Parris presides over Environmental Information Center in cyberspace

By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Kennedy School student Karen Fillipovich wanted to find out how many farmers in and around Helena, Mont., had sold land to real estate developers.

The question was one of many she needed to answer to complete a research project in Sustainable Development, a course taught by William Clark, the Sidney Harman Professor of International Science Public Policy and Human Development. Students were required to investigate environmental, economic, and social conditions in their hometowns and develop a realistic plan for future development. Although Fillipovich had grown up in Helena, accessing specific data about the town proved difficult. But her task became easier after she consulted with Thomas Parris, the environmental resources librarian at the Harvard College Library.

"Thanks to Tom Parris, I didn't have to figure out what each resource might be called or where it might be. It really cuts down on the time it takes to get started so you can get to the substance," Fillipovich said.

Parris' domain is a tidy cubicle in the basement of Lamont Library containing two computers, some looseleaf folders, and not much else. But like many of those who officiate over the mysteries of the information age, Parris' true kingdom is not of this world but in cyberspace.

Since he was hired in August 1995, Parris has been using digital technology to make information on the environment readily available to the growing number of students and faculty who are working in environmental studies. The services he provides also help to facilitate communication within the community of environmental scholars.

These services fill an urgent need that has existed since Harvard established the Interfaculty Initiative on the Environment in 1991 and the undergraduate concentration in Environmental Science and Public Policy (ESPP) in 1992-93.

Harvard had committed itself to the study of environmental topics. What was lacking was the ability to effectively support research in this new and highly diffuse field.

The problem was that environmental research did not conform to the typical pattern by which library materials are organized. Most library collections are centered around an established discipline -- biochemistry or sociology or Sanskrit. But the environment is a subject that can be studied from many different perspectives.

Biologists, chemists, hydrologists, economists, public policy analysts, medical researchers, literary critics, and more all conduct studies that are concerned in some significant way with the environment. This means that information on any given topic is apt to be scattered far and wide.

Parris has developed a metaphor to describe the problem of doing environmental research. That metaphor, appropriately enough, is a tree.

"Traditional academic subjects are arranged like a tree of knowledge," he said. "The branches are the major disciplines, and then they split into subdisciplines. Everyone has his own branch, his own territory. But along comes a subject like environmental studies and challenges the whole system, because suddenly there's a need to link different branches with one another, and up until now there hasn't been an effective way to do that."

According to Parris' count, about 250 faculty members at Harvard are involved in environmental research, and 10 different faculties offer environmentally related courses. Many of the 100 or so Harvard libraries contain significant resources that can be applied to environmental research, not to mention the significant new resources that appear daily on the Internet.

Faced with this problem, the University had to choose between two ways of attacking the problem. One was to set up a new department or school with its own administrative structure, perhaps its own building. The other was to maintain the existing "tree of knowledge" structure, but tie the branches together through better information management.

Harvard's answer, consistent with the way it has solved other similar problems, was to choose the linking approach. In January 1995, officials at the College and University Libraries announced that a new facility would be established on a pilot basis, originally called the Environmental Information Center.

Parris was chosen to head the facility after an exhaustive search, and in the year and a half since he has been here he seems to have proved the right man for the job.

"We're less concerned with building up the collections than building up access to the collections, building up linkages rather than a physical edifice," said Clark, who regularly sends the students in his Sustainable Development course to Parris for a thorough briefing in environmental research. "Tom has an enormously impressive vision of how to do this, and what he's accomplished has been successful beyond the wildest dreams of the faculty."

A computer engineer with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Michigan, Parris acquired considerable on-the-job expertise in environmental research while working as a software engineer on large-scale remote sensing projects at the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan and as director of policy and applied user programs at the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network. He also holds a master's degree in science, technology, and public policy from the Kennedy School.

A visit to the Web page Parris has created (http://environment.harvard.edu/) gives some idea of the kinds of resources he has already provided for the Harvard community, with more online materials in the works. Operating since September, the site has already received more than 35,000 hits from more than 50 countries. It includes:

* a searchable environmental course guide that lists every course with an environmental component offered by Harvard and affiliated institutions;

* a faculty bibliography listing publications by Harvard faculty who do environmental research (useful for students seeking advisers for research projects);

* a reference guide to international environmental policy statements, treaties, and other often hard-to-find items available in Harvard libraries and on the Internet;

* an environmental events calendar for the Greater Boston community;

* jobs, educational opportunities, conferences, and publication opportunities;

* Greenwire, a daily online newsletter with up-to-the-minute information on the environment.

In addition to these Internet services, Parris offers seminars in environmental research for ESPP concentrators, e-mail discussion groups, as well as face-to-face consultations. Students have found him to be an invaluable guide in a vast and often confusing terrain.

"He was great," said Nina Rabin '98, a history and science concentrator conducting research on conservation and biodiversity in the Sierra Nevadas. "He gave our class a basic sense of where to go for the information we needed. It wouldn't have occurred to me to use those resources in that way."

According to Parris' supervisor Lawrence Dowler, associate librarian of Harvard College for public services, the services provided by the Environmental Information Center are vital to future research.

"I think the Center has been extremely successful in supporting the undergraduate concentration as well as the Interfaculty Initiative on the environment. I see it as a potential model for supporting other kinds of interdisciplinary programs," he said.

The only note of dissatisfaction that one hears regarding the Environmental Information Center is that it is not yet permanently funded. Among students particularly, the possibility that at some time in the future Parris might not be available to guide them in their research strikes an especially disturbing note.

Said Fillipovich: "I think his absence would definitely be noted now that we know what it's like to work with him."