3 lingering issues with chrome os in our library -- you too?

[Reinhard Engels]

Hi all,

For the most part, I've been delighted with chrome os devices in our library. We have 170+ devices now and counting in our medium library system (mix of catalogs, "web express stations" for quick web sessions, checkout chromebooks in two flavors, student/programming chromebooks, staff devices, chrometabs for events). They are delightfully reliable, easy to manage, and do their limited job well.

But there are thee main areas of frustration we run into.

1. Word processing. People really miss their MS-word, and yes, there is an online option that requires an account, which some of our patrons are reluctant to create, and others can't actually create because they are homeless and/or phoneless (ditto for google docs, which I am inclined to recommend to them). When creating google (or other cloud) accounts, which would be very helpful to them on these devices (and elsewhere), there is often a security requirement to enter a phone number. Does anyone know any way we can get around this requirement? I imagine we could give the library phone number, but I'm also guessing having scores or hundreds of people with accounts on the same phone number would trigger some kind of alarm. If there isn't such a workaround in place, it might be a great google community service project. Maybe some kind of "whitelist" program where phone numbers of public libraries and other approved institutions (homeless shelters?) could be used for larger numbers of account registrations? Or an app given to public libraries to generate registration codes to allow new accounts like this to be created? Alternately, is there some word processing app that can run in public session kiosk mode that can handle ms-office documents? 
2. Android apps. Right now we use public session kiosk mode on all of our chrome devices for the public. This is great in many ways -- exactly what we want. But we'd like to enable direct login on some devices so patrons can take advantage of android apps and other features that require login. The big problem is that unlike public session kiosk mode, we can't get the devices to log users out when the lid is closed (the setting in the management console to logout on lid closed just doesn't work in this case). This sounds ridiculous, but it's a big problem, because people forget to log out all the time, and then it's a big potential privacy/security issue. So we don't do it; we just stick with public kiosk where the lid close behaves properly. It seems like it would be a small thing to allow administrators to force logout on lid close on their managed devices even with direct login? Note that our patrons would be logging in with their personal google accounts (we don't issue any). If only we could get those darn chromebooks in individual login mode to restart when the lid closed, we'd be able to circulate some number of them in "power user" mode for these much more sophisticated capabilities.
3. Printing. We haven't been able to find a way to limit printing from chrome devices as we can from our windows-based public computers, though there is one vendor that has a very rough looking system (LibData) that we are considering and I know the bigger players in the field (Pharos, Envisionware) are investigating it. I have hope that one or more of these vendors will figure it out satisfactorily eventually, but I mention it here because it it's still a live (and important) issue for us, and maybe you know of another product that we should be looking at. Right now we ask patrons to use our wireless printing upload service which many of them have a hard time wrapping their brains around (they hate this, they just want to hit "print").

Are these areas of frustration to others here? Or has anyone figured them out somehow?

Very curious! Thanks in advance for any responses...

[Michelle Mears]

1. Word processing

We have a generic free MS account we created for the library and we share the login/password with those who must use Word, but we encourage them to sign up for a Google account if they are not line-in-the-sand about it.  There are some services like TextFree that give you a virtual number you can use for verification of accounts. In general we try to explain online services but make them responsible for their own data and accounts.

2. A while back I thought I heard that they were working on making some Android apps available in the public session.  Are you talking about individuals wanting to access their own (preferred/purchased) apps by logging in to their own account?  At that point it is no longer a managed workstation, I would assume.  I would think that users at this level of sophistication would have their own device anyway (like gamers, etc.).

3. LibData is pretty bare bones, but it works well for us to manage our stations.  They just added mobile printing which has been a great help to us, and it is very reasonably priced.  I don't know of any product that might limit printing but be "invisible" to users.  You are right, though, they all want an easy button.

Overall, we approach the public access computing environment with the premise that it will be limited and that we are not obligated to offer every software package on every hardware platform.  Sometimes we just have to say, we're sorry you can't create an MS Access database on our computers, or something similar.  Controlling authentication, time, and printing were more important to us, so we have been with LibData for over 3 years now and it works for us.  One of our branches migrated to the cloud version and it is better than the locally installed version we used at first, so we will migrate the other branch soon.

Michelle

[Matt Amory]

Thanks for this discussion of lingering flies in the ointment.  Here are our "solutions" for what they're worth:

Word Processing:  I encourage people to use Google Docs rather than sign up for their own Office 365.  We have Office on all of our networked PCs so patrons have that option.  Good to know that a generic ID can get set up.

Android Apps:  I would also love for Public Management of a greater variety of apps, and would love to be able to offer different "flavors" of Chromebook for different audiences.

Printing:  We set up Google Cloud Print and it works from all of our 18 Chromebooks, but we do not have any print management system, which would be problematic if we were larger.

I'm told that SirsiDynix Symphony Web can run on Chromeboxes, but another round of PC's for our staff are in the budget already, so I won't be pursuing that.

Matt Amory

Librarian for Information and Technology

Canton Public Library

786 Washington St.

Canton, MA 02021

(917) 771-4157
matt....@gmail.com

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[Michelle Mears]

Matt,

You reminded me of one thing.  I would switch over a bunch of my staff machines to Chrome if our ILS had a printing solution that would work on ChromeOS.  Right now they have a little .exe helper app for Windows that facilitates printing from the browser (ILS is all cloud/browser based).  I have asked them to think about making a Chrome app to do the same thing.  My staff is Googlefied, our email, etc., is managed on Google and I have been encouraging all of them to use G-Suite for apps.  If only we could print receipts and book wrappers on Chrome machines, then I would switch staff machines in a heartbeat.

Michelle

[Marshal Smith MidYork]

Word Processing:

To deal with the Word document creation problem, I've developed an app for Chrome devices that allows users to open a blank 'Word' document from an app icon on the app shelf (task bar), without signing into anything. This works well for our public session Chrome devices.

I'm leveraging the Chrome devices native ability to open an MS Office document.

For instance if you insert a flash drive in a Chromebook with a Word document on it you can open and edit that document in Chrome without logging into office.com or 365.

The trick was that you couldn't start a new, blank Word document without having one to open in the first place.

To get around that I created a Chrome 'app' that points to a blank Word document hosted on our web server.

That app is then added as a force installed app in the dashboard and pinned to the taskbar so patrons can click the 'W' icon to create, edit and save a Word doc.

The app is publicly available so you can use it or try it out.

It will only work and show up on a Chromebox/book, it doesn't work on PC with Chrome installed.

On a Chrome device go to the Chrome Web Store and search for 'midyork' and look for the app 'New Document' (I was really creative with the name).

The native editor is limited, and I'd encourage people to get a Microsoft or Google account but it does fill the need for those who don't want to or can't log in.

I've linked the basic instruction we use below:

 Quick Word Document creation, editing and print...

 

Android Apps:

I would love to have control of Android apps in public sessions, this limits a lot of what could be done with Chrome devices in our libraries.

Printing:

We have a mix of native and cloud printing setups, mostly without print management.

In the libraries that do have print management, we're using LibData for time and print management, which is working well.

As far as I know LibData is the only way to accomplish this with managed Chrome devices.

I would like to have a better way to control logouts after a period inactivity for user security and it would be great to be able schedule startup and shutdown times for devices. 

Marshal

Marshal Smith

Server and Network Administrator

Mid-York Library System
msm...@midyork.org | www.midyork.org

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[Michelle Mears]

That is an awesome shortcut!  I will ask my staff if they want to add it to the loaded apps.

[Patrick-Austin (MN) Public Library]

We have this extension pushed to our public sessions:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/office-editing-for-docs-s/gbkeegbaiigmenfmjfclcdgdpimamgkj

Patrons don't need an account to be able to do quick (limited function) typing, etc.

We also use a guest account, if needed, for Word Online or Google Docs.  When we switched to Chrome devices we anticipated a huge push back because of no MS Office installed on them, but in actuality, we have had only a very small portion of patrons miss it.  Having them create an account, use our guest account, or use the extension mentioned above, have satisfied the vast majority.  

*****************

With 73, Google says they are converting public sessions to managed guest sessions so Google Play apps can be used:

https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/cros_managed_guest_sessions_one_pager.pdf

We shall see if it works.

*****************

We use LibData for printing via Google Cloud Print and have had no issues.  We don't use the cloud component because we have that with our copy machine.

[Reinhard Engels]

Wow, I'm really impressed by some of these ingenious workarounds.

I will try that app you made, Marshal, pronto. And the similar looking option Patrick-Austin suggested.

I may come around to Libdata yet .... it doesn't out of the box support our current model of printing (10 free pages a day, 15 cents every page after). But perhaps we could tweak that model. I'd love to see a working system in action.

This new managed guest session business sounds promising (and scary, based on the troubles our friends in Somerville were experiencing).

We do have some of our devices configured to optionally let users book into public session kiosk mode, or into roblox android app kiosk mode (where they can't do anything except play roblox). It's a solution for our most immediately pressing android issue, but obviously a very limited one. Hopeful that managed guest session will let us do more.... (has anyone here taken advantage of it yet?).

One thing that does surprise me is that I haven't been able to find resources/best practices for getting the homeless/phoneless real could accounts. Cloud acounts are taking over everything, and I'd hate for these people who already have enough problems to fall on the wrong side of yet another digital divide. Very curious if anyone has heard anything about any efforts on that front.

Many, many thanks for your thoughtful responses!