[Editors] MIT Editors' Club Minutes, 12/9/2004

[Elizabeth Thomson]

  MIT EDITORS' CLUB

*Meeting Notes from December 9, 2004*

Only a few Editors came to this meeting, I expect because the rest of 
ya'll were caroling on the steps of 77 Mass. Ave. (Well, at least two 
of you were.)

Regardless of the tiny turnout, we still managed to discuss lots of 
Interesting Stuff. One example: improving the MIT Events Calendar.

*Revamping the Events Calendar*

Susan Curran of Information Services & Technology told us that IS&T 
is working with the Information Center to improve the events 
calendar. <http://events.mit.edu>

As a result, she asked us about how we use the calendar,  what we'd 
like to see, etc. Here are some of our responses:

--It would be great to see all the listings under, say, Theater that 
will be happening over the following month (rather than just for the 
day you happen to be at the Events Calendar). SUSAN'S RESPONSE: 
Actually, you *can* do just that with the current calendar, but since 
several of the people at this meeting had the same suggestion, 
obviously the user interface needs a little tweaking.

--The current calendar doesn't seem to be comprehensive. Is there a 
way to ensure that *all* MIT events are routed to the calendar?

--Can you search the calendar by location, such as the Chapel? Some 
folks thought that the search engine could be better.

Susan welcomes feedback from the rest of you, too. If you'd like to 
comment on your experiences with the calendar, send a note to 
scurran at mit.edu

*IAP Bulletin Update*

Several of us were horrified (and for once I'm only being a little 
overly dramatic) to find that the 2005 Independent Activities Period 
bulletin is now ONLY available online. No more flipping through a 
paper version on the train or at lunch.....

Some responses:

"This will mean that I can't find cool IAP events by serendipity. In 
the past I read the paper version front to back, scanning for fun 
things in all categories.  No way am I going to click through 500 web 
pages...."

"This will be far inferior to the physical version, which you can 
read while you're eating and circle things."

Well....that's it for these minutes.

Happy Holidays, Everybody!

Elizabeth






-- 
===================================
Elizabeth A. Thomson
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
===================================