<div dir="ltr">Even if you were to find an affordable 3rd party tech support company to work with you, the staff wouldn't necessarily be able to call the support company up out of the blue, say "Fred's skinny dipping off the coast of Alaska, but the Internet seems slow today, patron print jobs are strangely printing to the staff printer all of a sudden, and my Word document will no longer open." and expect the 3rd party support company to be able to quickly get things working again. They would likely either need access to you and/or your (very detailed and organized) configuration notes or you would need to plan ahead and start working with the company often enough for them to have a passing familiarity with your network and hopefully build up their own detailed notes.<div><br></div><div>Frankly, nobody is going to be able to handle your network as well as you, if you're the sole network admin. If there are no plans to hire a junior you (or even if there are), then you might consider a multi-faceted approach using a combination of options:</div><div><br></div><div>*) If you can, find that 3rd party support company you can build an ongoing (if occasional) relationship with and work them into a position where they could help out on serious emergencies. Unfortunately, that may mean you'd have to spend money to bring them in to assist (even if not entirely necessary) with some things while you're around and in a non-emergency status. You might save them for the hard-core stuff like server and network infrastructure issues. I suppose you could consider this an investment in your network's continued health.</div><div><br></div><div>*) Identify your other likely stress points that aren't so devastating...printer problems, routine network backups, etc. ...and train a staff member that has a technical bent to handle those very specific and limited-scope tasks. You could perhaps even offload those routine tasks more permanently.</div><div><br></div><div>*) Set up and test a remote access scheme that you can use in a pinch if your sick-ish at home or if you happen to have Internet access wherever you're vacationing (if you're so inclined to briefly help out while on vacation!) This is nice too for taking care of that occasional thing that happens as soon as you get home from the day's work and get a panicked call from a staffer that can't find his/her important document on bunnies.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>From my own perspective, these are just some things that I've seen used with success at some libraries. I'm curious to see what others do too!</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>For my own libraries, <u>I'm</u> the 3rd party company they call for help when the local tech is away or the problem is beyond their skillset. In some cases, I'm the regular IT guy too, so I guess it's a good thing I rarely get sick and never take a vacation!</div><div><br></div><div>2 cents, FWIW.</div><div>Chad</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div>______________________________<br><b>Chad Neeper</b><br><font size="1">Senior Systems Engineer</font><br><br><b>Level 9 Networks</b><br><font size="1">740-548-8070 (voice)<br>866-214-6607 (fax)</font><br><br><font size="1"><i>Full LAN/WAN consulting services -- Specialized in libraries and schools</i></font><br></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Fred Miller Jr. <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:millerfr@oplin.org" target="_blank">millerfr@oplin.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">I wanted to know what most of my fellow IT members at their library system are using for backup personal. I want to be able to have a backup here at the library in case I’m out for an extended period of time on vacation or sick leave. I tried checking into an outside company, but found their rates extremely high.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Many Thanks,<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#002060">Fred Miller Jr<u></u><u></u></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#002060">IT Service Manager<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#002060">Auglaize County Public District Library System<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#002060">p: <a href="tel:419-738-2921%20ext.%201011" value="+14197382921" target="_blank">419-738-2921 ext. 1011</a><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#002060">f: <a href="tel:419-738-5168" value="+14197385168" target="_blank">419-738-5168</a><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#002060">w: <a href="http://www.auglaize.oplin.org" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">www.auglaize.oplin.org</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0322bd"><a href="http://auglaize.oplin.org/" target="_blank">Visit our Library Website!</a><u></u><u></u></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"> <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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