By Alyssa Jarrett
City on a Hill Press Reporter
With the McHenry Library addition fully completed, facilities such as the University Library Media Center hold cutting-edge resources that go largely underutilized by students.
“In a three- or four-hour shift, I usually only see about 30 people,” said first-year Ramille Baguio, who works at the Media Center.
The Media Center is located in Room 350 on the ground floor of McHenry Library. Its vast collection includes nearly 7,000 DVDs and over 10,000 VHS tapes, said staff member and third-year student Faith Foster. Both new and old technology is available in the facility, from phonographs and Laserdiscs to AppleTVs and an electronic keyboard.
The main room holds about 22 computers with access to a flatbed scanner as well as black-and-white and color printers. There are also 30 video workstations with DVD players available, but most remain unused. Six private viewing rooms can accommodate groups of two to 14 students.
The majority of visitors are film and music students who need to use the technology as part of their courses’ curricula, Baguio said. Nevertheless, students are welcome to use the Media Center for their own leisure, Foster said.
Patrick Wong, a third-year music major, frequently uses the Media Center to complete listening assignments for his music history class.
“The technology is pretty useful, because teachers already have playlists made on iTunes,” Wong said.
Even language studies students can benefit from the Media Center, which supports online instruction for Hindi, Arabic and Japanese. For a small fee, the center can also duplicate select foreign language audio CDs.
But the facility remains largely unknown to students.
“I didn’t really know the library had a cool media center until I came here,” first-year Collin Parker said.
