If you're a resident of South Halls, you may have noticed that the LionCash Card Value Centers in that area have been malfunctioning throughout this semester.

A Card Value Center (CVC) is a machine students use to add money to their accounts on their ID+ cards. This information is stored in a chip that is placed on the top face of the card.

Cindy Kellerman, manager of the ID+ program, said these recent problems are caused by the aging of the machines. CVCs were available for use by Penn State students in May 1998. Aside from normal bill or card jams, "we see different types of problems than we have in the past," Kellerman said.

The CVC in Simmons Hall has not been working for much of the semester. The next closest CVC for Simmons residents is located in Atherton Hall, which has also been broken this semester.

Consequently, some students in Simmons have had to use the CVC in the HUB-Robeson Center. A resident of Simmons, John Jennings (freshman-statistics), said he doesn't think it's a big deal because the HUB is close. Elizabeth Hess (junior-human development and family studies), who also lives in Simmons, said, "It's more of an inconvenience than anything."

To fix the machines, new parts such as ram chips, card readers and bill acceptors are needed, said Bruce Walker, administrative supervisor of ID+ office. However, the parts are not readily available and the machines require bigger and bigger parts due to their age, Kellerman said. ID+ workers could not fix the CVC in Simmons promptly because they were waiting for a cable to reload software, Kellerman said. The part has since come in and the machine is now functioning.

Aside from these maintenance problems, the CVCs have other faults.

"[CVCs] still won't take the new $20 bill," Kellerman said, which has inconvenienced some students. "The machines will have to be retrofitted with new devices to accept the new twenty."

"It definitely made me mad," Tina Shah (sophomore-premedicine) said about the broken machine in Simmons. She said it caused her to prolong doing her laundry because the laundry machines only accept LionCash.

"I'll use somebody else's [LionCash] and pay them in cash," she said.

The problems students have recently experienced with CVCs have nothing to do with their chips on the front of their ID+ cards, Kellerman said.

There are no immediate plans to implement a new LionCash system, Walker said.