Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TRUE/FALSE
1. In smaller organizations, support specialists may perform some user support management tasks, such
as project leader, supervisor, or user support manager.
2. The example user support mission statement in this chapter focuses primarily on operational efficiency
and user productivity.
3. A user support mission statement usually states how an organization’s business transactions will be
processed on a corporate computer system.
4. A support budget is a financial plan that translates the goals in a mission statement into a strategy to
meet the goals.
5. The dollar amounts in support budgets vary little from one help desk operation to another; these
amounts are based on industry standards.
6. User support budgets are often divided into two large categories: revenue and expenses.
7. User support expense budgets are often divided into two large categories: personnel and facilities.
8. The number of support staff needed to handle the volume of incidents in a help desk operation is a
similar problem to the number of cashiers a grocery store needs to keep checkout lines from getting
too long.
9. An Erlang unit is a measure of the number of telephone calls received where a user hung up before a
help desk agent was able to answer the call.
10. The employee selection process for a help desk position can be described as an attempt to find
applicants with the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are the closest match with the requirements of a
position.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 293
11. Most open help desk and user support positions are advertised in the newspaper.
12. A knowledge and skills test is a tool support managers use when selecting new employees; it measures
an applicant’s understanding and problem-solving ability.
13. During an interview for a help desk position, a directed question is often used to find out whether an
applicant has specific educational or work experience.
14. During an interview for a help desk position, a directed question is open-ended and gives an applicant
an opportunity to talk in more general terms than a non-directed question.
15. During an interview for a help desk position, a behavioral question gives an applicant an opportunity
to describe actions he or she took in a specific help desk situation.
16. Unlike a question in a knowledge and skills test, there is only one correct answer to a scenario question
in a job interview.
17. It is illegal to test the stress tolerance of an applicant for an entry-level help desk position.
18. During an interview for a help desk position, an illegal question is one that does not give an applicant
sufficient time to answer fully.
19. One purpose of user support staff training is to help agents meet the performance objectives of their
position.
20. Orientations for new help desk agents often cover a support organization’s policies and procedures,
such as how to handle a client who wants a refund for a product.
21. Although end users benefit from training, help desk staff are generally self-taught and usually do not
benefit from an ongoing training program.
23. The criteria used to evaluate the performance of a support employee should be related to the support
mission statement and to the employee’s professional growth objectives.
24. Industry-wide criteria are often used to evaluate the performance of a support worker.
25. Support managers often use recordings of monitored support calls to help workers identify areas where
performance improvement is needed.
26. Performance statistics collected and analyzed for a support group are not useful to evaluate individual
support employees.
27. User support managers monitor several aspects of their support operation, including the percentage of
calls that were abandoned by the user.
28. Wait time is the average time a help desk agent is idle before an incident arrives that needs attention.
29. The percentage of incidents where a user hung up or gave up before a support agent responded is
called the abandonment rate.
30. While a single performance measure may be useful, trends in performance measures over time are a
more useful indicator of help desk performance.
31. Performance measures for a help desk operation may be reported as statistics, but are often reported as
a visual graphic, such as a histogram.
32. Automated call distributor (ACD) systems often collect data to measure help desk and agent
performance.
34. A support operation that is organized as a cost center has both an income and an expense budget.
35. A support operation that is organized as a profit center has both an income and an expense budget.
36. Organizations that treat user support as a profit center may have more difficulty justifying the cost of
support services.
37. Entry-level help desk staff are usually not concerned with performance measures and the justification
of help desk services; performance and justification are primarily management responsibilities.
38. Formal education courses are not an example of user support certification.
39. A paper CNE is someone who has passed the CNE certification exam, but has little practical, hands-on
experience with computer networks.
40. Vendor certification tries to measure the knowledge, skills, and ability to use or support a specialized
product rather than a generic category of products.
42. Because there are few agreed-upon standards in the user support industry, there are currently no
certifications available for help desk agents.
43. One benefit of help desk certification is an automatic increase to step 2 in starting pay for an
entry-level agent.
44. Certification of knowledge, skills, and abilities in technology is now a job requirement for virtually
any help desk position.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 310
45. A crash course is an intensive class designed to prepare those with no previous experience to take and
pass a certification exam.
46. A computer adaptive test format asks each test taker the same set of questions to measure knowledge,
skills, and abilities.
47. Employment in the category of Computer Support Specialists is expected to increase at about an
average rate compared with other occupational categories in the United States during the next decade.
48. Employment in the category of Network and Computer System Administrators is expected to increase
faster than in the category of Computer Support Specialists in the United States during the next
decade.
49. A professional association is a labor union that represents the interests of a group of agents who work
for an organization.
50. Because user support is a new field, there are not yet any professional associations for user support
professionals.
51. Because there are few agreed-upon standards in the computer industry, it is very difficult to agree upon
a code of ethics for IT professionals.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which of these support management concerns directly affects the support staff’s job?
a. The support mission statement c. Staffing the support group
b. Support performance measures d. All of these
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 285
2. Which of these aspects of help desk operation would not normally be covered in a user support
mission statement?
a. Operational efficiency of users c. Customer satisfaction
b. Help desk fees for services d. Effectiveness of help desk services
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 286
3. A measure of the number of support incidents that can be processed in a given time period, often used
in staffing the help desk group, is ____.
a. the contact rate c. the response rate
b. the abandonment rate d. an Erlang unit
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 292
4. User support managers often use which of these strategies to determine how many staff members to
hire to handle the volume of support incidents received?
a. Use an Erlang calculation to estimate staffing needs.
b. Hire fewer staff than needed to reduce support costs.
c. Hire more staff than needed to make sure all incidents are handled quickly.
d. Use industry-standard staffing formulas for help desks.
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 292
5. Which of these proficiencies (KSAs) would a user support manager usually not specify in a position
description for a user support position?
a. Hardware, operating system, and application software experience
b. Internet and Web skills
c. Marketing ability
d. Communications and interpersonal skills
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 292
6. A help desk manager would probably emphasize which of these skills in a job search for an advanced
technical support staff member?
a. Technical knowledge and skills c. Ability to work on a project team
b. Telephone skills d. Communication and listening skills
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 292
7. Which of these knowledge, skills, and abilities would a help desk manager probably not seek in an
applicant for a help desk position?
a. Technical skills c. Programming skills
b. Communications skills d. Troubleshooting skills
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 293
8. A paper-and-pencil or verbal exercise that measures a job applicant’s technical understanding and
problem-solving ability is a(n) ____.
a. scenario test c. IQ test
b. personality test d. knowledge and skills test
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 294
9. Which of the following kinds of questions is designed to determine whether a help desk job applicant
has specific educational and work experience required for a position?
a. Directed question c. Non-directed question
b. Behavioral question d. Scenario question
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 294
10. Which of the following kinds of questions gives an applicant for a help desk position a specific
problem to solve that is representative of situations that help desk agents actually encounter?
a. Directed question c. Non-directed question
b. Behavioral question d. Scenario question
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 295
11. Which of these is an important topic in a help desk staff training program?
a. New staff orientation c. Ongoing training
b. Performance appraisal criteria d. All of these
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 298
12. Objective measures of the user support or help desk operation are called ____.
a. performance statistics c. Erlang measures
b. abandonment rate d. adaptive tests
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 300
13. The average time it takes a help desk to respond to incidents is ____.
a. call time c. abandonment rate
b. wait time d. response rate
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 301
15. Which of these is not a common method used to conduct a user satisfaction survey?
a. Face-to-face interview c. Mailed questionnaire
b. Follow-up telephone call d. Email or Web survey
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 303
16. Which of these ways of organizing a support center has both an expense budget and an income
budget?
a. Profit center c. Income center
b. Cost center d. Expense center
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 303
17. Which of the following levels of support services likely costs the most to provide to users?
a. Free level services c. Premium level services
b. Standard fee-for-service level d. Minimum level services
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 303
18. Which of these levels of user support is likely to be the most responsive to a user’s needs?
a. Free support c. Premium support
b. Standard support d. Warranty coverage
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 303
19. Which of the following is not a common type of certification used in the information technology field?
a. Formal education that results in a degree
b. Vendor-specific product knowledge
c. Industry-standard skills in a specific field
d. Verification of prior employment during a job interview
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 304
21. One of the first vendor-specific certification programs was offered by ____.
a. Microsoft c. Cisco
b. Novell d. Sun Microsystems
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 305
23. The Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) A+ exam is an example of a ____.
a. vendor-neutral exam c. help desk agent exam
b. vendor-specific exam d. vendor-sponsored exam
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 307
24. Which of the following is not a primary benefit of computer industry certification?
a. Ability to document minimum-level job skills and expertise
b. Ability to document a worker’s efforts to keep up to date in the computer field
c. Ability to identify a worker whose performance has fallen below industry standards
d. Ability to justify a request for higher pay
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 309
25. CBT and WBT for those preparing for certification exams are ____ courses.
a. crash c. online tutorial
b. boot camp d. adaptive
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 311
26. Which of these testing methods is often used in industry certification exams?
a. Computer adaptive test c. Traditional, fixed-length test
b. Paper-and-pencil test d. SAT exam format
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 311
27. A computer adaptive test may be able to determine a test taker’s proficiency level by asking as few as
____ questions.
a. 5 c. 64
b. 15 d. 100
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 312
28. Which of these categories of workers is expected to increase at about the same rate as employment in
the U.S. economy over the next decade?
a. Computer Support Specialists c. Network Administrators
b. Computer System Administrators d. None of these
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 313
29. “Act with integrity and honesty in dealing with the public, end users, coworkers, management, and
competitors”, would likely be covered in which of the following?
a. State and federal laws c. The IT Professional’s Handbook
b. User support industry best practices d. A professional code of ethical behavior
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 315
COMPLETION
1. A(n) ____________________ is a list of guiding principles that communicate help desk or support
goals to staff, users, and management.
ANS:
mission statement
mission
2. A(n) ____________________ is a financial plan a help desk manager prepares to translate the goals in
a mission statement into a strategy to meet those goals.
ANS: budget
3. A(n) ____________________ is a measure of a unit of traffic, such as support incidents, that can be
handled in a given period of time, and is used to help determine the size of support staff needed.
ANS:
Erlang
erlang
Erlang unit
erlang unit
4. A position description for a help desk position is often based on the _______________________
required to perform the job.
ANS:
knowledge, skills, and abilities
KSAs
ANS:
non-directed
nondirected
7. A written or verbal exercise that gives a prospective employee a problem that represents the kind of
problem support staff actually encounter is called a(n) ____________________.
8. An interview question that gives an applicant an opportunity to describe the actions he or she took in a
specific support situation is called a(n) ____________________ question.
ANS:
behavioral
behavioral question
behavior
9. An interview question about an applicant’s age, ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, or religion
is called a(n) ____________________ question.
ANS:
illegal
not legal
10. A(n) ____________________ is a process to evaluate a help desk or support worker according to
established criteria.
ANS:
performance appraisal
performance evaluation
11. _________________________ are data collected and analyzed about the operation of a help desk to
provide feedback to the support staff and managers.
12. The percentage of calls in which the user hangs up before support staff respond is called the
____________________.
ANS:
abandonment rate
abandonment
13. ____________________ is the average time it takes support staff to first respond to incidents.
ANS:
Wait time
wait time
ANS:
user satisfaction survey
user survey
satisfaction survey
15. A(n) ____________________ center is a way to organize support services where only the expense of
support service operations is included in the budget.
ANS: cost
16. A(n) ____________________ center is a way to organize support services where budgeted income
offsets some or all of the cost to provide support services.
ANS: profit
17. ____________________ is an assessment process to measure and document worker knowledge and
skills in the information technology field.
ANS:
Certification
certification
Industry certification
industry certification
ANS:
vendor-specific certification
vendor certification
19. A(n) _________________________ certification is the result of an exam that measures knowledge,
skills, and abilities that are vendor neutral.
ANS:
industry-standard
industry-wide
industry wide
vendor-neutral
vendor neutral
industry standard
20. A(n) ____________________ is an expensive, intensive class designed to prepare trainees to take a
certification exam within a relatively short time period.
ANS:
crash course
boot camp
21. A(n) ____________________ is a way to prepare for a certification exam that uses materials in book
format that readers can complete at their own pace.
ANS:
self study course
self-study course
22. A(n) ____________________ selects certification test questions from a database of questions of
varying difficulty until it has an accurate measure of a test taker’s proficiency.
ANS:
adaptive test
computer adaptive test
adaptive exam
computer adaptive exam
23. A(n) _________________________ is a formal organization that represents the interests of support
and help desk workers, and provides services to its members.
ANS: professional association
ANS:
code of ethical conduct
ethical conduct code
code of professional ethics
ethical code
professional ethics code
code of professional behavior
professional behavior code
SHORT ANSWER
1. Briefly describe situations where user support staff perform management tasks.
ANS:
User support management encompasses a variety of positions. In many organizations, a help desk or
user support manager directly manages the user support staff. The managers of large support groups
may oversee one or more supervisors or lead workers who in turn supervise a team of support agents.
Even small support groups may assign some project leader or coordinator responsibilities to user
support workers. A user support staff member may be assigned a project to learn the details about a
new software or hardware product and then disseminate information about it (documentation, training,
and anticipated user problems) to other support staff.
2. Briefly describe user support management’s concerns that primarily impact support staff members.
ANS:
Support mission statement
Support group budget
User support staffing
Support staff training
Performance statistics and justification
3. Briefly explain why even an entry-level user support staff member needs to know something about
support management’s perspectives.
ANS:
From the moment you decide that you want to pursue a help desk or user support position, you should
be aware of the support management’s perspectives. Every decision a help desk manager makes affects
the people who work there. Conversely, the more support staff members know about their manager’s
concerns and priorities, the better equipped they will be to understand the need for certain task
assignments and to focus their efforts on completing them. Knowing the big picture enables support
staff to improve client satisfaction and help the support team succeed. A managerial perspective also
helps prepare entry-level staff to advance into positions with more responsibilities and higher salaries.
4. List at least four aspects of help desk operation that may be included in a mission statement.
ANS:
Any four of the following:
Enhance operation efficiency of employees
Resolve technology use questions
Manage problems
Improve the quality of help desk services
Improve the usability of information systems
Improve the effectiveness of documentation and training
Increase customer satisfaction with help desk services
5. List at least four aspects of a support operation that impact the actual dollar amounts in a help desk
budget.
ANS:
Any four of the following:
Kind of user supported (internal vs. external)
Method of support (face-to-face, telephone, email, chat, Web-based)
Range of support services provided (full, partial, telephone hotline)
Number of support employees and how they are supervised
Method of budgeting for facilities (included in help desk vs. included in IT budget)
Method of covering costs (one-time capital expenses, ongoing operating costs, leases)
ANS:
Revenue from fees
Personnel expenses
Facilities and operating expenses
7. Briefly list the common steps a manager follows to staff a user support position.
ANS:
(1) Base the position descriptions on the mission statement.
(2) List the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities required (checklist).
(3) Develop the position descriptions.
(4) Advertise the positions.
(5) Screen the applications.
(6) Interview the applicants.
8. Briefly describe the categories of knowledge, skills, and abilities that help desk managers look for in a
prospective employee.
ANS:
Hardware operating systems and application software
Technical skills
Network experience and knowledge
Internet and Web skills
Troubleshooting and problem-solving skills
Communications, listening, writing, and telephone skills
Working in a project team
Understanding business information systems and business perspectives
9. Describe the different kinds of questions job applicants may encounter in an employment interview
and the purpose of each.
ANS:
A knowledge and skills test is a paper and pencil, verbal, or online test to measure an applicant’s
knowledge and problem-solving ability.
A directed interview question asks whether an applicant has specific educational or work experiences.
A non-directed interview question gives an applicant an opportunity to talk in general terms about his
or her qualifications and expertise.
A behavioral question gives an applicant an opportunity to describe the actions he or she took in a
specific work situation.
A scenario question gives an applicant a specific problem situation that support workers actually
encounter.
Illegal questions ask about an applicant’s age, ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, or religion.
10. Briefly describe the material usually covered in a training program for new help desk or support
employees.
ANS:
Orientation to the organization
Payroll and employee benefit information
Specific job skill training
Use of help desk tools, including phone system and incident management software
Support group policies and procedures
Performance appraisal criteria and procedures
Professional development and career path opportunities
PTS: 1 REF: 297
ANS:
Any four of the following:
Average time to respond to incidents (sometimes called wait time)
Percentage of incidents that were abandoned (user hung up or gave up before the support staff
responded); also called abandonment rate
Average resolution time for incidents that require problem solving
Percentage of problems that could not be resolved
Percentage of closed incidents that had to be reopened
Number of incidents currently in an unresolved status (perhaps counted for each priority code)
12. Give three examples of issues that may be included on a user satisfaction survey.
ANS:
Any three of the following:
Availability of help when needed
Responsiveness of support staff
Communication ability
Usefulness of online resources
Technical knowledge of staff
Ability to resolve problems
Which support staff member was especially helpful
13. Briefly explain the differences between a cost center support operation and a profit center operation.
ANS:
A cost center operation has an expense budget, but no corresponding source of revenue (income). A
profit center operation has both an expense budget and an offsetting income stream. Profit center
support operations are somewhat easier to cost-justify than cost centers.
14. List three kinds of certification that are common among workers in the information technology and
user support fields.
ANS:
Any three of the following:
Formal education that results in a certificate, diploma, or degree
Vendor-specific product knowledge and skill certification
Industry-standard knowledge and skill certification in a specific area, such as hardware, networking, or
support
Certification that measures the fitness of a support group against industry-standard criteria
16. Briefly explain the advantages of computer adaptive certification tests over traditional, fixed-length
exams.
ANS:
One advantage of computer adaptive testing is efficiency. It saves time because fewer questions are
asked; it reduces boredom from too many easy or repetitive questions; it reduces intimidation from
very difficult questions; and it tries to make the testing process shorter and less stressful.
17. Briefly explain the employment outlook for Computer Support Specialists, Network Administrators,
and Computer System Administrators over the next decade.
ANS:
Computer Support Specialists are expected to increase faster than an average category; Network and
System Administrators are expected to increase much faster than average.
18. What is a professional association and which services does it provide to its members?
ANS:
A professional association is a formal organization that represents the interests of a group of
professionals, such as user support workers. These organizations publish journals; offer books,
seminars, and conferences; encourage the professional growth and development of their members; and
may offer certification programs. Some provide a code of ethical behavior to guide their members’
professional activities.
19. Give five examples of principles you would expect to find in a code of conduct for IT professionals.
ANS:
Any five examples from Figure 7-4 on page 316
10
She was editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book for
30 years, and is credited with promoting the
establishment of the last Thursday in November
as Thanksgiving Day.
The success of the Quincy Fair was phenomenal. The net sum
of $30,035.53 was realized and turned over to the directors of the
Bunker Hill Monument Association toward the completion of the
Bunker Hill Monument. This amount was nearly one quarter its total
cost. The Yankee ladies did not know that two contributions of
$10,000 each, with several smaller donations, were available by
now. The gift of $10,000 by Judah Touro was peculiarly heartening,
as an example of the expression of the gratitude of the son of an
immigrant to the country of his adoption. The father of Touro had
been rabbi of a synagogue in Holland. The younger Touro was born
in Newport, R. I., in 1776; he had sailed to New Orleans with an
assortment of New England commodities and had made money in
their sale. A soldier in the Battle of New Orleans, in the War of 1812,
he had been given up for dead in the battle. He had become a
millionaire and, learning of the proposed gift of $10,000 by Amos
Lawrence, toward the completion of the monument, Touro had
matched it. Thus, in the year 1840, the success of the Bunker Hill
Monument was assured. It could now be built to the full height
planned by Baldwin and Willard—about 220 feet.
The Riggers
Contractor James Sullivan Savage would have no trouble finding
good men for the ticklish job of raising and setting the heavy stones
of the higher courses of the monument; able sailors, who would take
a shore job for a change. Maritime Boston was full of these good
riggers, who were used to dizzy heights, and to whom the half
hitches, square knots, guys, slings, and tag lines would be easy. Up
to this time the monument had been built by day labor, not by
contract. Now, Savage had taken a contract to finish the monument
for $43,800, from the elevation of 85 feet to the top. He was well
trained in masonry, for he had worked on the job since the start
under Willard, whose rigid ideas would not let him take a contract
himself for profit on such a patriotic project, but who agreed to
superintend the work of Savage to the finish. Savage had the traits
of a good contractor—energy, resourcefulness, honesty—and the
sense that knew how each detail must be executed toward the end
of producing a job to be proud of.
Savage replaced the one-horse capstan of the hoist by a six-
horsepower steam engine, an innovation that speeded up progress.
The steam engine as a prime mover in land and water transportation
had become well established, and its use to drive textile machinery
had proved successful. Steam power in the construction industry,
however, was a novelty. Shouts and wigwag signals from the setting
gang at the top to the engineer on the ground were replaced by a
bell-wire signaling system. This must have been a pull bell, for many
11
years would pass before electric bells came into common use.
11
Joseph Henry had developed the
electromagnet at about the time of the laying of
the lower courses of the monument, and, a few
months after its dedication, Morse would operate
the first telegraph line between Washington and
Baltimore, but the transmission of electric
currents by insulated wires even for a few score
feet was still too new to receive serious attention
on a construction job.
Profitable Project
Happily, the good riggers raised their monument, course by
course, to the top. They were under a boss who knew his trade, and
he was making money—the sign of content on any construction
project. (Savage made some more money after the monument was
finished, when he retained the steam engine that had been used for
hoisting stone, for the purpose of raising a passenger car to the top.
For the car ride he collected $0.20, as against the $0.125 for visitors
who climbed the stairs.)
The practical riggers would not be disturbed at the proposal,
advanced when the monument neared its top, that the apex be
modified to form a platform to accommodate visitors. Aesthetic
Bostonians were much disturbed at this proposal. Happily, the
Bunker Hill Monument Association voted down this architectural
atrocity.
High Capstone
On Saturday, 23 July 1842, several hundred of our early rising
Bostonian ancestors rose earlier than usual to arrive at the
monument at 6:00 a.m. On the ground at the base, they studied the
capstone; a small stone pyramid, three feet, six inches high, stoutly
lashed to the derrick hook, and with an American flag at the top.
Standing on the capstone, firmly grasping the hoisting rope, Colonel
Charles R. Carnes waited for the signal to hoist. When the clock
struck six, a signal gun was fired, and the capstone, bearing the
good colonel, started up. In 16 minutes it had reached the top; at
6:30 a.m. it had been bedded, and a national salute announced to all
Boston that the Bunker Hill Monument was completed.
By railroad, great multitudes came to Boston for the dedication of
the Bunker Hill Monument, nearly a year later, on 17 June 1843.
Unlike the time of 18 years earlier, when the cornerstone had been
laid, stagecoaches were not the main conveyance for visitors to
Boston. Indeed they were decidedly on the way out, and would soon
be but symbols of an era of traveling discomfort, as the railroad
completely took over. President Tyler and his cabinet attended;
Daniel Webster matched with sonorous eloquence his famous
speech at the laying of the cornerstone, and there were still 13 very
aged surviving veterans of the battle able to attend.
Foucault’s Experiment
Seven years later (1850), two Harvard professors checked with
elaborate apparatus, paid for by members of the Bunker Hill
Monument Association and the Massachusetts Charitable
Association, the famous experiment of Foucault which used a long
pendulum to prove the daily rotation of the earth. Suspended in the
newel by an annealed wire, 210 feet long, the oscillations of a
pointer, attached to a 31-pound British cannon ball relic of the battle,
were observed; and its plane of swing was seen to revolve during
the day from right to left of the observer. A sudden shower on a
previously bright day complicated the experiment, until Professor
Eben N. Horsford discovered the reason. Cooled by the rain the
monument’s exposed face contracted; its apex moved
correspondingly and carried the point of suspension of the pendulum
with it. As observed years later on the Washington Monument,
Horsford deduced that the side of an obelisk, exposed to the hot sun,
expanded, and that its apex followed the sun in the sun’s travel from
east to west. Such motion is tiny, and the ingenuity of the apparatus
to observe it was notable. The path of the orbit of the bob, registering
both the earth’s rotation and the effect of varying heat on the
monument’s sides, was described as an irregular ellipse with major
axis of one-half an inch.
Today
Two hundred thousand persons visit Bunker Hill every year. Of
these visitors 20,000 pay their $0.10, and presumably climb the 294
12
granite steps to the top. Very few Bostonians are among these
13
visitors. They are of various types: honeymooners and casual
tourists, whose list of the sights to be seen in historic Boston
includes the monument, and historically minded youngsters, one of
whom was recently caught in a heated argument with his father as to
where the order was to “wait ’til you can see the whites of their
eyes.” Surely, the stout young man who recently lugged 25 pounds
to the top—his young daughter—was not typical.
12
Estimate of custodian from a review of his
register, 1951.
13
“Those pangs of conscience he feels every
June 17 are as close as the average Bostonian
ever comes to climbing Bunker Hill
Monument.”—Boston Globe, 18 June 1951.
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