Student's need not worry about missing the big Toomer's Corner celebration if they don't feel up to the trek or crowd, because they can catch it online.
Auburn University has 11 webcams in place across campus and one is specifically aimed at the celebration corner of town.
"A lot of universities have one or two webcams and we offer many more, and some of the ones on our webcam page are run by other groups," said Mike Clardy, director of University communications.
Clardy said the webcam facing Samford Lawn has been in place for more than 10 years, and the Web site hosting the 11 webcams was launched more than two years ago.
"We went around campus and looked at the different vantage points and tried to come up with some places that would really show off campus," Clardy said.
One reason for the site is to attract perspective students.
"There are lots of reasons to have webcams, and there are lots of different audiences for webcams," Clardy said. "We compete with other universities in gaining attention of perspective students, so offering webcams gives perspective students another view into our campus. Hopefully it will entice them into making a visit here."
Since the launch of the Web site, Clardy said the technology has improved and allowed them to offer more views than in the past.
The webcams have also afforded students the ability to contact far away relatives. Clardy said his favorite story to tell is about the mother of a student who was serving in Afghanistan. The daughter and mother were in constant e-mail communication, and leading up to the mother's birthday the daughter set a time and camera. When the day came she stood in front of the webcam holding a sign that read "Happy Birthday Mom."
"That kind of feedback tells us we are doing something right," Clardy said.
The University webcams are not the only webcams in town.
"We also cross link with some of the webcams around the city of Auburn, and they link to our cameras on their Web site," Clardy said. "It's a nice partnership and all told there are nearly 20 web cams available on that Web page either direct link to the image or a link off campus to the city site."
Jim Buston, assistant city manager and chief information officer for the city of Auburn, said the city installed webcams three years ago
"We had the idea that we wanted to put cameras in the downtown area of Auburn just to show the world what was happening in Auburn, especially the Toomer's Corner celebrations after football games," Buston said. "That's not only just an Auburn tradition, but it's kind of something a lot of the world knows about, and it just allows us to let them experience that."
Buston said the site is saturated on gamedays, especially close to celebration time.
"You can actually watch the graphs go up as it gets closer and closer to the celebration," Buston said. "We do notice a lot of people coming on to our site and then using our links to get to the University's webcams."
Clardy said although the cameras are placed in different areas of campus they are not apart of the security element on campus.
"These cameras here serve an entirely marketing purpose," Clardy said. "We don't record the images, so they're not meant to be security cameras."
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
