A smelly plant and a symphony trip to France have launched UC Davis into full-fledged multimedia Web news this month, bringing added attention to the campus.

Several hundred people visited the UC Davis Web cam over 11 days to see the progress of the blooming corpse flower. More than 7,000 hits were made on the special news report page.

A day after the Web cam was taken down, the News Service launched a second multimedia news report on June 17 with video, audio and a slide show for the UC Davis Symphony's tour of France to celebrate the 200th birthday of Berlioz.

The two multimedia news sites demonstrate the new level of communicating campus news at UC Davis, says News Service Director Lisa Lapin.

"Although these were both pilots efforts, they showed great promise in increasing our capability to deliver the latest news about campus research and accomplishments to a broad public audience," she said.

As a result of the increased demand for streaming media, Information and Educational Technology will increase its capacity for Web video streaming by four- to five-fold, according to Paul Verwey, managing producer/director at Mediaworks.

Public Communications employees learned in late May of the pending blossom of a rare corpse flower and approached staff in Information and Educational Technology June 3 about the idea of collaborating on a Web cam.

"This event was tailor-made for a Web cam," said Maril Stratton, assistant vice chancellor for public communications. "It was compelling news that would interest a lot of people -- who never could have all fit into the conservatory. The bloom also occurred over a short-period of time, which also lent itself to being shown on a Web cam."

Members of Mediaworks and the News Service scrambled to arrange for a camera to be hung discretely from a rafter of the Botanical Conservatory and to link the real-time images to the campus home page. The urgency was fed by the uncertainty about just when the plant would unfold -- and, indeed, the plant began to bloom nearly a week early on June 9. By then, the Web cam and special report had been up for three days.

In the meantime, Mediaworks and the News Service collaborated on creating fresh video clips and a continually updated online "slide show" to offer complementary news, photos and other information on a special news report site.

As news of the bloom spread, through the Web, word of mouth and several local media stories, many visitors ventured to campus. Following homemade paper banners posted along the way, they drove down Hutchison Drive and Kleiber Hall Drive to find the Botanical Conservatory tucked behind Briggs Hall.

In all, more than 2,000 people physically visited the plant over a six-day blooming period, says conservatory curator Ernesto Sandoval. Usually about 10 individuals and another 90 on tours wander through the orchid- and fern-filled space in a week.

Sandoval, who greeted visitors from morning until late evening for the first three days the plant bloomed, offered a running educational commentary that the Web cam picked up for the Internet.

"A lot of people who weren't able to come used the multimedia site and the Web cam," Sandoval said. "I had somebody e-mail me from Sicily to thank me for being able to learn so much about the plant."

The extra multimedia attention not only educated scores hundreds of more people, but also created a base of interested people for when a second corpse flower is expected to bloom next year, Sandoval said.

The public awareness will be helpful as the Botanical Conservatory prepares a fund-raising campaign to raise $4 million for a larger facility, he added.

Although it's not the first Web cam on campus -- the Department of Architects and Engineers has employed them to monitor building progress since 2001 and another was used during the memorial for the Sea of Cortez deaths in 2000 -- the Botanical Conservatory site was the first aimed at reaching the general public through the campus home page.

Mediaworks took down the Web cam June 16, but the special report site on the corpse plant is still available at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/titan/.

The UC Davis Symphony site, reached through the home page or at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/symphony/, was created to highlight the fact that the campus symphony received a prestigious invitation to tour France in celebration of the 200th birthday of composer Hector Berlioz.

The symphony and Conductor Holoman performed before members of the French cabinet and the Paris Orchestra as part of the 10-day tour, which ends June 29. The News Service worked with Mediaworks to digitize a Berlioz march recorded last summer by the symphony in Freeborn Hall. Four video clips from a rehearsal were also put on the Mediaworks video server.

The slideshow was updated during the trip as symphony members sent digital photos from France as well.

According to News Service Director Lapin, the two multimedia news sites are just the first for the campus. "It's our hope that we will have more similar efforts in the future, helping not only the public connect with the campus, but helping the campus community receive the most timely information possible."