maps and building abbreviations come from Institutional Research; transportation and mailing services information comes from Parking, Transportation and Services; the academic calendar comes from the Provost's office (where the directory's cover photograph is selected from among several mock-ups provided by University Graphics and Marketing).

Network Services updates information on campus telephone services and system features, and Computing Services and Systems Development provides information on PittNet and computing labs.

Tytke said, "About 10 years ago, we also added the University Services Guide section, which previously was run as a supplement to the University Times. When they stopped doing that, we picked it up, figuring it was an important part of getting information out there. It's more work for us, but we think it's a necessary part of the book.

"Over time, we've added listings there on the Warhol Museum and Carnegie Museum, for example, usually at the request of a Pitt person who has some connection to them."

Tytke said letters are sent to the service areas each spring for updating information. "The general services information is updated as it comes in from the various services," Tytke said, "so it's ready to go to press earlier."

A similar system is in place with UPMC Health System, which includes sections on faculty, staff and departments, Gordon said.

Recently, at the request of UPMC, information on the health system hospitals was added. "We don't control what UPMC does," Gordon said. "They send their information digitized and we pass the [magnetic] tape along to the printer. We do try to look for obvious errors in headings, for example, but we don't look at individual listings."

Gordon pointed out that UPMC has a slightly different format for their listings. "They include the 412 area code, where we list only non-412 area codes." They also list working titles and specify pager and Audix numbers, he said.

Plans are underway to include complete area code listings throughout next year's directory, because beginning next summer, callers state-wide will be asked to dial area codes even with local numbers, Gordon said.

After publication of the directory, all errors reported to Network Services are passed on immediately to the University switchboard operators who update the operators' directory, Tytke said. "We get around 50 calls per year, mostly from people who didn't want their home phones listed, which is information that comes from the Employee Record. We get many more requests than that for copies, but the directory is intended for the University community and not the outside world," she said.

About 23,000 copies are distributed on the five campuses and about 5,000 go to UPMC locations. Departments receive one copy for each employee plus an extra 10 percent, mostly so some employees can have a second copy for home, Tytke said. Additional copies may be purchased by departments at $3 a copy by contacting Network Services.

"Mailing Services generates the labels and delivers the books to individual [faculty and staff] mailboxes and departments and to each campus dormitory, and some leftovers, about 700, go to the William Pitt Union where commuter students can pick them up on a first-come, first-served basis.

"We hope they only take one," Tytke said.

–Peter Hart