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This summer the ZSR library partnered with our friends at Information Systems and Computer Science to examine the use of thin clients in different areas of the library. We put the machines in three areas – Public use areas, Circulation desk, and Resource Services.

Not only were these thin client machines (meaning that they ran off of a server and had no local software) but many of them were also running open source applications (Red Hat linux and Open Office).

As a whole the project was very successful. We got lots of good feedback from our staff and have written up a final report. We found that the public service machines worked very well and appeared to meet student computing needs. We also found that while the staff terminals worked well that certain applications did not like being ‘thin’ as much as others.

The report recommends migrating our public access terminals (OPAC stations in library-speak) to this platform and to continue experimenting with them in other areas. For example, you can already see a few thin clients in action in our new Digital Media Lab next to the Bridge!

If you have any questions or comments feel free to come chat with a member of the tech team.