Community information still suffering from Millennium Bug

12.00.00am GMT Sun 11th Mar 2001

On Saturday, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Gareth Hartwell, visited Hounslow Library to obtain some information on community organisations within the constituency.

However, much of the information was unavailable because the council's ViewData system, used to store the community information database, is still not Year 2000 compliant and so has not been accessible since the end of 1999.

The librarian on the information desk was very frustrated, both because she could not provide important information to local residents, and because staff are being stretched with the extra demands put on library staff as residents can't find the information for themselves. Dr. Hartwell is now taking this up with the relevant council department and has offered his own expertise to help sort out the problem.

Gareth Hartwell commented,

"I was shocked to discover that Hounslow Library is suffering serious problems from the Millennium Bug over a year after everybody else has overcome the problem. This is an important service for local residents in need of help and information.

I know from my professional experience that sorting out these problems is not particularly difficult and I can't believe that Leisure Services can't sort this out. If they are really stuck, maybe they could send me the source code so I could sort it out for them!"

In his professional role, Gareth was responsible for managing the Millennium Bug programme for the satellite operations of the largest television satellite provider in Europe (EUTELSAT).