Thursday, February 23, 2006
Using a USB drive at the reference desk
I got a free 128 MB usb drive at Office Depot when I bought 100 DVD-R discs. I am donating it to our reference desk since we so often have students who create huge searches with multiple files, but have no way of moving them to their laptops. An unintended technological hindrance to access is the wireless network client. In order to receive ANY network service to their laptops, students must have a client application on their machine which allows them to log in. Unfortunately, the students are missing the mobile media with which to download the client and load it on their machines. The computer center makes it available for download or gives it away on a cd IN ONE LOCATION on a big campus. We can alleviate this problem by using this donated usb drive to store and transport the client software to students who don't have it.
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This is nice, but we need a much broader solution to the storage issue. Instead of closing our copy center, we should have expanded it to sell cheap flash drives and CD-R disks at cost. All public machines should have CD-RW drives, and should be equipped with easy, transparent links to take students to the file space alotted to them on their Unix accounts.
ReplyDeleteThe copy center should also have been expanded to offer Velo-bind, as well as mass three-hole punching and sale of binders. In many cases the migration of resources to digital form doesn't eliminate the need for print, it just shifts the burden of producing the printed copy from the publisher to the consumer.
At the same time we are providing more and more information in digital formats, we are cutting back printing services and failing to enhance automation sufficiently to make it usable. Is it any wonder student find us less and less relevant?