Students who head to the North University Building computing site will have to find a new place to work starting next semester.

The site will be permanently shut down at the end of this term due to the construction of the Life Sciences Initiative. Many students say this will make finding a computer much more difficult.

"That's the most inane thing they could possibly do. This is the only computer lab where there aren't nine billion people looking for a computer in here at the same time," Engineering senior Kerry Hood said.

Although most University computing sites are usually at full capacity, the Information Technology Department does not have plans to replace NUBS. Instead, the computers will be moved to various locations on Central Campus, such as the basement of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library.

"There are one or two options we're exploring, but they're really just pie in the sky ideas," said Bill Niester, site manager for Information Technology Central Services. "I don't want to get people excited about something that might not happen."

Ruth Addis, executive director of ITCS said that although there has been a search for a new lab, space is not available.

"Real estate on central campus is in really short supply. We've looked everywhere to see if there are any nooks and crannies where we could have a site - we even checked in the CCRB. There just aren't the spots," she said.

While students say they won't mind having to go to other sites once NUBS is closed, they are concerned with the difficulty of actually finding a computer at a different site.

"It's not so much of an inconvenience, it's an impossibility. If you don't have your own computer, you can't find a computer anywhere anymore," Engineering senior Emily White said.

NUBS is most popular among students looking for a less hectic place to study and Engineering students who need to use Unix computers located at the site.

"I think the location is good for me because I live in the Hill area. I like coming here because it has a different environment than other labs," LSA freshman Jennifer Lin said.

Addis said ITCS administrators are thinking about the future needs of students in relation to what sites will need to provide.

"When computer labs were first built, only about 25 percent of students had their own computers. That is certainly not true anymore, but the sites are still full," she said. "What are we going to need for those sites in the next five years? We're going to need something more than just rows and rows of computers just for word processing."