Tuesday, September 11,1984/The Battalion/Page 3
Water, whiskey 7
offered for lunch
By CARMEN THOMAS
Reporter
Foot stomping and hand clap
ping were in abundance on the
College Station Community Cen
ter lawn Monday as the Country
Gazette, a southern California
bluegrass band, performed their
version of a “water and whiskey”
concert — “Water are we gonna
play and whiskey are we gonna
play it in?”
a®The four-man band per
formed many styles of music in
cluding Hawaiian, Spanish and
Texan. An Earl Skruggs melody
of;songs and country-style ballads
also entertained the approxi
mately 75 listeners. A banjo, gui
tar, mandolin, bass guitar and
Dobro guitar added to the plea
sure of the concert.
aeDressed in blue jeans, boots
and T-shirts, Country Gazette
gave the audience a relaxed,
“down-home” concert. The
band’s jokes and stories made the
concert light-hearted and gave
the audience a chance to laugh.
The College Station Commu
nity Center and the Arts Council
of Brazos Valley invited the peo
ple to bring their lunches, lawn
chairs and blankets. Those at
tending included business people
on lunch break, children, parents
and grandparents, Texas A&M
students, tourists and passers-by.
Country Gazette was formed in
1972, and has since turned pro
fessional. The group travels
around the United States per
forming 200 days of the year for
bluegrass festivals, clubs and
schools. The group hired an ar
ranger to fit symphony music to
their bluegrass music and often
plays with a symphony orchestra.
Photo by FRANK IR WIN
The Country Gazette performs bluegrass music during a free concert Monday.
[lis-ll: automated card catalog system saves time
Library organizes circulation holdings
By WALTER SMITH
Reporter
l g! n g
king ,C. Evans library, you curse the
term paper that your professor as-
iigned. However, once you get
here, you’ll find a time-saving cie-
/ice that will make your research less
edious. It’s Alis-II, the library’s au-
omated card catalog system.
Implemented in the fall of 1982,
\lis-l 1 was created to keep records
m the library’s circulating holdings.
However, the Alis-II system can per
form other functions for library us-
;rs as well, library systems analysis!
Tim Saito said Friday.
Full bibliographical information
also can be obtained from the com
puter, Saito said. Not only does the
system show if books are checked
out, it displays their due dates and
indicates where items can be found.
Users presently can search for
books and other items by their au
thors or titles on the 15 public termi
nals.
Eight terminals are working in the
reference area, while three more are
being installed. Additional terminals
are in the reserve, map, microtext,
and documents departments, as well
as in the corridors by the main eleva
tors on the third, fourth, and fifth
fioors.
Although instructions are placed
near the terminals and information
is provided on the computer screen,
reference help is available if needed.
“If it’s going to save them (stu
dents) steps, they’re most willing to
use it,” said Lynne Hambric, refer
ence librarian. “‘The patrons are re
ceiving it quite well because it can tell
them the status of a book right
away.”
“There will be less dependence on
the public card catalog and more on
the Alis-II system after we get all the
kinks out,” Saito said.
One source of confusion with the
system is the existence of two differ
ent searching modes with different
syntax requirements. When in the
INQUIRY mode, you should search
for an item by its author, title, or call
number. However, when searching
in the PUBLIC ACCESS CATA
LOG mode, you use either the au
thor’s name, the book’s title, or a
combination of both, Saito said.
Another drawback is that not all
of the library’s holdings are rep
resented in the computer’s database.
“We initally did not think we
would have enough memory space,”
he said. “Our main concern was to
get into the system those things that
circulated the most.”
Although the system is still in the
first stage, the Alis-II hardware has
been upgraded by replacing the
original Data General Eclipse S/250
processor with a quicker MV/8000
model. The main problems are now
within the software, he said.
The library plans to improve the
Alis-II system even further. Its long
term goal is to have the entire card
catalog computerized, Saito said.
*3/
Bryan school board accepts property tax rate
By DARYL DAVIDSON
Reporter
The Bryan Independent School
District Board of Trustees Monday
light voted unanimously to accept
he current tax rate for the 1984 tax
'ear. The only change from last year
vill be the allocation of the tax.
The tax, set at 69 cents per $100
of assessed property value, is divided
into a general fund used for local
maintenance and a debt service
fund. Last year’s tax allotted 64 cents
for the general fund and 5 cents for
the debt service fund. The resolu
tion adopted by the board for 1984
will allocate 61 cents for the general
fund and 8 cents for the debt service
fund.
Superintendent Guy Gorden said
the increase in the debt service fund
was needed to pay outstanding bills
caused by the construction of addi
tions to district schools.
The board also heard a construc
tion report on the Bryan Aquatic
Center pool complex and the class
room addition at Anson Jones
School. The pool complex will be
completed by Oct. 1 but completion
of the classroom addition, scheduled
for the middle of August, will be de
layed until Nov. 1.
Board member Woody Hum
phries stressed that, despite the de
lay, the committee was pleased with
the work on the addition. “We’re
getting a good building. That’s the
main thing,” he said.
C. B. McGown, Jr., director of
personnel for the district, reported
the enrollment in the district for the
fifth day of class was 10,631, up 278
from last year.
Dry weather
hurts crops
in B-CS area
By KEVIN S. INDA
Reporter
The dry weather that South Texas
has been experiencing hasn’t af
fected the Bryan-College Station wa
ter supplies, says Charles Otto, assis
tant water superintendent for the
City of College Station.
The Bryan-College Station area
receives the majority of its water
from 3,000-feet-deep wells located
west of town near the Bryan power
plant.
“The rains come at just the right
time to replenish the water sands in
the wells,” Otto said.
Water consumption in the Bryan-
College Station area has been above
normal this summer.
“The increase in the population of
the area has caused the water con
sumption to be above normal,” Otto
said, “not the dry weather.”
The Bryan-College Station area
has been using an average of 8.5 mil
lion gallons of water a day during
the dry months, with a record of
10.2 million gallons on Aug. 31.
“We probably have reached our
peak water consumption rate, so wa
ter rationing shouldn’t be a factor in
the upcoming months,” Otto said.
But while many people aren’t suf
fering from the lack of rain, some
area farmers are.
Farmers who grow cotton and
sorghum have had lower yields be
cause of the dry weather, said Dale
Fritz, a Brazos County agricultural
extension agent. Profits from the
sale of these crops have also declined
because of the added cost of irriga
tion.
The lack of rain also has affected
cattle ranchers.
“Many farmers are culling their
herds in an effort to keep their pas
tures from being overgrazed,” Fritz
said.
In addition, the dry weather has
affected farmers beginning to plant
winter crops, Fritz said. Wheat and
oat farmers need rainfall to soften
the ground before they begin plant
ing.
Current rainfall amounts are
about 5.55 inches below normal.
Janine Bryan, Texas State Clima
tologist graduate assistant, said the
Bryan-College Station area had
18.95 inches of rain through Au
gust, but the average for the same
period should be about 24.50 inches.
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