Emergency Communications

Higher education institutions across the country are busy upgrading emergency communications systems, according to a survey of members of ACUTA, the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education. Many of those surveyed said these upgrades are spurred by recent campus events such as natural disasters and violent crimes. Of those surveyed:

A Pew Center study of social networks such as MySpace and Facebook found that 55% of teenagers online use social networks. Few of them used these networks to look at colleges, but those who did apparently found the results satisfying. An E-Expectations survey by Noel-Levitz, James Tower and the National Research Center for College and University Admissions looked at whether college-bound teens use these social networks to investigate colleges and universities. Of more than 1,000 high school seniors who responded:

• 20% have looked for a school on MySpace or Facebook, and 92% of them would do so again
• 33% have used one of these sites to connect with students at a college on their list, and 96% of them would do so again
• 27% have read a blog written by a current student at a college on their list, and 91% of them would again

The survey also found that of these college-bound teens:

57% would rather look at a college Web site than read a brochure

81% have used an online form to request more information

55% have viewed a virtual tour of the campus

Libraries Buying More E-Books

The Survey of Academic Libraries, published by Primary Research Group, shows that spending by academic libraries on electronic books has reached 11% of the total spent on print books and will hit 20% by 2011. Also found by the report:

• 34.9% of libraries surveyed have notebook computer lending programs

The surveyed libraries spend about 160 hours per year in staff time addressing problems related to interruption of database access.

Source: Primary Research Group, 2007