Dwelling in the basement of Himes Hall in a relatively untraveled area lies a resource that many students do not even know exists – Media Design and Visual Imaging Services, a center specializing in digital and photographic services along with digital video editing.
Tanya Ruffin, media design and visual imaging services program manager, said most students and faculty do not know the service is available and therefore do not take full advantage of the center’s resources.
“I don’t know if they know that photography is down here and they can get their film developed,” Ruffin said. “It’s on campus, and it’s easy. We have 35 millimeter developing, and they can also put the digital images on a compact disc.”
Along with film development, the center also has a digital studio.
The all-black room is used primarily for art and architecture majors who want to photograph their work to send to graduate schools. It also is used take head shots for organizations, said Jason Mauterer, a photography senior and student worker.
Next semester the center will start producing digital portfolios for students. The portfolios will be a digital slide show of a student’s work to display to future employers or graduate schools.
But students are not the only people who can benefit from the center’s services, Ruffin said.
Instructors looking to enhance their classroom settings through the Internet can come into the center and receive help with Blackboard and Semester Book. The center helps them put multimedia content on the site or put video on digital format so they can stream it over the Web.
The center even has a sound-proof booth for sound recording.
“Last semester a professor came in and recorded his glossary for architecture, and we put it into a Web page where students could click on the word and the teacher would read the definition over the speakers,” Ruffin said.
The service is free to faculty members when it deals with course work as part of the Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Ruffin said.
“Faculty members really do not know that there is assistance for digital video and multimedia for their course materials,” Ruffin said.
Kevin DiBenedetto, digital video coordinator, said another service that goes unused is the center’s video department.
DiBenedetto said students or faculty can request a videographer to go out and shoot footage of meetings, symposiums or other important events.
Ruffin said when she attended LSU in 1988 as a fine arts major she did not even know about the center.
“It would have been a lot nicer to bring my stuff here and get them to take pictures of it and have it done professionally,” Ruffin said.