Senior Satow Correspondents Sarah Ngu and Maren Killackey report from this week’s CCSC meeting. Topics covered at the meeting include the financial aid office, Bacchanal and their debts, along with various other policies along the way.

Financial aid, Bacchanal, proper drainage... gotta have those Benjamins!

FinAid:

Student Services Rep Karishma Habbu has continued meetings with administrators from the Undergraduate Office of Financial Aid. It appears the Undergrad OFA is finally beginning to make strides towards an internal review based on the feedback it received from students, oh… last semester.

Bacchanal:

CCSC President Aki Terasaki made the announcement that, after extensive discussions with Dean Schollenberger and Dean Martinez, they have offered to cover the entire Bacchanal debt (though the offer comes with the caveat that a new event review process must be pursued). Terasaki heinously stole USenator Kenny Durell’s thunder as Durell is popularly credited with doing the legwork for the Bacchanal investigation; Durell then made a comprehensive presentation to the Council regarding his inquiry into the event’s financial situation. Durell’s report included a breakdown of Bacchanal’s expected vs. actual costs for last year, which, in the case of security fees, amounted to a difference of more than $9,000 and, in the case of facilities fees, more than $10,000. Although the Deans have agreed to reimburse Bacchanal the “full” $16,107, the total debt was more along the lines of $25,400. That missing $9K chunk was paid for by the Student Government Security Fund and therefore didn’t show up on the books, however it still represents lost Student Life fees.

Policy:

VP Ryan Cho will meet with CC Senators sometime this week about redoing the Pupin Plaza and Amsterdam Bridge. For the seven of you out there who have yet to invest in a solid pair of rainboots, this is particularly good news because in the resolution Cho will discuss is mention of, among other things, plans to fix the infamous Plaza drainage (or rather, lack thereof). Also, in response to some students’ concerns, Cho said definitively that graduate libraries are open to undergraduates, with the exception of the Law library (only during finals) and the top floor of Uris.

Co-sponsorhips:

The Council announced that it would be seeking proportional sponsorship from SGA for Bacchanal, as they do not currently contribute to funding for the even, despite significant Barnard attendance to it.

You Know It’s Finals Season When…:

The meeting ended in record time at 9:00 p.m. It would have ended around 8:55 p.m. had the conversation not unexpectedly descended into excited chatter about what food should be served during next meeting’s Holiday Party.

Cold, hard cash via Wikimedia Commons

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s ESC meeting.

• The Mudd Engineering Library is slated to be closed and replaced with classrooms. Volumes stored in the Mudd library will be relocated to the library in NoCo. It is unclear when this transition will occur.
• VP Policy Logan Donovan explained that the 3rd party vendor that provides mail/package services (IKON) is set to be renewed this year. All the vendors bidding for the position will be asked how they will address the long lines, the long delays between package delivery and student availability, and how they will resolve the split package pickup between Carman and Lerner.
• Logan also reported that the mail services contract is actually a secondary part of a larger on-campus contract–IKON also provides printer and copier leases on campus. Historically, IKON usually focuses their efforts on that contract, and thus does not put as much effort into fighting for the mail contract.
• Senator Tim Qin reported that senators from all schools are working on getting course evaluations available to students. Some past SEAS class evaluations are available through http://oracle.seas.columbia.edu. The proposal would create a similar system for all classes in all schools.
• President Levick has been speaking with Dean Peña-Mora about how to make Mudd’s Carlton Lounge a more appealing study space. Council members proposed getting less wobbly furniture and increasing the amount of space left open after the attached cafeteria closes.

Update: Bwog received the following statement from engineering librarian Danianne Mizzy:
This information is incorrect and there are no plans to close the Monell Engineering Library.

Photo tipped by WMC

We have a new concept space on campus, hot on the heels of the Zen Garden. A recent email from DSpar on Barnard’s renovations included the following message:

“Thanks to the faculty and students in the Architecture Department, Altschul Atrium is newly reconfigured as The Hive. It’s an innovative space divided into lounge, meeting, and gallery areas with modular furniture that can be arranged in a multitude of ways.”

This has literally been realized in a series of bee-related installations, and was officially opened on Tuesday. Behold:

Ninja! Or so says Wikimedia

Caitlin Lynch reports with highlights from this week’s SGA meeting. The SGA has a new website– look at it!

Correction, 9/29: The SGA, not the Alumni Association, is starting the initiative to reach out to students and alums in the Tri-State Area. That initiative is focusing solely on Thanksgiving, not Spring Break, for the moment. The students and alum will not be offering places to stay, just places to have a Thanksgiving meal.

• The Alumni Association of Barnard College had its first meeting last week. The Alumni Board is considering starting an initiative to reach out to students and alums in the Tri-State area who would be willing give students who can’t afford to go home for holidays like Thanksgiving and Spring Break a place to stay (so they won’t have to be stuck on campus).

• First-year election speeches are this Wednesday at 8:00 pm in the Diana Cafe– dinner will be served!

• A Dining Services event will be organized so students can meet the Dining Services Staff.

• The Greek Life Committee met again on Sunday, and they will be handing out a fact sheet and a questionnaire at the Town Hall to students.

• There is a now “digital training lab” in Lehman Library. This also doubles as a teaching room, and is intended to be used for everything from Excel training to language skills. The lab has a NINJa printer, and can also be used as a computer lab during certain hours of the day.

• A “Personal Librarian Program” was introduced: first-year students are now assigned a “personal librarian,” which is like a mini-librarian adviser. Librarians are also assigned to certain departments, so students who have declared a major can also consult with them about research databases, books available at Butler, questions regarding theses, and other important matters.

• Barnard’s website is moving to a different content management system, so there will be a new website in January.

If you need to print out that half-assed response paper, go to Butler or Kent.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The University Senate has unanimously recommended that PrezBo and The Trustees (playing at Music Hall of Williamsburg next week) consider creating an interim Graduate Student Center. And that incredibly sillily-named committee has ideas!

They argued that Columbia’s peer institutions have space dedicated to its graduate students and that such a space would increase a sense of community among grad students. Other reasons cited include a common space for grad students on the Morningside and Medical Center campuses, as well as new funds to build the center, and space to build it in.

The committee has suggested six possible locations for the Student Center: 538 W. 114th St, space within Earl Hall, former Psych library (Schermerhorn), former Chem library (Chandler), former Bio. Sciences library (Fairchild), former Physics library (Pupin).

On the ashes of Columbia’s natural sciences resources, a place for your TAs to talk about Kant and ask each other on dates to 1020 may blossom.

Here’s the full recommendation from the University Senate:
Read more…

Overheard near Uris:

“Let’s go to Avery—that’s where all the hot girls are.”

Official Response from Avery Library staff member, Ian Scheffler, CC’12:

“He’s totally right, I mean there are all those hot Italian girls from the architecture school.”

“Yeah, if you’re tired of reading, just look at all the pretty people … I mean those girls are hot!”

In case you haven’t noticed, CLIO has recently unrolled a beta version of their new library catalog system. The new version features a relatively sleeker interface, a streamlined menu system, and basically just doesn’t scream “1995″ anymore.

The previously mysteriously-labeled “Guided Keyword” tab has now been replaced with a slightly more comprehensible “Advanced” tab, offering new query fields such as Date, Library Location, and Medium. Although these new search constraints are a welcome addition, perhaps CLIO thought this new “Advanced” tab was just a little too straightforward and decided the interface still needed to confuse people, so they included two separate “Search” buttons on the page.

To CLIO’s credit, the search results page has improved drastically. Gone are the days of superfluous and confusing checkerboard results. Instead, results are displayed in a neat, organized fashion, complete with little icons that indicate the medium of the result.

Yes, there could still be room for improvement, and in classic “beta”-version fashion, CLIO openly asks for comments and suggestions. And of course, if you are feeling nostalgic, you can always still use the old one, for now. 

The Heyman Center kicked off its Fall 2009 lecture series with Harvard Library Director Robert Darnton. Stacks Correspondent Mark Hay reports:

A fair chunk of the audience at the Schapiro Center’s Davis Auditorium on Thursday fully expected this, the first Heyman Center event of the fall, to be yet another aging professor’s lamentation on the death of the book. Perhaps the audience was drawn less by the subject matter than by the opportunity to observe America’s most powerful librarian, Professor Robert Darnton, director of the University Library at Harvard University, outside of his natural habitat. Darnton, though, much to the attendees’ pleasant surprise, had no interest in discussing the death of print. A leading expert on the history of books, Darnton quickly dismissed the notion of the death of print with a volley of comparative historical anecdotes and facts and figures on recent book publications. Even the moderator, Professor Eric Foner, seemed a wee bit surprised.

Indeed, Darnton wanted to discuss the effects of Google Books’ digitization projects on the large research library. Though this may seem an extraordinarily dry and niche topic, something in Darnton’s passion, touched with dry wit and a number of charming tales, kept the audience enraptured. We let out a series of collective laughs and gasps and I am sure I heard someone brought to tears (although this may have been unrelated to Darnton’s subject matter). This man was good – so good that we were all willing to take his side in the matter without a second thought. Up with the underdog! Bunk the man, man! Read more…

A tipster has forwarded us a notice that “as a cost-saving measure,” Columbia will be closing the physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology libraries a full year early. According to Physics Department Chair Andrew Mills, who sent the email, “I have received two conflicting reports of the closing date: July 1, 2009 and July 31, 2009.”

As for course reserves and other in-demand books, Mills wrote, “our [Physics] course reserve materials will be held either in the Engineering library or in the Mathematics library until such time as the Science Library in the new science building opens. Some non-reserve books will be moved to the Mathematics library, others to an off-site repository. If you wish to access a book you will need to go to one of the remaining libraries (e.g. math or engineering) and check it out or request that it be extracted from the off-site storage facility.” Bwog is checking on the new locations for other majors’ reserves.

In related news, there does appear to be progress on the new science building: as seen above, workers have begun adding outer skin to the building. Until it opens, affected majors, bone up on your offsite-ordering skills.

- JCD, photo by JYH

We know that, judging by the crowds at Butler far into Friday and Saturday evening this weekend, midterms week has been in earnest for many of you, and that some of you have been in midterm-induced struggles-ville since last week. The powers that be, familiar as always with the realities of undergraduate life, have scheduled the first “midterm date” for today. 

In that spirit, we’ll direct to you to the libraries’ website, which has links to all Columbia’s study spots, and inform you that until Friday, 301 and 310 Butler will be open 24/7. Huzzah! Best of luck in all your mid-semester endeavors. Four days and counting until spring break. 

Terrible news for those partial to the business school library’s wonderful study rooms: this preference is no longer an option for you, and please get out. According to a Bwog informant — and confirmed by the man who just picked up the phone at Watson library — the study rooms are going to be business-schooler-only come fall.

Our informant (who moonlights as a library employee) says she was asked to hang signs announcing that September 1st would be the last that the study rooms would be undergrad-friendly. But she is conflicted about performing these cruel tasks: “I thought the whole point of the university system was that we have access to tons o’ fun and resources, including as many business-y and economic-y books as required to fill our bellies.  So are we paying for a share of the goods, or aren’t we?”

In any event, see you in the Lerner Piano Lounge, where the duration and volume of someone’s piano playing is always proportionate to your workload. 

With Butler filled to the brim with exam-tide holiday cheer (not to mention unshowered overachievers) you may be seeking an alternative study spot, any study spot, whether on campus…or slightly, vaguely off. With that in mind Bwog follows correspondent Zack Hoopes inside the ghoulish, gothic depths of Burke Library at the Union Theological Seminary…

Monday, 9:38 pm

I arrive at 121st and Broadway, the entrance to UTS. I don’t know where I’m going, and an awkward stare-down with the security guard ensues. He tells me (with a gesture over his shoulder) that the library is “over there.” I walk over there. A sign says ‘Burke Library’ with an arrow pointing down a very, very, long hallway. The floor is made of some sort of brown tile/paneling/dried animal feces, with the greasy shine and unevenness of something that has been rubbed way too much over a very long time. This appearance is not exclusive to the floor. The ambiance of this building can only be described as that which gives you ‘the willies.’ It’s a labyrinth in here, and not a fun one. I expect to run into David Bowie.

Unlike Butler, there is no guard to tell me I can’t bring my sandwich into the building so they can sell me a sandwich inside. As I walk through the security scanners, the alarm goes off. The guy at the desk says “It’s probably just broken. The only time it should go off is if you actually had a book from here.” Apparently circulation at Burke is low. I ask for the pamphlet I’ve requested from the desk guy. He appears to be a model, upstanding hipster. One of those guys whose personal convictions you’re always afraid you’ll offend with a crass comment about God or saving the whales or some shit like that.

Read more…