So the University of Virginia has found that 99.9% of their students have their own laptops at school (duh?), and 95% of computer lab usage is attributed to the usage of free programs, and as such they've decided to start dismantling some computer labs. Good idea?
Bringing it a Penn context, I don't think it'd be a bad idea. Labs take a lot of money to run and keep updated. But I wouldn't say to take them all down. I'd say consolidate them. For example, whenever I do research using SAS I have to go to McNeil where the computer lab is pretty small and is only open until 8:30PM. Since I need SAS, what I can't do is that I can't walk to the next building over to use the Huntsman computer lab which is much larger, much more widely used, and is open 24 hours. My suggestion? Close the McNeil lab since not that many people use it anyway, put SAS on the Huntsman computers, and use the money saved to give me my own version of SAS so I never have to walk down there in the first place!
Done.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/whats-the-point-of-running.ars
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