Students looking for a movie to watch on a Friday night may soon be heading to an unlikely source - the Sciences Library. Brian Becker '09, chair of the campus life committee of the Undergraduate Council of Students, has been exploring the idea of housing a DVD rental service on the 14th floor of the SciLi.
The project is in its preliminary stages and would not be implemented until next September at the earliest.
Becker said he came up with the idea last spring while enrolled in PY 30: "Personality." In order to view films he missed in class, he had to travel up to Media Services on the 14th floor the SciLi. Students are not allowed to remove movies from the library, a restriction that Becker found inconvenient.
Becker envisioned a DVD check-out service in the media library. After discussions with Russell Carey '91 MA'06, interim vice president for campus life and student services, and Mark Shelton, leader of the library's systems and media service department, Becker began to assemble a more realistic picture of what such a service would look like.
"There's already infrastructure set in place in the (Sciences) Library," Becker said. "If only we could improve on it, the whole student body would benefit."
According to the preliminary plan, students would be able to rent DVDs from Media Services free of charge for a set amount of time. The current DVD collection would be supplemented either with yearly purchases or with a subscription to a service that would allow Media Services to rotate additional titles for temporary periods of time. The new DVDs would be primarily entertainment movies, as the existing collection is comprised of mainly educational material.
"What's there is probably not exactly what students are looking for," Carey said.
Carey said the University is interested in the DVD-rental idea and the realization of the idea will require further, more focused discussions among UCS representatives and administrators in the library and the Division of Campus Life.
Students seem generally supportive of the idea. Alex Seitz '08, who transferred to Brown in fall 2005, expressed support for the project and said his previous school had offered a similar service.
Anne LeMaster-Merrick '08 said she would probably not use the service regularly but believed it would benefit many students at Brown. "The only nearby rental place is Acme (on Brook Street), and it's too expensive," she said.
But students such as Chongsi Bi '10 remained skeptical of the service's effectiveness. "The fact that (Media Services) is not too popular means it might not be popular afterward," she said, adding that she felt the new service would have to be heavily advertised in order to gain student interest.
In addition to the new check-out service, DVD kiosks are also being considered, Becker said. The kiosks could be located around campus and would require a credit-card swipe to rent the DVDs inside.
