Olivia Natan | Phoenix Staff

Alice Laughlin works on one of the new Macs in the Electronic Resource.

BY MINH-DUYEN NGUYEN

In print | Published October 8, 2009

Despite the shrinking budget, Swarthmore College still has money allocated for new electronic equipment. McCabe library recently purchased six new laptops available for students to checkout and the ITS office replaced 13 older Dell computers in the Electronic Resource Room with new Mac computers.

The money for the loaner laptops in McCabe and the new computers in the Electronic Resource Room came from different budgets.

Before budget cuts, computers were replaced every three years; however, after the ITS budget shrank by $120,000, the ITS office extended the replacement cycles to four years. The new computers in the Electronic Resource Room, however, were still bought under the three-year plan.

While the ITS Operations budget has shrunk, the office still allocates money to the maintenance and replacement of campus computers. This budget remains constant.

“Every downturn requires a reevaluation of the budget,” said ITS Software Specialist Mark Davis. “We had to cut $120,000 of our budget anyway. That was a requirement of the college. It was that $120,000 cut to our budget that prompted us to move from three to four years to save us money.”

McCabe library also faced budget cuts. Rather than cutting the budget for replacement laptops, McCabe chose to cut other parts of its equipment budget that it believed were less essential for the student body. Most of the cuts were on electronic equipment like bar code readers, scanners, video equipment and printers.

Like the ITS operations budget, McCabe’s equipment budget allocates money to replace older laptops.

“We didn’t cut the laptops because we felt that they were essential to student work and a very popular service,” said Peggy Seiden, McCabe’s College Librarian. “We looked at the frequency at which they circulated and felt that we might have been able to cut back a little bit, but, ultimately, it seemed like each one was checked out at least four hours a day. We felt we couldn’t cut the number of laptops without decreasing the access that students have to the computers.”

While the other resources being cut from the budget are important, McCabe felt the need for new laptops was high.

“It’s such a valuable resource to the students especially in the spring, when they are really popular,” said Alison Masterpusqua, Access and Lending Services Supervisor said. “Making sure we had enough to service the student body was a priority.”

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