The Biggest, Baddest Machines...

Jim Haprian, Technology Services Manager from the Medina County District Library in Ohio had some words of wisdom in his interview with Chris Peters about purchasing servers as well as public access computers. Jim’s attitude towards purchasing new computers is,

“You have to figure out how much money you have to spend, and you’ve got to get the biggest, baddest machine you can possibly get for your money….When you’re getting a desktop computer or a laptop computer, it should be a business-class machine, something that’s designed for more rugged use than a home machine. Because with libraries you’re doing public computing and if you try to use a home machine, it’s going to break. It’s going to fail a lot sooner, at least from what I’ve found. Usually the warranty is better on the business-class computers too.”

When discussing this question, Jim also made some excellent points about factoring in the cost of maintenance and staff time, saying that even if you have an excellent staff that can fix technology problems easily, staff time is better spent on technology planning and development than running around repairing computers.

Here are a few resources that may be useful if you are thinking of purchasing new computers:

• Chapter One of our first Cookbook, especially pages 12 through 17.
• From Brigitte M. Botnick at WebJunction, Buying Hardware and Software: A Small Library View.
• Our next Cookbook will feature more advice about buying hardware and Total Cost of Ownership issues.

What do you think? What does your library look for when purchasing new computers?

Jennifer Nelson
Summer Interviewing Intern
Rutgers School of Communication, Information and Library Science