ABSTRACT
Comprehensive technical units in educational premises providing a full range of services are few and far between. Within any institution, the services required by faculties and departments are no doubt present but their organisation into a single unit, responsible to an entire institution, is most unusual. The reasons for this are not difficult to establish. Firstly, the size of an institution is likely to be the greatest influential factor in determining whether or not services should be centralised. Economic and effective management, even of single services in large institutions can be extemely difficult and may well not be feasible. This is especially so when different faculties are widely separated. It is also true when the service requires little highly specialised skill and comparatively inexpensive equipment as is the case with, say, photography. Secondly, the evolution of the technical services now available — printing and related techniques, photography, audio and television production, computing and their various combinations — have had differing time scales. Consequently, some services have been installed for a long period, others for a relatively short time. Thirdly, whilst a printing service may well be of great use to both administrative and academic departments, the service provided by, say, a television unit tends to be less generally in demand. As a result, since departments see television playing a greater part in their activities (for whatever reason), they tend to be more amenable to providing funds for its provision and upkeep. As a further consequence, having budgeted for the service, the contributing departments, quite reasonably tend to demand its ready availability. Often, the only way in which this can be assured is through the purchase of a small self-contained facility to be retained within the department. This notion of ‘small is beautiful’ as applied to television becomes increasingly viable over the years as the technology advances at a very rapid rate and what were yesterday’s advanced facilities become today’s standard provision at a small fraction of the original cost.
