Hosts
Troy Brown • Brandon Chapman • Hillary Greer • Brant Wingerter
Key: IHLS Library
Troy Brown: We'll be starting chat at 1pm. Start thinking of all the great questions you have. All 4 IT professionals are here today, so take advantage of us.
Brandon Chapman: Hi everyone!
Troy Brown: Good afternoon everyone. How's everyone doing this afternoon?
Troy Brown: Some of us are streaming the Apple event going on live right now. There's a brand new 12.9 inch iPad Pro coming soon and a new Apple TV box that Brant and I are excited about.
Hillary Greer: I'm excited about the Apple Pen!
Troy Brown: But we'll catch up on that later. :) I hinted at taking patron photos with LEAP. Has anyone tried it yet?
Andrew: I still need to get LEAP working at Maryville and Dupo :/ Haven't had time too see what it's all about.
Kay Burrous South Macon: No.
Troy Brown: well everyone has access to LEAP. You use your same firstname.lastname login to access it.
Troy Brown: The main website is
Troy Brown: http://leap.illinoisheartland.org
Troy Brown: To me the best thing about leap is the search box. You can search for anything from one box. Patrons, items, addresses, DL#, author, anything....
Troy Brown: But if you bring up a patron and click on registration, there is a section to view the current patron photo.
Candace Hancock - FREP: Yes, and when Polaris is down; you can use LEAP!
Troy Brown: (Sometimes)
Troy Brown: Depends what type of "down" we are in.
Candace Hancock - FREP: Got it.
Troy Brown: But, when you select the button to "Update Image..." it will give you access to any camera connected to your computer or iPad.
Troy Brown: take a picture, and BOOM, you just updated the patron photo.
Troy Brown: Most browsers require you to allow access to your computer camera before you can take the picture. (That's a good thing)
Andrew: Seems to be a pretty slick interface, works well even on smaller screens.
Troy Brown: Yes. Polaris doesn't support it on phones, but Android and Apple iPads are good to go.
Karen Sinks, Brighton: Can I take advantage of this I.T. forum for just a minute to ask everyone about Lazerware? I've brought this up before in another Chat, and the libraries that have a contract with Lazerware seem to be overwhelmingly supportive and positive about it. Here's my thing ... I met with the President and was surprised at A) how expensive it is, and B) that I would have to buy equipment and parts exclusively from them as our stuff needs replacing. We've had really nice computers donated to our library in the past from a large company that was upgrading ... and that's one example why I'd be leery of entering into a contract with Lazerware. I'd hate to have to turn donations of equipment away. All that being said, though, I'm just about tapped out in meeting the I.T. needs of our library on my own! Anybody want to offer their thoughts?
Troy Brown: That's a great question Karen.
Troy Brown: I'm going to let others chime in before I offer my opinion
Brandon Chapman: In a former life, I was an IT consultant. I worked with companies similar to Lazerware. Some companies do things that way because it's difficult to support anything and everything out there. When a company knows what they're supporting, it's easier to fix things.
Andrew: I've taken over two libraries from Lazerware and they do great work but they are expensive. The difference I've encountered is they can quickly and easily fix things as Brandon said since they keep all the setups similar.
Esther Curry--C.E. Brehm Memorial PLD: The techs often carry workstations and hardware parts with them in their vans. So if you buy their computers--they can just swap out parts or evern complete workstations.
Brandon Chapman: Bingo.
Esther Curry--C.E. Brehm Memorial PLD: This is a very nice benifit--especially if it's your Circ computer that goes down. You don't have to wait days to get it fixed.
Brandon Chapman: Yep. Otherwise the company has to either a) order a new part and you're waiting days, or b) order a new part overnight and charge you extra for it.
Brandon Chapman: I do understand where Karen's coming from, though. I've worked for companies that aren't as strict and I've worked for companies that are as strict.
Andrew: Side note, if you do erate some services can be covered by it and they'll help you figure out what they provide that's covered.
Karen Sinks, Brighton: I certainly understand why they operate the way they do ... who would want to have to maintain a garage sale menagerie of various types of equipment? But ... as a small library with a limited budget, I'm happy to get things from wherever and whomever we can. And, while I'm on the topic of being a small library, like I said, it's expensive! But there are definitely things that I'd like to do at my library that are beyond my scope, like looking into bandwidth filtering and adding Deep Freeze on our public computers, etc.
Brandon Chapman: It's like iPhone vs Android. All iPhones (of the same generation) are the same. You know what you're getting, but you have to play by Apple's rule. With Android, you have a lot more freedom, but there are a bazillion of them out there, and supporting a bazillion Android phones can be more difficult.
Troy Brown: There are a lot of good IT companies out there. I've worked with Brian Ward for at least 15 years. If there is one thing I can say about him, is that he puts the customer first. If you buy his plans, then USE them. Never hesitate to call them. It doesn't cost you anything if you have their all inclusive plan. They'll be there everyday until it's right, and if it still isn't right, Brian will make it right until you're satisfied. He's a great local business owner and the equipment he sells is far better than off-the-shelf equipment at WalMart and Best Buy. This stuff is solid and made with libraries in mind.
Troy Brown: Brian is the owner of Lazerware, BTW.
Carol: I understand completely Karen. Being a small library with a tiny budget. I used Lazerware for awhile and it was to costly for us. A good IT person is worth his share in gold. Put when you have pennies to work with he is really worth it.
Karen Sinks, Brighton: I met him, he seemed great. O.K., sorry for monopolizing this Chat! Thanks, everyone, for the input!
Troy Brown: Thank you Karen, these are exactly the types of discussion these chats are great for.
Carol: Karen find an IT person that you can work with and trust from a college...
Brandon Chapman: ...just avoid getting one of the IT guys from Saturday Night Live! :)
Andrew: I've wondered about the printing from LEAP, it seems rather flaky from what I've seen so far is there something in particular that needs to be configured/setup?
Carol: where's the like button. Really Brian is a really nice person to work with. I just couldn't afford it.
Troy Brown: Andrew: Yes. There are printer setup walk-throughs on our website.
Troy Brown: http://share.illinoisheartland.org/?q=node/567
Troy Brown: Setting up printing is at the bottom of the page
Andrew: i've loked through this one: http://share.illinoisheartland.org/sites/default/files/training_materials/leap/Leap-1.0-Users-Guide-revised.pdf
Andrew: I've always had trouble since we have older Epson printers which the drivers are rather kludged into place. I'll keep experimenting and see if I can get it working.
Troy Brown: Right, that's produced by Polaris. Many things have been updated since that initial document, but what's in there is still valid
Andrew: As far as from ipads does it use the cloud printing feature?
Troy Brown: I think it will support whatever printing you have setup on the iPad that accessible through safari. I haven't tried printing from an iPad. But I know people loved it for Summer Reading.
Troy Brown: I think a lot of libraries are getting away from printing receipts for every transaction, but I also know some people love their receipts.
Andrew: Yea, I know pushing paperless backfired on some users who didn't use email
Troy Brown: Right, I think the option still needs to exist but a lot of patrons don't use the receipt. So, it would be nice to have the option.
Candace Hancock - FREP: Does anyone have advice for inventory? We would love to do inventory but we don't like the Polaris feature nor Polaris Inventory Manager.
Troy Brown: I wish we had an alternative to those two ways for you Candace, but at this time, those are the options that Polaris has.
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: I need to register a new lib.il.us domain who do I need to contact in order to get that moving forward?
Candace Hancock - FREP: Troy, could inventory be something updated in the future? We would prefer scanning the shelves and then printing out reports. Polaris prints out lists and check the shelves. Polaris Inventory Manager often reports items are misshelved when not and odd reports.
Troy Brown: Andrew, I generally do that for libraries. The ICN is the main registrar of the lib.il.us domains. Even if you aren't an ICN customer, you have to register through them.
Troy Brown: Who is going to host your WordPress site?
Troy Brown: Candace, Inventory might be upgraded, but I haven't heard anything about it.
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: Dreamhost most likely, I haven't set any of it up yet since currently we have a .org address but I was going to build the site using the official lib.il.us
Troy Brown: Well there isn't anything "official" about lib.il.us, it's just free. Your dupolibrary.org is already on Dreamhost through our service. You are charged $9 per year for that domain name and it includes WordPress if we turn it on.
Candace Hancock - FREP: Troy, upgrading would be great. I ask on behalf of our staff.
Troy Brown: I'll pass that along Candace.
Troy Brown: Andrew, you should call me. There are a lot of options here.
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: Sounds good, I'll try to give you a ring later this week.
Troy Brown: great
Troy Brown: Anything else? I'm going to send out some questions to some of you next time to ask Brant some hard questions and get him talking in the next chat. He just loves to interact. :)
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: Final question, does anyone know how to find FSCS ids for the libraries currently since the federal breach took all the tools offline?
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: I've called the listed contact and wasted 45 minutes on hold before being disconnected :/
Troy Brown: No. Unless it's one I already know, but I don't think I have one for Dupo.
Troy Brown: It was good "talking" with everyone today. I hope you found it useful. We'll see you next month for IT Chat!
Carol: We have our id in Dupo
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: Ah actually I went back to the page and they have a tool online finally to search old data still, so nevermind!
Kathy Goleman Divernon Township Library: Thanks
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: yea it's for maryville to sign up for TechSoup for some software discounts.
Carol: thanks
Hillary Greer: Have a great afternoon!
Andrew - mvcp/dtyp: THanks!
Kay Burrous South Macon: Thanks.