Did you know that Instructional Technology no longer lends electronics equipment to students? Due to some "restructuring" of their services, IT has discontinued lending to students and has stopped delivering equipment to classrooms as well.

Leave it to the folks at CFA to understand our needs. The CFA Multimedia Studio offers students 24-hour use of a variety of goodies: Hi-8 and DV camcorders, cassette and DAT recorders, still cameras, tripods, microphones, speakers, and video and slide projectors. Best of all, it's totally free.

Unfortunately, you can't just walk into the CCon's office on the third floor of CFA and walk out with equipment two minutes later – that is, you can't until you've filled out a form for a lending card. After filling out the form it'll take about a week for your info to be entered in their database system. Once your card is available for pick-up, you're ready to roll.

Equipment can be picked up from 4-5 pm, Monday through Friday, and must be returned no later than 5 pm the following day. If you don't want to keep stuff overnight, you can pick up in the morning and return by 5 pm the same day. A small window of opportunity on Friday afternoons, usually from 4:30-5 pm, lets you grab some gear for the weekend, to be returned by Monday at noon. While there's no specific limitation on what and how much you borrow, items can be reserved, so keep in mind that what you want might not always be available. If you're working on deadline, it's in your best interest to reserve the item(s) you need a few days in advance. Items for a specific weekend should be reserved a week in advance.

Good luck and happy borrowing!

Editor's Note: The information on the CFA Multimedia Studio's web site does not coincide with the information listed here. That's because they haven't updated their info since 2001. Be  cautious when taking advantage of this service; the operation seems tenuous.