University students, alumni and visitors now have the Quad at their fingertips.
LSU’s Web site recently began featuring a “Quadcam,” or a camera mounted in the Quad that sends live pictures to the University’s Web site.
The camera, which is mounted on a pole in front of Dodson Hall, is much like the Parade Ground cam, which has been on the LSU Web site for several months.
“A couple of years ago one of our goals was to revamp the Web site,” said Lori Kemp, University Relations web director. “We decided to install web cams all around campus.”
Kemp said the process was long, but the newly installed Quad cam is more advanced than the Parade Ground cam which is mounted at the law school.
The new camera in the Quad takes pictures from four different angles and changes the online picture once every 15 seconds.
Kemp said the cameras are a joint project between University Relations and Computing Services.
“One of the big issues with the cameras have been the trees,” Kemp said. “You want to get it high enough so it’s hard to find and makes the people being pictured somewhat anonymous. But then you run into problems with the tree cover.”
Claude Rodriguez, an applications consultant for Computing Services, is one of the employees heading up the project.
Rodriguez said Computing Services already had the infrastructure for the cameras, so it wasn’t hard to set them up and feed the pictures to the University’s Web site.
Rodriguez said the cameras range from $800 to $2200, depending on their features.
“It provides live images for current students,” Rodriguez said. “They can check out the weather in the quad.”
Ron Hay, Computing Services executive director, said the camera’s cost came out of the Computing Services budget.
“We get a million hits a month on our Web site,” Hay said. “The majority of those hits are people coming to look at LSU for a reason. It’s a big public relations thing.”
Rodriguez said many universities around the country have web cams as recruiting tools.
“Through research we found other universities such as Florida and Tennessee have received an overwhelming response from their students,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a refreshing image for Alumni, especially those overseas and at war, for them to see their alma mater.”
Hay said Computing Services plans to install more web cams around campus as the money becomes available, including in the new Union plaza and at Mike the Tiger’s cage.