In 1983, I was five years into my career as an accountant with Financial Operations when we received our first computers in our office. In those days we used 13-column ledger paper to close out the university's fiscal year. Adding and adding and ticking and tying, hours on end! Then typing the Annual Reports on an IBM Selectric typewriter. When that computer arrived on a rolling desk (so that it could be shared by five people) I said, "and how is this going to make our jobs any easier?" I remember making that statement like it was just yesterday. Boy, has that computer made our lives easier and enabled us to do more.

Fast forward 20 years A college student intern was looking over our administrator's shoulder who was typing file labels on the typewriter. The student said, "wow, that's a cool label maker!" And she meant it! Think about it, most students and young adults have never seen a typewriter.

Technology has been the biggest change I've seen in my 39 years at the university. I used to spend half of my day on the telephone. Now I'd be surprised if I get one phone call a day. We do our work much differently today than we did in 1978. We are able to have information at our fingertips, which has given us the ability to make decisions much quicker using factual data.

The downside is that we have made it too easy to not have personal interactions with our co-workers and peers. We need to remind ourselves to have those person-to-person conversations.

Contributed by Diane M. Winter, assistant director ICPSR and director of administration