Thursday, February 21, 2013

Still February!

Two posts in one month - a miracle! I'm finally starting to take advantage of the evening desk time; it tends to be fairly quiet for at least the last 2 hours, so I can actually accomplish a few things. I've done laptop updates, am updating express computers tonight, and yes, posting to the blog. We may have figured out DeepFreeze and having the Windows updates happen automatically. For months we couldn't figure out why they didn't work (Mike, the City IT contact thought he had everything set correctly). He recently discovered the entire network shuts off during the night! (I find it amusing that one IT person doesn't tell the others about all network-related things, but that's just me!). So Mike was able to adjust the timing and things seemed to work last time. We still have some minor adjustments (we only want some of the "optional" updates but that doesn't seem to be possible), and I still will do the Flash, Java, etc updates. But this will be a great help for network security, and somewhat of a time-saver. I'm also setting our browsers on the public stations to open to both the library home page and our Facebook page. I'm not sure it will increase our FB audience - so many people aren't even aware of tabs as an option in browsers - but we'll see. Is there another visit to Computers in Libraries in our future? I hope so! It's been 5 years since our last attendance, so it must be time to go again!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Happy New Year!

Yes, I know we are into the second month of the new year, and it's been a few months since I've posted. No good reason, really; probably just the usual holiday distraction. Another February, another Offline! This year we headed to Butte. Our hotel was great (I'd like to go back and spend a weekend!) and the sessions were interesting. I'd never heard about the Chronicling America site from the Library of Congress but it is an incredible project! I'll keep checking that, and remember it when looking for historic newspaper articles. Lots more talk about gadgets, mobile devices, and how libraries can help the public use them successfully. My favorite take-away: "E-readers are like a gateway drug - people who have never used a computer get one and suddenly are searching and shopping online like crazy!" So true. Our BTOP laptops are incredibly popular - a few have circulated over 700 times! They are used for the computer classes (which sometimes if a problem, since people are so used to checking one out - it's always a disappointment to find out they are already being used for a class). The scanner is also a great resource. We just need a fax machine! We've also been helping many people with their new e-readers and other gadgets they received for Christmas. Tomorrow's staff meeting focuses on the situation of a shooter in the Library. When we first moved to the larger building we had a police presentation, with the message of "Not if, but when" some kind of event would occur, and prepare for it. There are limited options for some areas of the building but it does help to have thought about things.