How do you maintain your public computers?
Librarians want to know.
Librarians want to know.
I'm now in San Francisco at the MaintainIT/TechSoup offices, after having attended the NetSquared conference in San Jose. Post-conference my head is full of ideas about technology and innovation and potential connections. I think there's value in stepping outside of our own specific world of libraries now and then to look at what's happening with technology in other fields. What's happening in the corporate world, for example? Or, as I explored at NetSquared, what's happening in the larger world of non-profits? The NetSquared conference theme was 'mashups' and I will soon share some thoughts here about that topic from a librarian perspective. In this post, however, I want to share something innovative I heard about this morning.
I live in Kansas where our state librarian, Christie Brandau, often talks about the need to provide library services and resources to people "where they are at." She's a big advocate for finding ways to use technology to facilitate that. Here in San Francisco, the Contra Costa County Library's first Library-a-Go-Go machine went live today. It's located in one of the BART train stations. Library-a-Go-Go machines are like ATM machines that dispense books instead of money. Insert your library card and select a book. I am intrigued by this idea and think it really fits with Christie's attitude of getting things to people where they are at. The Contra Costa system plans to install more Library-a-Go-Go machines. I'm wondering if this is a trend that will catch on in other places. I'm guessing the titles in the machine are primarily recent popular fiction, but I'm thinking there would be other spaces and places in which a specialized collection could be delivered in this way (think hospitals, think YMCAs, etc). I think about library technology a lot, but I really am a bookworm at heart and this kind of thing... using technology to promote reading... makes me happy.
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Tell us about your daily routine maintaining public computers, or a moment when you were particularly proud. Don't forget that what might be "that's nothing" to you may be an "aha!" to someone else!
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