Syracuse University students are well aware of the trials and tribulations of doing their laundry. Until recently, they had to sit and wait in laundry rooms for available washers and dryers. However, SU laundry rooms were brought into the post-modern era by bringing washers and dryers online at the end of Spring Break with LaundryView.com.

LaundryView is a Web site developed by Mac-Gray Corporation that allows university students to check to see if their laundry has finished washing or drying, or to see if there are washers and dryers available. LaundryView has been in operation since the end of Spring Break, according to Terry Sutliffe, manager of maintenance for Syracuse University’s laundry rooms and dining halls.

‘That is a significant improvement in service,’ said William Longcore, associate director of Residence Life. ‘I think any improvements that can be implemented that don’t appear to be a significant expense to students is a wonderful thing.’

Students can also request to be notified of when their laundry is done or when a specified number of washers or dryers become available. E-mail notification is the only form available at the moment, however, Mac-Gray is attempting to institute text-messaging notification for the university, Sutliffe said. There is no set date for text-message notification to become available.

‘We know how frustrating it is to go down to the laundry room with all your gear and not be able to get in,’ Sutliffe said. ‘I sure wish I had (LaundryView) back when I was a student.’

Director of the Housing and Food Services Maintenance Zone J.D. Tessier would not disclose how much LaundryView is costing the university.

The Web site also offers a weekly usage report which indicates the hours of most frequent usage in a laundry room. However, because there have been outages since the system was launched, the weekly usage report is currently inaccurate, Sutliffe said.

‘Just the normal little quirks that you might have with a computer system,’ Sutliffe said. ‘Some buildings are up 100 percent, some buildings aren’t.’

The university decided to institute LaundryView for SU to make students’ lives more convenient, Sutliffe said.

‘Seems like it should be able to help (students) out,’ Sutliffe said. ‘Laundry’s just one of those necessary evils.’

Freshman finance major Priscila Velazquez said she used LaundryView on Sunday and described the Web site as cool.

‘It’s just nice to know if it’s busy or not so you don’t have to come down and wait,’ Velazquez said.

Velazquez said she checked LaundryView to see if any washers were available to discover that none were, so she waited until some became available.

‘Once I saw two were open I sprinted to the elevator,’ Velazquez said.

Michelle Williamson, a freshman in the Whitman School of Management, also said that she liked that LaundryView is now available.

‘It’s helpful and it saves you time,’ Williamson said. ‘If it’s full you can find something else to do.’

According to Williamson, LaundryView’s weekly usage report was useful for students to plan for the best time to do their laundry.

‘It’s really new,’ she said. ‘People will start usin

Published on March 29, 2005 at 12:00 pm