The Defense Logistics Information Service manages the vast Defense Department supply catalog. It’s serious business, but that doesn’t mean it has to be dull.

The agency’s website, www.dlis.dla.mil, features a virtual customer service representative named Phyllis, personified by a woman’s picture.

Phyllis is a Web agent – software programmed to respond to questions typed in plain language and link to other sites in DLIS and its parent, the Defense Logistics Agency. She got her name from an agency database, the Federal Logistics Information System or FLIS.

She can answer questions on 6,000 topics. When she’s stumped – by a question such as “Where are the Dodgers playing?” – her face takes on a thoughtful expression, she rests her chin on her fist and types, “I don’t know the answer to that, although I am continually learning new things.” Then she provides a phone number to connect with “one of my human counterparts.”

Phyllis gives written responses rather than speaking because her creator, Luman “Buck” Williams, vetoed an automated voice-response system. “I hate those things,” he told Government Computer News.