computers

The King County Library System in Washington State is one of the busiest in the country. Our service area encompasses 2,131 miles, including many rural and unincorporated areas.

Lesson 2: Buying Computers for a Library is More Complicated than it Looks

When I need a computer, I pray to the budget gods, log onto a PC manufacturer’s website (e.g. Dell or HP) and configure a machine. It’s pretty easy and the computer arrives a week or two later.

Good news.  For awhile now, we at TechSoup (parent organization to the MaintainIT Project) have been working with our corporate partners to open more donation programs to public libraries.  In the past year, software donations from Symantec, NOZA, and others have become available to public libraries for the first time.  Today we’re happy to announce that discounted computers are now available to public libraries through our Refurbished Computer Initiative (RCI).

I've noticed that we humans tend to develop a personal relationship with our machines. We give them names, we decorate them, and they become an important part of our daily routines. But eventually the day comes along that a machine is no longer serving its purpose and we need to move on. What can you do with that old machine? In a MaintainIT webinar on October 30th, Jean Montgomery and Jim Lynch shared some ideas, including: rejuvenate, reuse, refurbish, recycle, and replace.

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,

Last week, I shared an excerpt from our next Cookbook about the pros of leasing computers. Today, I'll share what we've learned about the cons of leasing computers for your library:

We've heard from a lot of libraries who have leased computers in their libraries, and since a librarian we were interviewing yesterday asked for more information on that topic, I thought I'd offer a sneak peak at what we're writing in the next Cookbook. If you've leased computers in your library, please share your experiences in a comment, and please also let us know who you are, so we chat more with you and include your ideas in the next Cookbook!