US:PA-1: Response to week 1 discussion questions from L. Tynan, Montgomery Cty-Norristown Pub. Lib.
Response to week 1 discussion questions from L. Tynan, Montgomery Cty-Norristown Pub. Lib.
L Tynan, Montgomery Cty-Norristown Lib (ltynan@mclinc.org)
Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:35:41 -0400
1) The two most pressing needs of our library are to raise enough
money to purchase the optimum products/services and to develop the
staff expertise to procure, use and manage telecommunication
products and services. The availability of discounts will help
ease the money problem. The expertise problem is one which may
benefit from forums like this, from working with volunteers from
the business community who are interested in sharing their
expertise, and from formal staff training/continuing education.
The big problem here is rapid change in the telecommunications
field which is making it hard not only for librarians to keep
up with current technology, but also for people in the industry to
stay on top of the changes.
A third somewhat less pressing need is availability of the
type of telecommunications services we need in the
geographic locations where we need them. This issue will
diminish in importance rapidly in our area (Philadelphia
suburbs) but may remain an issue in more rural areas for
some time. Example: Montgomery County-Norristown Public
Library is investigating options for wireless
telecommunication to link 4 bookmobiles to the central
library automation system interactively. Installing
conventional phone lines at all 138 bookmobile stops is far too costly.
Data radio will probably work but will require a cumbersome suite of
"middleware"
hardware & software to translate the Motorola dataradio
proprietary protocol to our automation system's TCP/IP
protocol. The ideal option is Cellular Data Packet Data
(CDPD) service which is becoming available at an affordable
price, but which currently is available primarily in eastern
Montgomery County (near Philadelphia). Our bookmobile stops
are located mainly in central and western Montgomery County,
beyond the current reach of CDPD service. Companies such as
Bell Atlantic and Eastern Telelogic will build the service
out to western locations as the customer base for the
service grows, but they will need more than four itinerant
bookmobiles in that customer base to justify their cost for
development.
2) Schools and libraries differ in that classroom technology
drives the decision-making and determines the type of
products most useful to schools. In libraries, it is the
information searching and materials management activity
which drives the decision-making. Schools place greater
emphasis on delivering Internet access and video to groups
of students in the classroom. Libraries are more focused on
uses of information by one individual at a time (patron or
staff member) and in managing materials lending. Schools
may also have more pressure from parents to restrict access
to Internet content than public libraries, just as they
often face more censorship challenges to print materials.
Because information used in schools is more often seen as
closely associated with the curriculum and therefore
"required" for students, schools may be expected to block
access to controversial information on the Internet. Public
libraries, too, are facing public pressure to restrict
access to controversial websites (especially by children)
but there has traditionally been a more "let people choose
for themselves" intellectual freedom environment surrounding
public libraries.
Christopher Mendla is right in thinking that decisions made
by school boards are often more political. Since school
directors are elected and since they wield taxing authority,
their decisions are the focus of more intense public
scrutiny. Libraries actually serve larger numbers of people
from broader spectra of the community. You would think that
impacting more customers would make library board more
visible, but in Pennsylvania public libraries have been low
visibility entities. This has led to serious under-funding
and luke warm grassroots political support in most cases.
3) Rural schools may find it harder to provide courses in
non-core subjects because fewer students elect to register
or because having a small group of students with specialized
needs makes it hard to justify the expense of hiring a
teacher, scheduling classroom and curriculum resources.
Using distance learning may allow rural schools to offer
specialized classes to small groups of students by sharing
resources with other schools. Rural schools also run into
the problem of availability of products and services in
rural areas and lack of competition which limits choice and
keeps prices higher. Some public libraries in rural
communities in Pennsylvania had trouble finding an Internet
Service Provider within the range of a local call.