May 28, 2004

Questions About LiveText After Database Failure

To the Editor:

In his coverage of the failure of the LiveText portfolio system and the subsequent loss of data, Dan Carnevale quotes LiveText's Tamara McKinney: "It was normal database maintenance, and database issues. And if anybody tells you that it's not normal, then they haven't worked around databases much" ("Files Not Found: Web-Hosting Company Loses Data of Students and Professors," The Chronicle, April 16).

As directors of a university-based technology group that