This issue delves into the new world of facilities information. The authors show how to gather data and how state and other agencies use it. They discuss the necessity of accurate, accessible information for determining and apportioning indirect costs. They look at its use for student recruitment and retention, and they demonstrate how it can even be used to correlate various classroom attributes with student learning success. With twenty-first-century technology, facilities data is useful far beyond traditional business affairs operations--it has become integral to institutional planning and operation.

Facilities information, once a world of precious drawings and laborious calculations, has been transformed by the power of information technology. Blueprints securely locked in cabinets have given way to online systems based on geospatial informaiton systems (GIS). The result is nimble systems adaptable to purposed across administrations, applications that integrate divisions--business, institutional research, student affairs--with shared information.

This is the 135th issue of the Jossey Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Institutional Research.