How do you maintain your public computers?
Librarians want to know.
Librarians want to know.
Every month, MaintainIT hosts an online book club discussion. We select a chapter from one of the Cookboks, invite people to read it, and then meet to discuss. Earlier this week a group gathered to discuss Meal Plan 5 from Recipes for a 5-Star Library, which is all about PC Reservation/Time Management Software.
It seems to be a universal concern... the demand for public computers exceeds the number of computers available. What can we do? How can we create policies and systems that ensure fair access to library users, but also ensure library staff sanity?
During the book discussion, we talked about the range of reservation and time management systems that exist. A few libraries have no system and simply allow a first-come/first-serve flow. Other libraries use a spreadsheet or paper document to take names and record times. More and more libraries are turning to a software solution and a significant amount of time during our book club discussion was spent discussing the different features of different software solutions.
One of the things that came up over and over again during the discussion is the emotional impact of public access computing. Without an effective time management strategy, patrons can feel angry, competitive, and frustrated. Staff can feel like police officers or waiters/waitresses. While there may be no perfect system, an effective time management strategy can help alleviate the frustrations felt by both staff and patrons. Systems that are flexible, fair, and require little staff intervention seem to be the ideal. It seems that we are still figuring out how to create these systems, but by sharing ideas and solutions among libraries, lessons are being learned and things are getting better.
Thank you to the participants in this month's lively discussion. Everyone is invited to participate in next month's book club discussion. On Tuesday, August 26th, we will meet online to discuss Meal Plan 2 in The Joy of Cooking, which is all about troubleshooting wireless connections. Where should you place your wireless acces point? What might be causing signal interference? How can wireless repeaters help? How can you improve bandwidth? Read the chapter and discover what other libraries have done and then join the discussion on August 26th.
Interested?
Here's how to participate:
1. Register for the bookclub (it's free, it's easy, it's fun).
2. Read Meal Plan 2 in Recipes for a 5-Star Library (it's a free download and will take approximately 15 minutes to read -- less to scan, more to absorb and explore).
3. Follow the connection instructions you will receive when you register and join the conversation on August 26th. Bring your questions, your ideas, your feedback about the chapter. You will have the opportunity to share your experiences and also to hear from others around the country.
Please join us!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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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