[WEB4LIB] Re: Catalog Use Only (Public Stations)

[Dan Lester]

Wednesday, August 30, 2000, 1:02:23 PM, you wrote:

DM> Doing the Devil's Advocate, at least in our situation at my library, 
DM> leaving the computers on mean 24 hours of drawing in our incredibly dusty 
DM> atmosphere inside the computer, especially our Reference Center computers 
DM> which sit right in the path of several air ducts, I have blown out huge 
DM> dust jack-rabbits over and over again from them.  Such heavy coating of 
DM> dust can be argued as unhealthy for the computer's life as well. 

This is a very valid point.  And, I'll imagine that there is even more
dust (and smoke, unfortunately) in Idaho than in Louisiana (where I
would expect water and mud).  Due to inadequate custodial service, and
because we wouldn't want them opening computers anyway, we have a
student assistant who has the sole duty of making the rounds of some
180 library computers (including about fifty for the public).  The
student vacuums the area around the computer, opens the case, and
sucks up all the dust bunnies and other assorted junk.  S/he then
checks that the fans are running, vacuums the area a bit more, and
puts things back in place.  Not exactly a high level job, but one that
needs to be done.  This has helped to cut back on the number of fan
failures and motherboard failures.  (The former are common, the latter
rare).

dan, glad not to be the devil's advocate for once

-- 
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com