Located in Newman Library, the Studios Technology Lending Desk, originally the Media Design Studio, opened in March 2018 as a way of providing access to technology for students, alumni, and employees at Virginia Tech. “Almost all of our students’ fields need some level of technological literacy,” said Alice Rogers, manager of the studio.

“The library serves everyone and meets people where they’re at. That’s a big philosophy for us and for the library.” In addition to lending equipment, the desk also works to educate students, “We teach workshops on a mix of soft skills and hard skills to use technology well. We want to do whatever we can to support our students.”

A compound bar graph showing the total technology lending by equipment type. Laptops are by far the most checked out equipment with nearly 6,500 checkouts and nearly 2,500 unique patrons. Tablets with more than 3,000 checkouts and 2,000 patrons, photography cameras with more 3,000 checkouts and 1,000 patrons, tripods with mare than 2,000 checkouts and 1,000 patrons, microphones and video cameras both with 2,000 checkouts and 1,000 patrons make up the bulk of visits. The remaining 20 items slope steeply down from projectors with 1,000 checkouts and 500 patrons to headphones with less than 50 checkouts and patrons. Other listed highlights are: Over 750 items in circulation. 7,485 patrons have used the lending desk since it has opened, checking out items more than 24,000 times. 62 Patrons have come back more than 30 times, some checking out more than 10 different types of equipment across their visits.
A scatterplot illustrating the Return use by patrons with 3-30 visits. The Y axis shows the number of different types of equipment from 1-10. The X axis shows the number of return visits. Individual points represent a single patron. As many as 256 patrons are clustered around the 1,1 to 3,5 coordinates. Past that, small numbers of patrons occupy all other coordinates, dropping to 1-3 individuals from 6,25 out to the edges of 10,30.

During the Fall 2021 semester the studio was in full swing with more than 3,300 bookings and more than 1,100 unique patrons.

More from the Fall 2021 semester:

Semester Snapshot: Action cameras were checked out for 2,800 hours. 74 Circulating Laptops were checked out, on average, almost 70% of the time. 15 types of high-end camera lenses, including telescope and cinema lenses, were checked out 105 times. DJ Equipment was borrowed 80 times.
Alice Rogers with vibrant orange, curly hair, passing an equipment box over the lending desk. A quote reads, "I want people to know that we care about the big things and the small things. We talk a lot about the flashy technology but we also spend a lot of energy to make sure we are meeting the simpler needs of our students as well."

Back to the magazine

Next story: Exhibition in Virginia Tech’s Newman Library honored the diversity of American women in the military