Specific Purpose Excise Tax News:

30 Samsung 19 in network monitors recently arrived at ACPL, the first piece of our Public Computer replacement project brought to you by the Specific Purpose Excise Tax passed in May 2010 (also known as the 6th Penny Tax)  You might be wondering Samsung means by network monitor; that's a fancy term for a monitor with a little bit of extra components built in: USB ports for mouse and keyboard (4 total), headphone and microphone jacks, an Ethernet port for network connectivity, a VGA input, and a power cord, oh and some RAM to load a very basic OS.  Key to the project are two new HP Blade Severs and two SANs which, should arrive before Thanksgiving.  Now you are most likely wondering what this all means?  Currently, we have 29 total computers for public use all having a variety of different models and capabilities.  Our coming Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (or VDI) will change that.  Instead of having a desktop at every public desk we'll have a Samsung network monitor.

How does Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) work? 

All the computing tasks and storage/disk space are located on the servers and SANs respectively.  In a way its similar to the old dumb terminal/mainframe model of yesteryear, but far more advanced.  

Staff-side our network is not quite capable of supporting VDI yet, but eventually we hope to spread the wonders of PCoIP (PC over Internet Protocol, the method our setup uses to deliver a PC class experience to a "network monitor") to staff whose computer needs are not as demanding.

Computer Terminals at ACPL Main Branch:

    * 13 Internet terminals: 10 have a one-hour limit and 3 have a fifteen-minute limit.

    * 5 Internet terminals in the Young Adult Area – these are reserved for patrons eighteen years and younger.

    * 2 dedicated Word Processing Terminals (internet access to these computers has been disabled)

    * 5 Children's computers with various games and internet access

    * If you are a parent or guardian accompanying a young child, you may use the Internet on the computers in the Children's area, so that you may stay with your child

Additionally, we have dedicated library catalog computers in each department, these computers may only access the library catalog and databases.

Prints from any of these machines are ten cents each, you may only print black and white from the public computers, however, color printing is available for 25 cents/page at the Front Desk, just ask.

All computers at ACPL are setup to prevent files from being saved on the computer, if you need to save a document we suggest using a USB thumb drive, CD-R/W, or floppy disk.  If you do not have a way to save your files you may borrow a USB drive from the Front Desk for in-library use only.