Classroom A/V Not Sustainable?

I have read several posts on the social sites lately about how A/V technology on our campuses is not sustainable.  I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that one.  I never remember hearing that our network was unsustainable or that our telephone system was unsustainable.  Sure, I have heard talk about ways to cut costs, but just ruling it too expensive, of course not.

I think we need to look at the technologies in our classrooms and meeting rooms the same way we look at our IT infrastructure and equipment.  At Bates College, I don't make the argument that we need to spend on A/V, I let the room usage make the argument for me.  During the first two months of classes this year, A/V has been used over 2,900 times in 50 classrooms.  That averages out to 83 times per day!  About 1/3 of those uses, were in rooms that had no technology installs two years ago.  Clearly, faculty are using the technology, A LOT, and are quickly adapting to new installs.  I give these statistics to the people who make the budget decisions.  It is very clear that not funding new installs will keep faculty from teaching in the manner that they have become accustomed to.  Our stats clearly tell us that if we had not funded new installs over the past two years, there would have been over 1,000 times, in two months, that faculty would have needed technology that was not available!

I also give the administration information about why upgrades and replacements are necessary.  For the foreseeable future, this means pointing out all the changes that are part of the digital transition.  We have faculty asking about being able to play BluRay DVD's, connecting laptops with only DVI connections (or worse only HDMI connections).  Again, I keep totals on these types of requests and present them to those who make the budget decisions.  In my view, this may actually be a time when we have an easy argument for maintenance and repair budgets.  If you can give a clear explanation to your CIO, and other decision makers, about HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and HDCP and how only a truly integrated system will allow these technologies to work, then a decision not to fund these changes is at least an educated one.  They will know that problems will be created by this lack of funding. Moving forward from that decision any classroom problems or event problems that can be directly related to lack of repair and replacement need to be forwarded to the decision makers, and not "explained away" as a technical problem.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that budgets are extraordinarily tight, and we all need to tighten our belts.  However, as Tech Managers, pretending that budget cuts are easily handled, or readily accepting the thought that A/V is not sustainable does not do your office, your faculty or your institution justice.  We end up putting together systems that are not integrated and don't work very well.  We get ourselves caught in a seemingly endless, "why should we give A/V more money, when nothing ever works" versus "nothing ever works because we don't have the budget to do it right". The ony way to break this cycle, make sure that your administration is hearing (along with detailed stastics and education) the "we don't have the budget to do it right" side of the argument.