Library patrons hold on to your hats, e-books, and iPhones, because there are some exciting new happenings underway! As a part of the ‘For the Future’ campaign, the construction of “The Knowledge Commons” has begun! By next fall, the relocated Foster Auditorium and a new Reading Room will be open to students.
Through the rest of the year, the library, OPP, and the architects involved with the project will formulate plans for the rest of the renovations. Sally Kalin, the associate dean of University Libraries for University Park, explained that they hope construction begins in early 2011 and is completed by late 2011.
The former Phi Delta Theta house was intensely vandalized during graduation weekend and the damage was discovered Monday morning. The house was to be formally turned over to PSU this Friday after its $1.75 million purchase in March from the the organization's alumni corporation.
The CDT reported that the house had several broken windows, light fixtures ripped from the ceiling, holes in the walls, garbage strewn inside and out, and graffiti including boobies and a message that read “Graham Spanier kills little kittens.” Food was left rotting and the recently-made decrepit, century old house was said to smell like urine, old food, and alcohol.
Penn State's Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Friday to buy the 1.3 acre site of Kissell Motorsports for $2.6 million dollars. The lot is in Ferguson Township, 9 blocks west of the Atherton and College intersection. The purchase can be viewed in the context of other recent land acquisition-- in 2008 the university acquired a 4.66 acre lot that had been occupied by O.W. Houts, and in 2009 it acquired another property from Craig and Kathleen Kissell.
The university has not yet declared its intentions for the land's long term use, but the building will probably be used by University Athletics staff for the interim. The university has talked around long term expansion plans and has not yet specified what it would build in the far west side of campus.
George Chriss used to film public University Park Undergraduate Association and Daily Collegian meetings when he was at Penn State. He first got involved with open video during his time here. Now he is the founder and heart-and-soul of OpenMeetings.org, a website that hosts films of public meetings from around the country.
The larger concept of open video has become a new phenomenon about making video production and creation more accessible to everyone, essentially bringing video as a medium more into the forefront and having it become a more natural tool we can use to express ourselves. As we can write an essay or speech without thinking twice, we would be able to create a video with this kind of ease. Chriss was kind enough to share his thoughts and experiences with us in our latest 10 Questions piece, which is after the jump.
Google posted a offer to college students a few days ago, saying that they would receive Google Voice invitations within 24 hours. All you need is a .edu email address.
Google Voice offers features like voicemail transcriptions to your inbox and free text messaging and claims that it can be used as "one number for life."
Google Voice is best thought of as a lightweight operator for your own personal telephone exchange. Once you've set it up and created a new phone number, you can basically tell the system to direct calls to your various phone numbers (home, work, cell) depending on when they are placed and who they are from.
How do you like your eggs at Penn State? Scrambled? In an omelet? Fertilized? How about full of animal cruelty? According to Cage-Free Penn State,
Penn State University's Dining Services currently buys eggs from cruel "battery cage" egg farms - massive warehouses where hens are confined to cages so small they cannot spread their wings and can barely turn around. They often live among the feces and waste of other birds, and their feathers are torn off from constantly rubbing against the cage bars.