Headline:: With time comes change even here on campus
Sub-Headline: Yes indeed, change has come and hit us at home here at El Camino Community College.

Stephen Voltattorni
Staff Writer

Students should bring a USB flash drive to the Writing Center and their student ID card to the Schauerman Library as part of the changes at these locations.
Most students said that they seem to feel that they agree with the “old school” ways here on campus as compared to the fresh changes that have gone down, which affect all of us in the community here at El Camino Community College in one way or another especially as far as the Writing Center is concerned.
“Students need to bring the ECC ID with the current sticker on it and also need to bring a USB to print and save documents they can’t save to the hard drive,” Barbara Budrovich, director of the Writing Center, said.
So make note that students must carry a USB flash drive with them as well as a current student ID in order to be working in the Writing Center, although there are other rules to follow as well.
“Students can only print: essays, outlines, notes they want to print up or anything composed by students, which is school related,” Budrovich said.
When the student is finish with the scholastic project he or she is working on there is a new process that has become standard, making it easy on the student, getting them in and out as quick as possible.
“Students do not print themselves; they hand it to the technician who prints for them, thus the need for the USB,” Budrovich said
Besides these differences there is one last change and the best one to come yet, which helps EC out tremendously.
“Check-out is required, which is a change form last semester because we need to report to the state the number of visits and number of hours the student spends here,” Budrovich said.
All the hours spent and visits made by a student add up and help EC in the end, especially with the bills.
“These total hours affect our funding so that’s why it’s important, it’s a matter of money, ” Budrovich said.
This process has already been in effect for sometime, in the Library Tutoring Center, which brings up the Library and its changes.
“We have had a couple changes in the last year, year and half or so. We have had to have a reduction of some services due to the budget and our casual or hourly budget has been reduced significantly, which has required us to alter our Library hours,” Ed Martinez, El Camino College’s Public Access Librarian, said.
The old Library hours have been cut down from last year’s hours due to EC’s lower budget.
The Library is now open from 8a.m. in the morning instead of 7:30a.m. and we are now open till 9p.m., so instead of 7:30a.m. till 9p.m. we are now open 8a.m. till 8p.m. and on Fridays we are closing at 12:30p.m. instead of at 4:30p.m.,” Martinez said.
Martinez said that the time change affects all services, including: the Library/media technology center, computer lab, basic skills center as well as the Library.
To keep the El Camino Library business working successfully and making it possible to pay each staff member a paycheck consecutively, these cutbacks were very necessary and unfortunately a big help as well.
“The hour changes are beneficial enough to keep our heads above water but its not good, we prefer not to do that but we don’t have a choice,” Martinez said.
Note that not only has the budget affected and created a hassle as far as hours of operation of the Library are concerned, it has also caused the Library to move some services to different areas of the building as well.
“We have also had some internal shifting of some services; for instance, the reserve/textbook collection services have had to change after 3 o’clock. After the first two weeks of the semester, we will be moving the evening services for periodical reserve over to the circulation department, consolidating our departments into one,” Martinez said.
With time, or rather as it passes, comes technology, which is the reason for the next major change that has affected the copy center or room where students can be found in a line reaching outside into the Library lobby.
“The other major innovations or changes the Library has had over the last year and a half has been our photocopy services, which we are now going with QCI, a quality copy ink,” Martinez said.
QCI has created a new process or rather system that connects one card with the payment machine, which is attached to the copier.
“They have brought us a new dimension to our service, with our former service students would have to purchase a print card to make photocopies and now they just add their monies to their MyECC account. We use to have a separate print card, which is just another card we thought the student would lose,” Martinez said.
QCI makes it easy on the student, creating a little bit less work and allowing it to be cheaper by bypassing the purchase of a card.
“The ID card [your student ID] does allow people to add money to it. This provides a single card for all services whether it’s for photocopying and/or using the computer for print copying,” Martinez said.
Although it may have some glitches to start with including computer error that comes with technology, that of which I witnessed, the new process of making photocopies should prove to be helpful and beneficial to the student as well as the library.
“The photocopy services we hope is an enhancement of services. These are new machines and now have color copies, which copy for 50 cents a page and 10 cents for black and white.”
Following the changes to the photocopy polices there is one last change that just recently occurred all throughout the Library and adds the finishing touches that should make for a good year to come.
“One other service we have enhanced is Wi-Fi. The one thing we have done is added wireless access to the entire building,” Martinez stated.
So that’s the low down as far as the latest changes to the Library system are concerned although as stated early on, not every member of the El Camino Community College fully agrees with them.
“No one likes them, the students have told us they want the hours increased, so we did a satisfaction survey of the Library; the number one complaint was that our hours were too short; it happens all the time but they seem a little bit more vehement about it that we shouldn’t have the hours we do, people would love us to be open 24/7,” Martinez said.