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Camille Rogine | Phoenix Staff

The new media center located in Beardsley offers a cornucopia of resources for audio and video editing as well as graphic design.

BY ARIEL MARTINO

In print | September 4, 2008

Correction Appended

The first floor of Beardsley hall now features a new media center housing an array of equipment including audio and video editing tools, a color printer and a large format printer for student use.
The center is supported by Academic Computing and Media Services, which are also located on the first floor of Beardsley, and is open to any student with a Swarthmore ID and password.
The media center is located in the former Helpdesk and ResTech area, presenting a challenge for the ITS department to find a place for every department. The Helpdesk has now been moved to a new, more open location down the hall and most of the ITS staff has been interspersed throughout the first floor.

The Administrative Systems team and Web Services team, however, are now located in the Swarthmore train station, which formerly housed the Lang Center.
During the first few weeks of the semester, many students are plagued with computer issues and it may seem like an inconvenient time for a shakeup. However, Chief Information Technology Officer Gayle Barton is confident that the move will not lead to any delays for students needing help.
“Facilities was very helpful and this whole project came together very quickly this summer. We may look a bit unsettled in parts, but the actual moves were completed by the middle of August,” Barton said.

The center is currently open while ITS staff is in the building. Barton hopes to hire additional staff as well as a few student workers to keep the center open for additional hours. Over the long term, Barton envisions a schedule that will allow students to access the media center until 9 p.m. on weekdays and for a few hours on Sunday evenings.

With its state-of-the-art equipment, the media center was not easy to fund and is still very much a work in progress. Barton mentioned a push for high definition video equipment and new furniture so that the center could comfortably house as many as twelve workstations. “We will continually be updating the space as the technology progresses,” Barton said.

Barton also hopes to consolidate some media technology that is used in multiple departments in the Beardsley Center. She cited the equipment used in multiple departments to transcribe pre-recorded interviews, pointing to the fact that it would be much easier to have all of the equipment and people trained to assist in using the equipment in one central location.

Currently the media center offers six workstations with software and equipment for video and audio editing and video imaging. A small room off to the side offers a quiet space for recording audio or video interviews. There is also a large format printer for poster-sized projects and a high-end color printer that can print on both letter-sized paper and tabloid-sized paper.

All of these resources are available to students with some restrictions. “There is a lot of waste generated by printers,” Barton said, “People try to use [the large format printer] to print out a life-sized picture of themselves. That’s not what it’s here for.” There are other resources on campus for students interested in technology and media. The Language Resource Center, for example, offers a variety of international media and a host of audio and video editing tools for language students.

Barton, however, believes that the Beardsley Center is open to a wider audience. “The facility in Beardsley is designed to be a place that is open to anyone interested in audio, video, or graphics,” Barton said. Additionally, Swarthmore College Computer Society (SCCS), offers video cameras that students, faculty and staff can borrow, but the video editing equipment can only be used when an SCCS member is on site.

“This has been a terrific service to the student body but we think it is unrealistic, and perhaps unfair, to expect that a student organization can provide a service — support for multimedia development — that has become a critical part of the academic program and an essential component of the ways that people communicate,” Barton said.

The media center is now able to serve the broader Swarthmore community, which Barton believes sets it apart from similar facilities on campus.
“One of our goals is to work closely with faculty who want to use digital media in their teaching and this should be easier with the new configuration,” Barton said. And so that any student can use the equipment regardless of media editing experience, there are always ITS staff members available to answer questions.

Students are also excited about the prospect of gaining experience on audio and video editing equipment. Blaine O’Neill ’11 spent his summer working on high definition video editing and expressed his support for the new center. “For students interested in digital design and video, this is a much-needed addition,” O’Neill said.

Students have already begun to utilize the space in the first few days of classes. The sketch comedy group Boy Meets Tractor used the equipment to edit a video that was shown during their Orientation show this past Saturday.

Sara Lipshutz ’11, one of the video editors of Boy Meets Tractor, was among the first students to use the equipment in the Beardsley Center. She had previous experience working on the computers in SCCS, which were not open for as many hours and did not have the software that is ideal for video editing. “It’s great that [the Beardsley Center] is open to us and has set hours,” Lipshutz said.

Because Lipshutz and the other members of Boy Meets Tractor were working on their project before the semester officially began, the media center was not fully staffed. However, they still received help, which Lipshutz enjoyed. “I’m still learning and I know I’m going to need help and it’ll be great when someone is there to help me,” Lipshutz said.

While the media center will be useful for making last-minute color copies, Film and Media studies students and those interested in audio and video editing will undoubtedly use it most.
“It’s nice that you get to see the same set of people coming in here all the time,” Barton said, “They’ve found people who share their interests. For them, it’s home.”

Correction: Sept. 11, 2008:

Correction: This article claims incorrectly that SCCS resources can only be used when a staff member is on site. SCCS is open from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m. daily, during which time any student can use the facility’s equipment, whether or not a member of our staff is on site.

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