[OPLINTECH] Survey on floppies, CD burners, and flash drives for public computers

[Phil Shirley]

We're going to be replacing our public computers (used for Internet and 
Microsoft Office), and we're also at the point where we're about out of 
the flash memory drives we sell so we'll need to re-order.  I'd like to 
get some information about what other libraries in the state are doing 
with regard to the kind of removable storage that patrons can use and 
that the library sells.  I have put together a list of 10 questions 
about this below; I would appreciate any information you could give me, 
and I'll be glad to compile everyone's answers for the list (please let 
me know if you don't want me to include your library's name when I do 
this).  Also, below the questions are my answers and thoughts.

1. Library name
2. Public computers have floppy drives?
3. Floppies sold at library?  Price?

4. Public computers have CD burners that patrons can use?
5 CD-ROMS sold at library?  Price?

6. Patrons can use flash memory drives on public computers?
7. Flash drives sold at library? Price and capacity? Can you recommend a 
good vendor?

8. Plans to change any of this?
9. If you used to have floppy drives for the public but don't anymore, 
how did you deal with the transition, especially in terms of patrons who 
needed to transfer data from their floppies to some other media?
10. Any other comments?

My answers and thoughts: At Cuyahoga Falls Library, patrons can use 
floppies and flash memory drives at every public Internet/Office 
computer.  We sell floppies for 50 cents and 512 MB flash drives for 
$10.  My thinking at the moment is that it might be a good idea to move 
away from floppies like I've seen other libraries do, and that low price 
is more important than size in choosing flash drives to sell, in order 
to make them as accessible as possible.  It looks like Newegg might be 
the best place to get inexpensive flash drives; I also looked at large 
quantities imprinted with the library logo, and at quantities of 300+, 
for smaller drives (512 MB), you can get prices less than $8 each. 
Memory prices seem volatile, so the size and price of the flash drives 
you sell might depend on what you could find when you bought them.

Thanks!

Phil
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Phil Shirley
Technology Services Coordinator
Cuyahoga Falls Library
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
330-928-2117, ext. 109
pshirley at CuyahogaFallsLibrary dot org

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