Cool Technology at Estes Park Public Library

I had the pleasure of visiting the Estes Park Public Library for an AskColorado meeting. The facility is beautiful (and really aren’t all libraries?), and the surroundings enchanting. However, it was the unusual configuration of their catalogs that caught my eye.

These vertical catalog stations appear to run on magic…where is the CPU?

Thanks to Claudine Perrault and Mark Riffle for the detailed documentation of how these cool catalogs are set up:
 
“We used Dell wide screen (19”) monitors with a brushed aluminum (color) finish to match the Apple (USB) aluminum keyboard and silver USB mouse.  We picked these monitors because they were inexpensive, matched the keyboard, and had a uniform boarder all around with a same colored logo that was unobtrusive when turned on its side.  We had an electrical plug installed in the column directly behind the monitor mount and we drilled a hole in the mount to access the plug.  The computer is a Mac mini mounted in the ceiling so the video cable and USB cable for the monitor keyboard and mouse come down inside the column.  A plug also had to be installed in the ceiling for the computer.  A network cable runs through the ceiling from our server room to the computer.  The Mac is set to restart after a power loss.  Keyboard commands can be used to deal with most problems.  The IT person remote accessing the machine via the network takes care of most anything else that needs to be done after the fact.

We use the Mac Safari Internet Browser and ‘Saft’ Kiosk software to limit patron access to select web pages.  Saft eliminates all navigational buttons and locks down access to all but what we allow. 

If Mark had it to do again we would put the computers for all of our catalogue stations (with the exception of the children’s room where little hands play) under the counter instead of in the ceiling.  On perhaps three or four occasions in 4 months we have had to pop up into the ceiling to reset a machine; not bad but avoidable.  There is a beautiful little metal mount made for the Mac Mini that would allow the computer to be mounted under counter ($50); just take the USB hub out of the mount.  To keep it clean put a gasket in a round hole in the wall below counter level to run the video cable to the monitor.

Unfortunately mounting the computer under the counters would eliminate some of our best entertainment.  Next to our desks are windows overlooking the two main catalogue stations.  We have watched people on several occasions get down on their knees looking for the computer; makes us chuckle; they will never find it.  Must be magic!”