Keeping techonolgy in shape

There may have been a time when being a librarian did not require one to be at the forefront of information technologies, but that time has past. Today's librarians, and especially Teacher Librarians, are herald's of the technology revolution. We are often responsible for providing equal access to modern technologies and must offer base levels of instruction in its use as well. In order for this to be possible we must maintain the technology systems in functioning order and make sure that they receive necessary maintenance.

A school computer lab is a vital school resource for all members of the learning community including teachers, students, administrators and parents. It may not be part of our formal job description but the librarian often doubles as the technology coordinator (at least I do : ). At the end of the school year substantial time must be devoted to cleaning and updating computers for the year to come. Each one needs to have any new applications installed, old files deleted and trashed, and networks checked. There is software to purchase that can make this job easier like Deep Freeze, a program that returns the computer to preset settings and erases everything from the desktop. But then you still have to delete everything from the documents folder.

The job of computer maintenance can be easy or hard depending on the age of the machines, the amount of monetary support, ones own personal knowledge of computer systems, and whether or not the majority of machines run the same operating system. Luckily for me we have budgeted an IT guy. But working with Russ at Muir I was able to learn a process for cleaning and restoring computers at the end of the year that is efficient and sets the space up for the incoming groups of students.