Hole in the ground: It's not much more than disturbed earth now, but just wait. There's a new building starting to rise on the freeway side of the Sac State Library that promises an eyeful.

It's the school's new high-tech hub, a four-story, $17.3 million center for information technology that should be complete next year as far as paint and carpet go but will take another year to get its load of computers, satellite links, telecommunications equipment and other fancy gear.

The new building will be visible from Highway 50 and the American River levee, "and you'll be able to see right into it at night. It's going to be really interesting to look at from inside or outside," said Spencer Freund, associate vice president and telecommunications guru on campus.

Among the features of the new building will be a display of old-time tube radios, giant fax machines, Bakelite telephones, maybe even a DuMont -- or Muntz? -- television, Freund said, "just to show what it used to be like."

Eventually it will be the home base each semester for 50 Web-based classes and a couple dozen video classes. There also will be labs for computer science and nursing programs, Freund said. ...

Black gold: Remember that good compost the city used to practically give away at the 28th Street landfill site?

That program is ancient history, and our lawn clippings and leaves are being composted out of town by an independent contractor.

But look for a return of the compost in some form next year as part of a new composting contract.

"Everyone who ever used that stuff misses it, and when word got out that some cities are getting part of it back from their contractors, Sacramento spoke up, too. About time," said Master Gardener Bill Maynard of the Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition. ...

Weather eye: Over at City College, they're doing something about the weather, as in getting more people involved in it.

The school is one of a handful nationwide chosen by the American Meteorological Society to introduce an online course that teaches meteorology by having students study weather as it happens.

Michael Hunter, a geography professor at Sac City, is teaching the class, which uses old-fashioned classrooms along with a requirement that the students use the Internet to be up to the minute with the weather.

Students may use the Internet to keep themselves current, but they'll have to use old-fashioned face time in front of the prof to do the rest of the work, Hunter said.

"I suppose it could be an online course, but I'd rather teach it face to face," Hunter said.

The effort is part of a meteorological society program to get schools that teach large numbers of minority students involved in weather studies. It turns out that it is the first weather class offered at SCC. ...

Divas R us: Sacramento's DIVAs are looking for a few good men -- women, too.

That's DIVAs as in Diverse Individuals Vocalizing Affirmatively, a singing group that likes to vocalize affirmatively, President Rhonda Hughes said.

"We're just about to start our sixth season, and we need some more voices," she said. "Especially men."

They are conducting auditions, "but we call them interviews. We don't want to scare anyone, and it is rather easy," she said. "Just come in and sing some scales with the piano, then sing 'My Country 'Tis of Thee' a cappella."

The DIVAs have numbered as many as 25 and as few as nine. Today, before the interviews, they number 14, with members scattered from midtown through the Arden area, Carmichael and beyond.

They give two concerts a year. This year's winter concert, at a location to be announced, will feature complex rhythms from jazz, rhythm 'n' blues and African music, Hughes said.