Hewlett-Packard Donates Computers to Colorado State Universitymorgan Library for High-Speed Document Transfer

A grant from Hewlett-Packard Co. will enable Morgan Library at Colorado State University to better use the Internet to help offset losses from the July 28 flood.

With the aid of six cooperating libraries, Colorado State will use computers and printers donated by HP in a high-speed document transfer system called Ariel. Ariel will allow articles from cooperating libraries to be scanned, digitized, and transmitted at high speed via the Internet to one of the seven receiving stations donated by HP. The journal articles document previous research in all fields and serve as essential references for ongoing research. Receiving stations for use by faculty and graduate students are being installed in departments across the Colorado State campus beginning this week. Two additional stations will be located in the library for undergraduate use.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to experiment with the role of technology in our library service package. I predict that people will very much like the convenience of delivery directly to their areas," said Julie Wessling, assistant dean at Morgan Library.

Colorado State is installing Ariel sending stations at the following universities: University of Colorado-Boulder; University of Denver; Colorado School of Mines; University of Northern Colorado-Greeley; Cornell University-Ithaca, N.Y.; and Arizona State University-Tempe. The stations will be devoted exclusively to sending documents to Colorado State with a turnaround time of 24 to 48 hours. As many as a thousand requests a day are expected for journal articles damaged in the flood. A web page devoted to listing all flood damaged journals has been created. The page can be accessed at http://www.coalliance.org/csuflood/.

A unique collaborative effort between Colorado State, University of Colorado, HP and the other universities produced the grant, which will provide access to vital documents using state of the art technology. The donation process was set in motion by James Williams, dean of CU library. At the suggestion of Camila Alire, dean of Morgan Library, Williams submitted an emergency grant proposal to HP.

The resulting grant, valued at over $28,000, is the most recent example of the partnership between Colorado State and HP.

"Colorado State is a cornerstone of the Fort Collins community, and HP is pleased to make this contribution to help the campus recover from this devastating flood," said Will Arduino, spokesman for HP. In addition to working with Colorado State in ongoing mentoring, scholarship and internship programs, HP has been the university’s most generous donor, giving over $11 million to date.