Swarthmore College Computer Society

The Swarthmore College Computer Society, or SCCS, is a campus organization at Swarthmore College, a small liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. The SCCS is a student-run organization independent of the official ITS department of the college.

Services to Students

In addition to operating a set of servers that provide e-mail accounts, Unix shell login accounts, server storage space, and webspace to students, professors, alumni, and other student-run organizations, the SCCS hosts over 100 mailing lists used by various student groups, and over 130 organizational websites, including the website of the student newspaper, The Phoenix. The SCCS also provides a number of spaces that are open to members of the student body, as well as to faculty and staff:

* A computer lab of Debian Linux and Mac OS X machines
* A meeting space
* A specialized library of computer books, indexed as part of the college library's collections
* A digital darkroom with color calibrated negative scanning, editing and archival printing, used by the Photo Club and other students
* An 8-foot projection screen with DVD, VCR, PlayStation 2, NES, Atari, and other gaming systems in the "Video Pit"

The computer lab and Video Pit together comprise the SCCS Media Lounge, located in Clothier basement beneath Essie Mae's snack bar. The SCCS staff is comprised of a group of students selected by existing staff and approved by members of a student body-elected policy board.

Impact

In September 2003, the SCCS servers survived a Slashdotting while hosting a copy of the Diebold memos on behalf of the student group Free Culture Swarthmore, then known as the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons. SCCS staff promptly complied with the relevant DMCA takedown request received by the college's ITS department.

The SCCS was noted in PC Magazine's article as one of the reasons for ranking Swarthmore #4 on that list. During the 2004-2005 school year, the SCCS Media Lounge served as the early home of , a weekly webcast run by Swarthmore students and providing news about the Iraq war, providing resources, space, and technical support for the project in its infancy.

Two SCCS papers have been accepted for publication at the USENIX Large Installation System Administration () Conference, one of which was awarded Best Paper.

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