If you interact on this campus in any way, shape or form, then you’re more than likely familiar with the awfulness that is the Loyola Internet. However, strangely enough, there’s another technological entity of doom that isn’t spoken about nearly as much as Loyola-net has been: the computers and printers in the library.

Considering how society as a whole is far more technologically advanced than we were in, say, the 1990s, things should be running faster and smoother for people who use this technology on a daily basis. Never the less, we find ourselves still stuck in a digitally sluggish march with multiple obstacles.

The computers in the library have only one Internet browser, the infamous Internet Explorer. Not only is it basically the slowest-running browser out there, it’s also quite dangerous to be using a browser that’s well-known for attacks by malware and viruses. It’s easier to just download another browser and use that, and for a while, many students did. However, once the library replaced each computer with the ones used today, any trace of Firefox or Chrome has been erased, and there’s no way of getting these browsers back without administrative permission.

Speaking of the new computers, another huge issue that I’ve personally encountered is the existence of the Remote Access App that the library has opted to use now. It takes forever for the program to load, and then even longer for it to open up Microsoft Word. This is problematic for me, as I typically go to the library to print homework out. Why not just have Word installed directly on the computer? It’s so much faster to just open up your files that way, rather than having to deal with a third-party-program.

And of course, once you finally open up Word and prepare to print it out before class, that’s when even more disaster hits. I have encountered multiple computers that, for some reason or another, don’t have any proper printers set up – meaning the only place you could print to was the “.doc to .PDF” option. After scouring for another computer, we’re finally able to print. But wait, there’s more!

The log-in screen to submit your print job won’t show. Or maybe one of the printers is down again. One of the likely scenarios that’s been occurring more recently is printer number one’s job being redirected to printer number three’s, meaning that there are more assignments and notes for that poor printer to spew out. Either way, the sea of soon-to-be-late students begins to gather at the desk, and my homework assignment is nowhere to be found.

If these issues were solved, then life would be so much easier. There would be fewer minutes wasted as Internet Explorer takes forever to load up, less frustration waiting for the printers to finally hand you your hard work and less overall confusion. Most, if not all, of these problems are easily solved. So why aren’t they yet?

Thomas Lin is a vocal performance senior.

He can be contacted at [email protected]