As the U progresses toward becoming a paperless campus, student access to computers is becoming increasingly important. As a result, students have free access to several large computer labs on campus.
The Marriott Library manages four large, on-campus computer labs that are available for general student use.
The largest and most central lab is the Marriott Library Multimedia Center. With 154 PCs and 161 Macs, the lab serves a large amount of students.
“The Marriott Lab is the biggest and most central,” said Caroljean Hanson, head of the Multimedia Center and Student Computing Labs. “Sometimes there are 2,000 to 3,000 people through here a day.”
In the Marriott computer labs, students can find more typical software, such as word processing and Internet browsers.
To meet the majority of students’ preferences, the Marriott labs have a large variety of word-processing programs and nearly every major Internet browser. The Marriott labs also have ports for lap top use.
While students can choose between a Mac and a PC, Hanson explained that students mostly use PCs. Macs are made available because some applications work better on them.
The Multimedia Center, located in the Marriott lab, features video editing programs. The Multimedia Center also has a wide range of other multimedia products available for student use.
To use the Marriott labs, students must be currently registered and use their uNID number and password to sign into the computers. Printing costs 8 cents per page, or if paid with a UCard, 5 cents per page.
In order to meet popular demand, the Marriott labs will once again be open from 7 a.m. until 2 a.m. during Fall Semester. Hanson added that the busiest time for the lab is between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and recommends that students go at later times.
Other major campus computer labs are located in the Union Building, the Heritage Center and Sage Point residence hall, building 811.
The Heritage Center computer lab will be moving to the building directly behind its present location in the middle of August.
In addition to the major campus computer labs, there are departmental computer labs; however, these labs are not open for general student use. They use more specific software that is generally more applicable to graduate students.
Hanson said that most departments require students to be registered in that particular department in order to use that department’s computer labs. For more specific information on a departmental computer lab, students should contact the department directly.