Go ahead, make the call

A woman called in a bomb threat on the Indiana Memorial Union bowling alley in late February, then called back 10 minutes later to emphasize she was serious. Both times she dialed 5-IUIU.\nAt IU's call center, operators asked the caller questions from a bomb threat procedure list, called the IU Police Department and retrieved a recording of the call, which turned out to be a hoax.\nMost callers to 5-IUIU want the number for a student or department, campus directions, building hours or game times.\nBut occasionally calls are memorable.\nThere was the time a male student called to inquire where on campus he could sunbathe in the nude. The operator said, "If you find out, call me back."\nAnother caller had a child coming to IU, had a boat and wanted to know if there were slips available in the Jordan River.\nWhen IU was named the No. 1 party school, concerned parents clogged phone lines, and when a porno featuring students was released, callers wanted to know where to buy it.\nOn the porn question, campus operators provided no answers.\nCalls to 5-IUIU reflect the mood of campus, whether it's prominent news stories, the next big game or the weather, said Sandy Cunningham, a call center supervisor.\n"We have the temperature control of what's going on at the University," she said.\nThe 24-hour call center, located near 10th Street and the Bypass, fields about 900,000 calls a year, said telecommunications support manager Mary Lou Emmons.\nThat's down from about 1.5 million calls in 1992, a drop attributed mainly to telephone numbers programmed into cell phones.\nWith the exception of pornography, operators will try to answer almost any other question.\nThey give out the score after basketball games and the times and locations of SAT tests, both of which are updated on a dry-erase board in the call center.\nOperators use a computerized directory of campus departments and buildings, a home page with links to sites like campus maps and bus schedules and a telephone directory of all registered students.\nWhen a caller was looking for someone to raise a baby squirrel she had found, an operator referred her to the Campus Division.\nAnd around Thanksgiving, operators field questions about turkey preparation. Those who know the answers are more than willing to help.\nWhen operators get questions, they try to answer them.\nBut they don't always get questions.\nLate night operators get drunk dials or calls from students looking for rides home from the bars. And operators have also been asked out on dates.\nBut those calls are rare, especially when a busy day means 500 to 600 calls per shift.\n"We care a lot about the calls we get," Cunningham said. "We want people to call us"