[WEB4LIB] Everything on library public terminals

[Karen G. Schneider]

We offer something for everyone.  The following assumes that Big-I Internet
means the wide open 'net where you find all those heartwarming stories, good
deals on books, etc.  We have:

Internet-only computers
10 Internet computers that also have MS Office, Mavis Beacon, and a few
other treats
CD and Internet computers
Database computers
Catalog computers

You can get to the catalog from the Internet computers, but you can't get to
the Internet from the catalog computers.
You can get to the databases from the Internet computers, but you can't get
to the Internet from the database computers.
You can do Internet on all the word processing machines, but you can't do
word processing on all the Internet machines.

When the dust settles after our deployment of PCs that are replacing (yuck)
dumb terminals, we are going to take the CDs, now scattered across four
machines, and consolidate them on one standalone, hopefully on a humongous
hard drive (listed in the official technology budget for this year as
"Humongous Hard Drive"), assuming we have enough left to warrant dedicating
the whole machine to it (if not, you will be able to do Internet on the CD
machine... but you will not be able to do CDs on the other Internet
machines...).

People seem to like our arrangement, we don't have fisticuffs between the
Surfers and the Scholars, and the real enhancement will be when the dumb
terminals go bye-bye and we consolidate those CDs, and for good measure put
up some decent signage.

Karen G. Schneider kgs at bluehighways.com
Assistant Director of Technology
Shenendehowa Public Library, Clifton Park, NY
http://www.shenpublib.org