Boredom in and around the DeKalb community may have met its match with the newest addition to NIU’s Web site.

The NIU All Events Calendar, created by NIU’s Information Technology Services in collaboration with the Office of Public Affairs, combines a number of event calendars around campus to create a single, information-packed commodity.

The calendar, powered by Web Event software, was created in December and officially launched at the beginning of the spring semester.

“This is the first time we have a tool which allows us to pull together all calendars in one place from all events on campus,” said Melanie Magara, public affairs assistant vice president. “It really spreads the responsibility for publicizing events all over campus.”

Finding an event by date and time or even type of event is one aspect of the calendar that Magara finds to be unique.

Another calendar plus is that virtually anyone can submit event information, which is then given to the calendar manager for that specific category.

When posting material on the calendar, Lori Nelson, Office of Campus Recreation calendar manager, said she uses her own judgment for events that correlate with what the OCR is doing.

Other calender managers also are hard at work creating and updating their sections.

“We just started posting a few weeks ago,” said Cindy Carls, program administrative assistant and calendar manager for the Office of Admissions. “I’m still working on getting things on there.”

The early success of the calendar has surpassed expectations, said Harry Clark, ITS manager for web development.

“In the first week [Jan. 16 to 22], it had 20,245 hits,” he said.

Magara agrees, noting that it’s becoming more popular every day.

“It’s a tool people like and really have been waiting for,” she said.

Although plans for the calendar were originally proposed by the Student Association and President John Peters, Clark said, but Magara gives credit to Clark for helping launch it.

“It all came together when Harry Clark found Web Event,” Magara said.

NIU’s All Events Calendar can be reached by logging on to www.niucalendar.niu.edu or by going through the NIU Web site www.niu.edu.

“We’re really excited about it,” Magara said. “It’s a great new tool, and we encourage the entire campus community to use it.”