“Make it a CMIT night” may not be the new catchphrase on the Boulevard, but it could be.

The Norwick Center for Media and Instructional Technology allowsstudents to borrow movies for personal use.

This may not seem all that exciting, however, it is a freealternative to the video store.

The CMIT houses over 8,000 VHS tapes and 1,200 DVD’s. Over75 percent of the videotapes and approximately 90 percent of theDVD’s are available for students to borrow from thelibrary.

Though many of these films were originally ordered foreducational use, the film and upper level rhetoric classes at SMUrely heavily on recent feature films.

So if you are looking for The Matrix, you’d be ableto find it there.

However, the CMIT isn’t perfect. Its hours are somewhatlimited, and fines for late movie returns are quite heavy.

Also, its policy is to only allow movies to be checked out forone business day.

This means that if you check out a movie after 2 p.m. on Monday,then it is due back before 2 p.m. on Tuesday. However, if youborrow a movie on Friday, it isn’t due back until Monday.

Get there early, though, because the CMIT closes at 5 p.m. onFridays. This is earlier than its usual closing time of 10 p.m.,but it’s still better than its hours on Saturday or, moreaccurately, its lack of hours. The CMIT is closed on Saturday.

The CMIT is intended for educational use, and its policiesreflect that. Teachers have first priority and have the firstportion of the day, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., to reserve movies forthe next day.

Professors can also request that certain movies be put onreserve for the entire semester if they would like their studentsto view it outside of class. The next-business-day policy is inplace for the same reason — because many students may need towatch the film. These policies are strictly enforced with a heavy$5 per item per day fine.

Compared to other schools SMU is lucky to have this resource.Baylor, Texas Tech and many of our other universities in Texas donot allow students to remove films from the library at all.

The CMIT is a strong resource, yet it lacks the necessaryfunding to maintain longer hours and to reduce the cost of fines.This may be an old argument, but we need to continue thediscussion.