Support for Technology Innovation at Mann Library
Every fall semester, undergraduates taking BIO201 know that one of the skills they'll develop in this challenging class will be the art and practice of preparing an effective poster session. Where do the 600-plus students in the course go to prep and print their posters? To the Stone Computing Center on the first floor of Mann Library (map it), which provides an extensive array of computers, printing equipment, software applications and other tools that have become essential for the completion and communication of quality research in all fields.
Mann Library has recently become the only public computing center on the Ag Quad, and demand for the computing facilities in the library is intense. Mann is grateful for the support provided by the Colleges of Agriculture & Life Science and Human Ecology to keep the library a reliable computing hot spot. But times have been tough and postponements that have had to be made in the usual technology replacement and upgrade cycles have threatened to exact a significant toll on the high standards that our patrons have come to expect when they head to the Stone Center to work.
John Lemuel Stone, Professor of Farm Practice, 1903-1919The John L. Stone Computing Center at Mann bears the name of a pioneering Cornell extension teacher and professor of farm practice, whose 22 year career at Cornell (1897-1919) contributed greatly to a formative period in the development of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The John L. Stone Endowment, stewarded by Prof. Stone’s grandson Girard Stone Haviland ’48 and other members of the Stone family, provides a funding foundation that helps sustain a high standard of performance. Helping to counteract the difficulties of a deeply challenging fiscal year, the Fund has allowed the Stone computers to receive a number of special upgrades—including a boost in memory in each of the Center's 75 computers, new software requested by faculty for course-related student use, and special applications that efficiently ensure the cyber-protection of the electronic equipment in the heavily trafficked facility. Each of these improvements has made an important difference in the service that students find at the Stone Center, and all would simply not have been possible without funding from the Stone Endowment.
Professor Stone was a university leader known for his belief in innovation and his dedication to educating students in the principles of sound agricultural science. Today, thanks to the support of funds such as the Stone Endowment, the library continues this legacy by helping students harness the power of today’s most useful computing innovations to achieve their own innovative best.