Those of you who have been in the library this week will no doubt have noticed that the paper posters on the windows have all come down, and we have activated the electronic noticeboard, aka THE KIOSK. (Big thanks to Mike Karliner for all his hard work on this).
The Kiosk is powered by a combo of the TV (on wheels facing the window) and a little computer (the black box on the wheely stand). The TV displays a Google Slides (think Powerpoint, but less flash) presentation which shows info about the library, its history, the timetable, and all of the activities that take place there.
The Slides presentation has advantages over the paper posters:
1) it saves paper (yes, I know it uses electricity)
2) it is updatable from anywhere that I or any other Slides-comptetent person can edit it – changes are instant
3) the TV will not (fingers crossed) fall off an have to be replaced every five minutes
4) there will be no more sticky residue on the windows that cost time and money to remove
5) the TV is now multipurpose and in use all of the time, as opposed to very occasionally, so it is now working hard for its space in the library
Obviously, there are some downsides, most of which are temporary. One of these downsides is that the TV is currently set to shut down if it has been on for a while (in case you’ve fallen asleep on the sofa watching it). I will work out at some point in the near future how to fix that, hopefully.
In the meantime, please do not switch it off, if you find it on. If you find it off, please use the remote control to switch it back on. The remote lives on the top of the wheely stand. Just point and press at the front of the TV and the display should come back up. Please NEVER switch either the TV or the computer off at the wall. There are signs plastered all over it to remind you of this.
When we find time (probably over the Christmas break) we will remove the book decal from the window in front of the TV so that the display can be more clearly seen.