Midterms and finals seem a long way off. But they will roll around, bringing with them stress and frustration.

And long lines at University's computer labs.

"Last year, one night before finals, there were as many students standing in line waiting to use a computer at the Redifer lab as there were sitting and using the computers," said Jim Kerlin, deputy director of the Center for Academic Computing. "And this was at 2 a.m at a lab with 60 computers."

There is a shortage of computers available for student use, Kerlin said. The demand is growing, he said, adding that more and more students and instructors are working on computers.

But Kerlin predicted that the University will continue to support the upgrade and growth of the computer system.

By the end of Spring Semester, 131 microcomputers will be added to the system, Kerlin said. Several new labs are being built, and old facilities are being upgraded, he said.

"We have the hardware and are involved right now in installing and testing," Kerlin said.

The current student-to-computer ratio is about 50-to-1, Kerlin said. The goal is to reduce it to 20-to-1.

"We started the system from scratch in 1987," he said. "By the end of this school year we'll have 759 computers. I'd say we're making pretty good progress."

Backups in the labs are most common around midterms and finals because many students have large assignments to complete, Kerlin said. Problems may also arise when instructors assign projects at the same time, he said.

"We get logjams sometimes," Kerlin said.

Computer science instructors try to avoid scheduling projects at the same time to prevent overcrowded labs, said Joseph Lambert, associate head of the computer science department.

"We always get complaints the day a project is due that someone couldn't complete the project because the lab was too full the night before," Lambert said.

Overcrowding is more of a problem with the printers than the actual computers, Lambert said.

"When five people send their information to one printer at the same time, there is bound to be a backup," he said.

New dot-matrix printers will be added to the labs along with the computers, Kerlin said, adding that the computer-to-printer ratio will be about 10-to-1.

Problems also arise because students tend to wait until the last minute to complete an assignment, Lambert said.

"There are big gaps of time when no one is using the labs," he said.

The University monitors how many students use the labs by counting how many computers are in use each hour, Kerlin said. Last semester, the number was 428,644, he said.

"This year's additions won't at all get us close to the 20-to-1 ratio," Kerlin said. "But it's a step toward it."