My site for the Service Learning Project is the Wheaton Public Library, located in Wheaton, IL. In terms of size, it is on the upper end of a mid-size library, and is not part of a consortium. It is run in the fashion of a typical public library, there is a board of trustees and staff administration. The library sees an average of 1,000 patrons per day.

I spent six week learning and volunteering at the library as part of this project. I got involved here basically by asking. I sent an E-Mail to the director explaining the situation and what I was looking to do. The director put me in touch with the assistant director, and I went in to meet with her and the IT manager, Ed. Both of them were very nice and open to whatever I needed to do for my project. It actually struck me as a bit odd, that I’m just some random guy coming in to talk to them, and next thing I know I’m in the server room.

There is a lot of technology at work in the library, and a skilled staff administers it. Let's take a closer look at what the library has in the way of technology in the next section.

This section provides an overview of all the technology at work in the Wheaton Public Library. Please scroll or use the sidebar to navigate the Technology Inventory.

The users we are serving are library patrons. Most of the questions and assistance come from Tech Center users. They generally seek help by coming up to the desk and asking. Their needs are usually along the lines of how to log on to the computers, how to print, how to use software on the computer, and how to scan and/or fax.

Many patrons come to the Tech Center with questions about ebooks and other electronic services like newspapers and magazines, and how to get them onto their devices. Others bring their own devices to the Tech Center with questions about how to use them or access things. Staff assists when possible.

Others use the Instant Message feature from the library’s website to chat with staff or E-Mail questions in. Many of these questions are about how to get and use ebooks, but there are also a lot that have to do with how to access library services, like databases, from home. Like the in-person questions, some of these messages are tech support questions unrelated to the library that staff tries to answer as best they can.

There are still a number of people who call the library with similar questions, and those calls get routed to the Tech Center.

The library's tech staff also offers one on one appointments with patrons who have questions about their devices or using library services. This is a fairly popular offering, though appointments tend to come in spurts.

Another important - but not very glamorous - service that staff offers has to do with printing. The library charges $0.10 per page for black and white and $0.25 per page for color. If a patron does not have any money on them, staff will add the print fee to the patron's account as a fine so that they can pay it at a later time, but still get their print orders.

The staff appears to be well-trained and delivers prompt and professional service to patrons. I imagine it must get tiring being asked how to print or open a PDF on a regular basis, but staff recognizes that they are there to help the patrons, and they are happy to do so. Perhaps because of that, they appreciate the more challenging questions and really go out of their way to solve them.

I feel like I did a lot at the library during what seems like a very short amount of time there.

My first couple of sessions were spent with the IT manager. He showed me the various server and switch rooms all around the library, as well as identified all the areas computers and other technology reside in the building. He insisted that I see all of it, and I am grateful that I did. I may build a PC from time to time, but I've never been inside a server room or seen the hardware necessary to run the network of a large operation, and it was very informative.

As I mentioned in the Technology Inventory, there are several servers. As a stand-alone library, they have everything in-house. There is a web server, two print servers (one of them is old and will be retired soon, but the IT manager has to wait for a time that he can safely transfer the remaining staff who use the current print server to the new one), and a DMZ. There are a number of virtual LANs (or VLANs) in use throughout the building. This allows the IT manager to group together computers that are not connected to the same physical switch. They telnet into a switch and set the VLAN and port configuration from the command line.

As part of my hands-on work, I got to reimage a couple PCs using Symantec Ghost. This software has saved PC configurations, so when you need to switch a PC’s use or bring in a new PC, you just boot off the network card and go through some command line prompts, which bring up a DOS-style GUI. From there you just choose what the machine is to be used for (Tech Center, staff, genealogy, etc), and it sends over the image with the software and most of the configurations ready to go.

There are some configurations that aren’t set in the image, like IP and domain, since these are machine-dependent. The IT manager does leave notes for himself on the image that pop-up on the imaged computer’s desktop and remind him what he needs to do. It is a simple matter to then enter that information manually.

Other than that, I have had several sessions out on the Tech Desk at the Tech Center. I began with shadowing the staff there for two sessions, then was allowed to handle some questions myself. Many of those interactions fall into line with what I described in the User Services section. I was able to handle most of them myself, though did frequently consult with or hand-off to staff to make sure that I was getting the right answer for the patron. It was satisfying to help people with their tech questions.

It actually provided some good hands-on experience relating to one of the themes of this class: That technology issues that seem basic and like second-nature to me are an unsurmountable obstacle to others, and it is our role as librarians to help people with these issues as much as we can so that patrons can have good outcomes and access the information they need.

It has also been useful to see what the most common questions and issues are for patrons and staff. As I mentioned before, I can already tell that ebook how-to questions are a big item for library staff. On the staff-side of things, their main issues seem to be noting which machines are acting-up the most, or what service could use improvement.

As far as things that I have produced that the library can use after I leave, I was able to give an explanation of and write a short guide for using Bloxels, a product they had recently purchased. Bloxels is a physical and digital game design tool. One can use small physical blocks that represent pixels to design characters and levels, then scan the designs into an app. Inside the app, one can animate the characters and arrange the levels, then play through and upload them. I have had previous experience with Bloxels, and no one at the library did, so I was happy to walk them through it and leave some instructions. Otherweise, the staff has a pretty good handle on things.

I have really enjoyed my experience with this project. I have learned a tremendous amount in a short period of time, and have gotten to help people out in the process. I will likely stay on and help out beyond the required 6 sessions, if only because the staff has been so kind and helpful to me, and I feel like I should be giving back more than a handful of hours.

Everything I’ve learned while doing this project is important, getting essentially a hands-on crash course in network administration has been invaluable. Receiving a first-hand look at the real issues that library patrons and staff confront when dealing with technology has also been quite illuminating. It's a great foundation that I can take into my career and hopefully build upon for many years to come.