Along with 911 and 456, Northwestern students and faculty now have a new number to remember in case of emergencies – computer emergencies.

NU Information Technology implemented the automated help line, 491-HELP, to offer aid with services such as e-mail, off-campus dial-up, CAESAR, residential networking and campus telephone service.

“We wanted to give our customers a means to route themselves to an appropriate support desk,” said Tom Board, director of NUIT Support Services, in a press release. “NU Information Technology already had the elements in place to give outstanding service to the university community, but often people did not know where to call.”

NUIT decided to set up the comprehensive help line to address all of the system users’ questions as NU begins to offer more online services, Board said.

“There are a number of different help desks and help resources,” said Audrey Rosen, senior editor for NUIT Communications. “We wanted to make sure there was one central number that would be easy to remember.”

Although existing help numbers, including 467-4877, will remain in use, Board said he hopes the new help line will serve users more efficiently.

“It will hopefully reduce two things: the occasional frustration someone feels when trying to get a question answered, and the time people spend in IT transferring a call that needs to go to someone else,” Board said.

When users call the new help line, an automated system asks them to identify themselves as a student, faculty member, staff member or alumnus. The caller then chooses from an option menu so the system can direct them to the correct help desk.

In creating the new system, “IT generally looked at the kind of complaints we’ve received in the past,” Board said. “We tried to tailor it to the people who are actually calling.”

NUIT established a committee to address the question of how to make the services more accessible, Rosen said.

“We went to the people who actually answer the questions,” Board said.

But Weinberg junior Steve Ewald, who works in the NUIT information center, said he does not see the need for the new help line.

“People really never made comments (about) the phone system,” Ewald said. “They just wanted to get help.”

But Rosen said students and faculty members with computer troubles will use the new information line because its number is easy to memorize.

“It just so happened that number was available,” Rosen said. “It’s an easy number to remember.”