state of the Chromebooks in Libraries group

[Lucien Kress]

Hello all,

At this point we have 35 members, and not very many posts. I would like to encourage everyone to check in with the group to let us know how your Chromebook project is going, whether in the planning phase or fully implemented. What's working well, and what are you still wishing for?

I would also like to direct newcomers to the message archive here, where you can see a few lively discussions from months past. I am planning to update my wishlist from 7/2012, and would be interested in any input you might have. (I share this wishlist with Google periodically, for what it's worth.)

Lucien

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Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Sana Moulder]

Lucien,

 

We are currently preparing an evaluation for our administration about using chromebooks for patron check-outs. The information at your GoogleGroups site was invaluable. I'm hoping some of the others who are members will post some updates on this topic.

 

Thanks again to all of you,

 

Sana Moulder, LA

Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center

Fayetteville NC

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[dshul...@whittierlibrary.org]

Hello,

 

Thanks to help from Lucien and some other wonderful group members, Whittier Public Library is getting ready to roll out our Chromebooks project. Thank you all so much.  I was wondering if anyone could recommend a charging station or type of cabinet that could house 20 Chromebooks when they are not it use. Space is at such a premium in our building we were hoping to find something small. Any and all advice welcome!

 

Debi

 

Debi Shulkatis

Library Services Manager

Whittier Public Library

7344 S. Washington Ave.

Whittier, CA 90602

562-567-9900

dshul...@whittierlibrary.org

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[Lucien Kress]

Debi, we are using Anthro 20-unit carts (www.anthro.com) and the Bretford 15-unit carts (www.bretford.com). We're pretty happy with them, but they aren't very small. Because the Chromebooks we use don't put out too much heat, I think the fan is unnecessary. 

Lucien

--
Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Rose Franzen]

Hi,

I am Rose from the Public Library in Carmel, CA.  I bought a Chromebook just to try out for the librarians, and we decided to try to use it as an OPAC at least until people could get their minds around the idea.

I know it's not ready for Kiosk mode yet, but I got it running just our catalog very well using the Blacklist and Blacklist exclusion list.  I'd also like to hide the guest account, but the trouble is that's the only way I can get back into the Management Console with the Blacklist running.  I tried adding the Management console address to the blacklist, but it doesn't want to work.

I've had a call into Google for two days now, does anyone out there have any ideas?

Thanks,

Rose Marie Franzen
Harrison Memorial Library
City of Carmel
rosewi...@ci.carmel.ca.us
831.293.4474

[Lucien Kress]

I generally access the Management Console from a desktop computer. Is there a reason you need to access it from the Chromebook?

Lucien

[Rose Franzen]

Lucien,

 

Because I am so new to this I didn't know I could.  I guess it's tunnel vision because I'm not used to devices being inter-related to this extent.  When I started in computers floppies were still floppy, if you know what I mean.

 

I vote you grand Poobah of the day and thanks for the save.  Now I can actually demonstrate this next Monday.

 

Rose

[ks...@library.aurora.on.ca]

Hello

We have just acquired 10 Chromebooks and are trying it out amongst staff before deploying to the public. This forum has been very helpful to us. Thank you!

Khuan Seow
Manager, Technology and Operational Support
Aurora Public Library
Ontario, Canada

[Jason Baty]

We have been working at flushing our project over the course of 2013 and are gearing up for production

We plan to deploy to the pubic 200 units in 2014 

- We currently in the midst of preparing staff for this effort

The units will replace our fleet of 200 Netbooks

The use of these devices is purely in-library use (not lending out for home use)

To manage the devices from a recharging and public floor physically security purpose we are using and ErgoTron cart model 24-302-025

For print services we are / will be using PrinterOn (www.printeron.com) to manage this service for us

- all print jobs today in our system are managed from the service desk which helps this overall transition (previously we didn't allow printing from the netbook loans)

* Printeron service will also be standard service offering for our WIFI BYOD customers

Lastly given the challenges with overall adoption for customers that may wish to use the units but do not want to sign up for a google account for productivity suite use. We will be deploying Xenapp to these units for this functionality or other future application need that cannot be supported by the Google Store

I may have a Canadian supplier of this type of service - in 2014  -- until then we are "rolling our own" within our Citrix virtual solutions we manage.

Adoption for Staff

For training of staff we have licenses with Synergyse which creates simple walk through modules of the Google Apps (Drive, Mail, etc) this is to simply speed up the adoption of staff to supporting this effort. Training for staff will be announced in November.

Side Notes:

Currently we do not have dedicated PAC computers given in the past operational costs of having "single use" devices for this effort and the overall TCO - however once we get off the ground I anticipate further growth and those options might be very useful. Especially the Zino station model - however in canada Rogers just pulled their Canadian content from the service which isn't ideal.

I enjoy the posts about what has been done in the US Libraries to-date but would be interested in hearing from other Canadian Libraries on their plans, efforts, etc

Cheers

Jason Baty

Director of IT

Brampton Library

Brampton, Ontario

Canada

[Lucien Kress]

Jason, thanks for sharing your plans. I'm intrigued by your mention of PrinterOn. How does that service work with the Chromebooks? Do you have to install a client or driver on the Chromebook, or does it require emailing or uploading files to a server? Inability to print is certainly a big deficit in our deployment.

I will be interested in hearing more about how the Citrix/Xenapp approach works for you and other libraries.

Lucien

--
Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Jason Baty]

Lucien

The PrinterOn service is either the requirement to upload or email the print job to the server. Customer is then provided a PIN to release their print job (brand new feature)

- then at the print release station they enter the pin or they provide it to our staff (this is the same area where we loan the unit / device / chromebook out to our customers) 

Here is the URL for the printing process -- the pin release is brand new we have been testing this at one of our current facilities with BYOD WIFI customers and it is a huge success moment for the customers. We haven't enabled customers to printer from their BYOD equipment in the past.

http://www.printeron.com/solutions/privatecloudsolutions/education/how-to-print.html

As for the Xenapp deployment we stumbled into this as we are also doing a corporate Virtual Desktop effort. 

I'll do up some more information once the ball gets rolling 

-- I am actually writing this from a Chromebook, and at the same time in another window.. running a full desktop via Xenapp -- see attached.

Cheers

Jason

Director of IT

Brampton Library

[Angie Vincenti]

We also have that service for all our laptops users. They just go to the website printeron and select USA, CA, Santa Clara City Library. They can print in the B&W or Color printer. They have 24 hours to pick up their printouts at any of our public printers. They pay the same as our other patrons using our public computers (Pinnacle Vend systems). It is very easy and there is no “drivers” to install…all is web-based.

 

From: chromeb...@googlegroups.com [mailto:chromeb...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lucien Kress

Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 9:20 AM
To: chromeb...@googlegroups.com

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[Lucien Kress]

How do payments work? Collected by staff before the print job is released? Honor system? Or is there a way to link up to the ILS? (What? I can dream, can't I?)

Lucien

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromebooks_lib/7F1915E372925347A1EB776205C4C8C0C0224923%40VSRVEXCHMB01.City.SantaClara.local.

[Lucien Kress]

Or,  if I actually read your message carefully, do I understand that Pinnacle is in the middle of the transaction?

Lucien

[Angie Vincenti]

We have a vendor, Pinnacle system, for our public patrons. They take care of all the public printers, maintenance, toners, print cards, paper. When a patron sends a doc to the printer, they go to a print station, get a card (.50) which already has that amount on it. They can add value to the card as much as they need. The card can be used for printers or copiers. So, no staff is involved…other than adding paper to the printers occasionally and changing toners. The vendor collects the money and our contract with them specifies that if we go over a certain amount of copies they give us $$ back (to the Library). B&W = .14, Color = .35

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromebooks_lib/CALS-utox__W_cVxyfEN7UWA0a1AwFnh69tj--mJ8ZdoPN9-48w%40mail.gmail.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Robert Roye]

Rob here from the St. Joseph County, Indiana Public Library. We are a small consortium, but just out library is thinking of going with Chromebooks thus far. Just joined and we are in the initial stages of evaluating. I have one Chromebook and am still getting the Admin Console worked out.

We use Pharos and PrinterOn, and I am hoping that the Chromebooks will integrate well into them. I'll be happy to help in any way I can, and of course I'm all too happy to ask questions and spur discussion on.

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 2:20:36 PM UTC-4, Lucien Kress wrote:

[Matt Hamilton]

Hello everyone, 

This is Matt Hamilton from Anythink Libraries just outside of Denver, Colorado. I'm excited to say that we are hopping on board with Chromebooks in January at our flagship branch. 

I look forward to learning with and from you all who are already working with Chromebooks at your institutions.

MATTHEW HAMILTON | IT Director
mhamilton@anythinklibraries.org
…………………….
Support Services
5877 E. 120th Avenue
Thornton, Colorado 80602
o 303.405.3280
anythinklibraries.org

[Geelong Regional Libraries]

We are justing starting a pilot program. I have just registered some devices and playing around with public session in the admin console. A few things are escaping me at the moment but I will look through the archives here and see if others have the same issues and possible solutions etc.

Thanks, 

Anthony Woodward

e-technologies coordinator

Geelong Regional Library, Australia

[chuck.m...@leblibrary.com]

My name is Chuck and I am from Lebanon Public Libraries in Lebanon NH.  We have two branches and are planning on switching to chromebooks within the next couple of months.  We are currently writing our policies and will be presenting to our board soon.  We have one chromebook so I can get used to the management console and our staff can get familiar with the machine.  We are currently planning on getting 20-30 total.

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 2:20:36 PM UTC-4, Lucien Kress wrote:

[Lucien Kress]

Welcome, Chuck and Anthony. Please share your questions with us!  I've seen a lot of innovative thinking and creative problem solving in this group.

Lucien

--
Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Rebecca Tomerlin]

Greetings,

I am just now ordering Chromebooks for La Porte County Public Library in Indiana. I will let you know when we "go live" with them.

Cheers!

[Robert Roye]

Welcome, Rebecca. 

I'm at the St. Joseph County Public Library next door and still in eval mode.

-Rob Roye

[Tony Lucarelli]

Hi all,

My name is Tony Lucarelli and I work at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook, IL. I ordered a Chromebook for evaluation purposes last fall and really like how it works. There wasn't a huge learning curve because we have Google based e-mail as well as Google Drive for sharing files and work product.

I'm in a meeting next week to discuss possibly using Chromebooks as a "laptop-lending" style program vs. traditional Windows laptops. I think we'll be going the Chromebook route due to cost and ease of management and we only have to slightly adapt existing policies and procedures to get them into circulation.

Tony

Emerging Technologies Librarian

Fountaindale Public Library District

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 1:20:36 PM UTC-5, Lucien Kress wrote:

[Angie Vincenti]

We at Santa Clara City Library have a Chromebook lending program. We currently have about 25 with 20 more in the process. If you go to our website, you can see some of the procedures for checking them out.

 

Library.santaclaraca.gov

 

http://library.santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=2245

 

 

 

From: chromeb...@googlegroups.com [mailto:chromeb...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Tony Lucarelli
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 11:48 AM
To: chromeb...@googlegroups.com
Cc: luc...@multcolib.org
Subject: [chromebooks_lib] Re: state of the Chromebooks in Libraries group

 

Hi all,

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