There follows the text of a brief article which will appear in the next BUCS
newsletter...

Directory Services
------------------

The University of Bath is currently taking part in a pilot project
organised by the Joint Network Team using the new X.500 International Standard
for OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) Directory Services.
X.500 specifies how directory information (name, telephone number, e-mail
address and more) can be distributed across a network in such a way
that data is held locally but made available globally - so,
information about people at the University of Bath is held here but
is made available to users at other sites.
Similarly, information held at other sites is available to users at Bath.

At the present time there are about 15 UK sites taking part in the project
with many more around the world (mainly in Europe and the USA).
Over the next two or three years it is hoped
that all UK Universities will become part of 'the directory'.
The data held the the directory is not limited to information about people.
It could, for example, contain details of courses offered by universities,
membership of committees and information about halls of residence.
The Bath part of the directory currently holds the following information
about members of staff - name, department, telephone number and email
address.  This information has been taken from the internal telephone
directory and from BUCS registration records.
A photograph of each member of BUCS staff is also being stored.
In addition, there is some more general information - about school
office telephone numbers, heads of schools and administrative assistants
for example.

At the moment we are still working on suitable user interfaces for the
directory at Bath.  Hopefully these will be made available soon.
Once they are available it will be possible for you to use them to find
out telephone numbers and email addresses for people at other
institutions in the UK and the world.

Andy Powell.