How a library IT Manager supports her system’s computers today, while keeping an eye on the future

In the northernmost part of Kentucky, Boone County Public Library is a relative newcomer to the 210-year-old county. It was only 35 years ago when the library was imagined, and has been a part of Boone County for 32 years. Since then, the library has wasted little time in catching up: today there are five branches meeting the needs of over 100,000 people. Boone County's rapid growth (it’s been among the top 50 fastest-growing counties in the United States) and prosperity have given the library the added benefit of an unusually generous budget.

This month at the FLA conference in St. Pete Beach, FL, Sherry Millington, the Director of Suwannee River Regional Library, took part in the MaintainIT presentation, "Leading the Way: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Computing." As part of her talk, she spoke about techniques her library uses to save money and to keep aging technology out of the landfill. This is no easy task: Suwannee River Regional Library serves a rural community, and Sherry admitted that implementing green technology practices can be a difficult proposition.

At a dinner party last weekend, someone asked the host if she cooked meals for her family during the week. The cook responded favorably, admitting that she had a few tried and true recipes in heavy rotation. My dinner mate followed up with, "what are your favorite go-to recipes?"

On April 16th, we launched our first series of 30-minute webinars, designed to share information from libraries in a quick format so you can get started today. This month, Be Astengo from the Alachua County Library District shared her perspectives on her library's laptop checkout program. If you missed it--you're in luck!

Want to start a new project, but don’t know what to do first? Feel strapped for time?

Cool news from the TechSoup blog:
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Are there tech resources you're having trouble finding? Technology challenges you're facing? Support you'd like when using TechSoup?

I don't want to alarm any of you who live in the warmer climes (that'd be me, in San Francisco), but here's a photo taken today of wintry Minneapolis:

I'm alarmed, but also pretty excited to see snow! Wear warm clothes, sensible shoes, and hope to see you there. Please stop by the TechSoup booth #1842 and say hi!

Well, the library didn't respond, but Jeff Scott, the Library Manager from City of Casa Grande Public Library did.

If you read the title to this post, and said to yourself, "I don't have anything to share... we're not doing anything that the MaintainIT Project would care about," I have a challenge for you:

Use this form to get in touch with us, and we'll find a reason for you to change your mind, and say,

Sometimes we're inspired to delve into the deeper story of a librarian or staff person's experiences. When that happens, we write a Feature article about them, and post it on the Library Spotlight page.

This month, we focused on Loren MccRory, the director of Yuba County Library in Marysville, CA. The entire story follows, but if you want to print out a pdf, go to the Library Spotlight page. And be sure to read other Features, too!