SFSU Student Access Information

READ THIS STUFF!! IT WILL SAVE YOU TIME, AGONY, HEARTACHE AND EMBARRASSMENT!!

REMEMBER: FAILURE TO PLAN ON YOUR PART DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY ON OUR PART.

We strongly suggest that students plan ahead for equipment needs.
The demand for our equipment at the end of the semester is very high.

EQUIPMENT USE:

VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION-

1. Your faculty MUST make all reservations and MUST sign for the equipment in person at our office. They may sign for it in advance or the day of your presentation (not recommended).

2. We will hold the equipment for 1 hour past your reserved time, after which we will release it for check-out by another user.

3. If you are doing your presentation in POWERPOINT, make sure it is saved in the same version that is currently on our computers (click for specifics). Also, see HINTS below.

4. Stop by our office to try your presentation a minimum of three days in advance. We recommend coming by in the evenings, Monday through Thursday. Please understand that our equipment is constantly in circulation and we may not have your particular computer available when you stop by. You can call ahead: ext. 81494.

5. We cannot leave your presentation on the hard drive. To save space, we erase all added files when the equipment is returned.

6. Please note that we only have Microsoft Office, a web browser and browser plug-ins on our computers. You must provide any additional software to run your presentation. We recommend that you reserve enough time to load your software before class. We do not have room at the Center, you'll have to take the equipment to an empty classroom.

MEDIA USE:

Missed a Film in Class? Go to the Media Access Center in HSS 127.

1. View all AV media in the Media Access Center (MAC) on the third floor of the library. Our media is licensed for faculty use on campus only and it cannot be checked out by students. We will broadcast to MAC through the campus closed circuit cable system and you will watch it there. Do not come to AV, MAC has our catalog in their office.

2. If you wish to use our media during your presentation, notify your faculty IN ADVANCE. They must call our office to reserve the media and schedule the broadcast.

3. If you wish to broadcast your own tape through our system, you will need to have the faculty call to schedule to broadcast IN ADVANCE and designate you as the person to drop off and pick up the media. WE ONLY RELEASE PERSONAL TAPES TO THE FACULTY UNLESS SOME ONE ELSE IS DESIGNATED. Remember to pick up your tape after class.

4. If you wish to cue your tape to a specific location, come by our office 1 hour before your presentation. Tell us the teacher's name and that you wish to cue your tape. We cannot cue tapes for you during your presentation. If you need to shuttle back and forth to several sections of the tape, we recommend that you have the faculty sign out the media and a VCR IN ADVANCE for you to pick up before class. We will need to know what classroom you will use it it so that we can provide the correct cables.

HINTS:

Always have a backup copy of your presentation. Burn it to a CD or copy it to a flash drive. Use floppy or Zip discs as a last resort.

PowerPoint presentations:

• KEEP YOUR IMAGES SMALL!! LARGE IMAGES give PowerPoint heartburn!!
• IF YOU ARE USING AN AV COMPUTER- Check your presentation on our computers at least three days before your presentation. This insures you have time to make changes.
• IF YOU ARE USING YOUR OWN LAPTOP- Always bring your laptop's AC adapter. Never rely on batteries.
• If several groups are presenting on the same day and you're all using a PC to create your presentations, check to see if someone has a laptop you can all use. It will probably have a faster processor than our computer carts and you can set it to a higher resolution for finer detail on your images. Make sure they have the right size drive (floppy or Zip) for your disk. Then all you need from us is a projector and an multi-outlet extension cord.

For overhead transparencies and PowerPoint presentations:

• Use large fonts for all your text (including information in tables and graphs)
  • We recommend a MINIMUM 24 POINT HELVETICA, ARIAL or VERDANA. 30-40 point is best.
• Avoid fonts with serifs, like Times or fancy fonts like Old English or Parisian.
• Format your pages (in Page Setup) Landscape (using the width of the page, not the length).
  • This will prevent text from being cut off by audience heads or the limitations of the equipment.
• Set your margins so the page is 8" x 10" (the normal size of an overhead transparency stage is 10" x 10")