Texas Technology - Fall 2008 - (Page 28) fastfacts to a library may not be as easy as if you lived closer. In some areas, we partner with local organizations like that,” Stauss said. In another effort, the HPL’s Digital Inclusion Initiative installs vendor-donated desktops at local organizations, like community centers and health clinics. The initiative recently installed 13 The Houston Public desktops donated by Library partially Hewlett-Packard at credits increased participation in its the Burnett Bayland summer reading Community Center in program to the library’s new technolHouston. The center ogy. Last year, the currently offers digital HPL enrolled 20,000 literacy classes using teens and children in its program. the new lab. This year’s summer In addition, Houston reading program has enrolled 70,000. recently opened a down- town park called Discovery Green roughly 10 blocks from the central library branch. The HPL deployed three wireless antennas donated by Cisco to cover the park’s 12 acres with free wireless connectivity. Discovery Green features a small “express” branch of the HPL, which checks out laptops for patrons to use outdoors. “It’s the largest publicly accessible free wireless hotspot in Houston,” Fernandez said. Library Reaches Overseas Houston library patrons can chat with a librarian about questions anytime using the HPL portal’s Info 24/7 function. The feature connects the HPL with a cooperative of libraries around the world. Each librarian accepting chats helps patrons locate items at those patrons’ own libraries. “Each library that participates in this cooperative has to prepare a policy page with their hours, fines, borrowing privileges, library card information, databases and services offered. That way if we get a question from the Queens Public Library, we look at that page and tell them, ‘Your library does have this book. Here’s how you can access it,’” Kadir said. Texas state government funds the HPL’s participation in the cooperative, which includes libraries overseas. “The UK just joined this cooperative. We’ve been getting a lot of questions from people in that part of the world lately,” Kadir said. In turn, a librarian from the UK might help a patron in Houston. N 28_TexasTechnology http://www.hbmginc.com
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