The Wireless Student and the Library: the Morrisville Experience

The Wireless Student & the Library: the Morrisville Experience

Was in “The Wireless Student &the Library.” School Library Journal,Summer 2002 Net Connect,Vol. 48 Issue 8,p16. Library Journal,Summer 2002 Net Connect,Vol. 127 Issue 12,p16.

This version varies in small part from the original print publication.

Bill Drew tells how wireless laptop users have changed one college library

The evolution of ThinkPad University at the State University of New York (SUNY) Morrisville has had a tremendous impact on how we plan and design our library. At its most basic, the program has made it possible for us to take instruction and services to our students, as opposed to requiring them to come to the library.

Begun in the fall of 1998, the ThinkPad University program is a partnership with IBM that integrates computers into the teaching and learning environment. In 1998, 130 IBM ThinkPad laptops were issued to students, faculty, and staff in the pilot program. Today, over 75 percent of the students participate in the program; along with faculty and staff.

The goal of the IBM ThinkPad University is to increase communication and collaborations between and among students and faculty; incorporate customizable applications, such as the school’s intranet and internet; and to utilize business partners—education consultants—with first-had experience integrating technology into the academic program.” In partnership with Raytheon, SUNY Morrisville is providing its laptop users with wireless mobile technology in residence halls, all academic buildings, including the library, as well as the quad, and the dining halls.

Who we are

The SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Morrisville is a residential college offering two- and four-year degrees in more than 70 academic programs. The college is located in a rural area in the geographic center of the state. Founded in 1908, the residential college has around 3000 full time students and more than 100 full-time faculty. Two years ago the college undertook a mission review and as a result our new shared vision is “to be an academically challenging, business-oriented, technology-focused entrepreneurial learning community.” For the past two years, the college has been named “America’s #1 most-wired two-year college” by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine.

The laptop program

For any of the college’s academic program to become a “laptop program” the faculty members must clearly demonstrate how the laptop would improve the curriculum and improve the learning of the students involved. Currently over 27 different curriculums are part of the program. All participants in the laptop program receive an IBM laptop and Raytheon wireless card. The cost of the laptop can be funded by financial aid funds.

The student laptop for Fall 2001 was a ThinkPad A22m with a 800 MHz Pentium III Processor, 192 MB of Memory, 20 GB Hard Drive, 56K Internal Modem, 4MB ATI Rage Video Card, 24X CD-ROM, 12.1″ LCD Display and a 3 1/2″ Floppy Drive. This laptop is much more powerful than the first, a ThinkPad 390e with a 300 MHz processor and 64 MB of memory. Students and faculty use the laptops along side traditional technologies. ##WHAT DO YOU mean by traditional technologies???### Students in architecture and horticulture do CAD on their laptops. Students use folders on the network to access course documents and to show their work. They also access various study aids using electronic images and multimedia files.

Network and infrastructure

Our computing environment would not be possible without our current infrastructure. The campus backbone is Gigabit Ethernet over fiber optic to every building. From there it is 10 base T (100 Megabit capable) to the desktop or to the port on the wall. All classrooms are wired with at least one port. Every academic building has at least one technology classroom with an Ethernet port and power at each seat. All faculty and staff offices are wired. Many faculty members have elected to have a laptop instead of a desktop computer.

In addition to the wired network, the wireless connectivity on campus is so extensive that a student with a laptop can walk from one end of campus to the other, going in and out of buildings, and remain connected the whole time. Access points are arranged around campus to cover interior and exterior areas. An access point is the Wireless LAN transmitter/receiver that acts as a connection between wireless clients and wired networks. Each one has a range of around 300 feet. Wireless connections are brought to the laptop via a Raytheon Raylink Card over a 2 MB shared wireless 802.11 IEEE standard network. At the time the network was installed (1999/2000) Raytheon proved the best value. It covers the entire college and is 70 times faster than a 56 KB modem dialup line.

The library

The professional staff consists of 5 full time librarians including the director. We are open 82 hours per week during the school year. Our library management system is currently DRA MultiLis with Web2 for our OPAC interface, but we are in the process of migrating to Ex Libris ALEPH 500.

The library houses more than 90,000 books; 12,000 microfilms; 400 serial titles; 1500 audio and videocassettes. We have over 70 online databases and full text resources. The library provides access to such services as Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, various Gale products, Dialog@@Carl, FirstSearch databases, over 700 e-books from netLibrary, and over 12,000 full text serials.

The library has wireless and network connections for users in various locations around the facility including over 30 ports to the wired LAN in the cyber-lounge. Wireless access is available through out the library via five strategically placed access points. The library has an IBM ThinkPad at the reference desk, since we considered it important that all of us know how to use the laptop and to be seen using it.

In addition to all of the traditional services of any academic library, the library also has many new services that started as a direct or indirect result of the growth in the number of laptops on our campus and branch campus. These include team teaching with faculty, online forms, access to databases anytime from anywhere, live online reference, and more.

Library instruction

Instruction has changed in several ways because of the wireless laptops. All research instruction sessions are taught in classrooms that have at a minimum a network connection and a digital projector for the librarian’s computer; many take place in high technology classrooms where every seat has a network connection and power for the student’s laptop.

Because of the laptop program, the library is now able to take instructional sessions to almost all of the college’s English classes. These classes now include both hands-on activities as well as demonstrations. Also because of the laptop program, our instruction librarian is able to take her laptop into specific classes such as journalism or dietary technology.  The laptop program has also enabled us to team teach with faculty in upper level courses in the faculty member’s classroom or lab.

The library research methods course  has changed because of the laptop program. With a majority of students now having laptops there is no longer a need to go to a computer lap in another building to have hands-on instruction.  The course is now much more in an active learning mode because of this development.

Talk to a librarian LIVE

With so many of our users accessing the library from outside the building the librarians naturally became interested in providing reference services remotely. This service involves real time (synchronous) communication between the remote user and the reference desk. We decided to use AOL Instant Messenger ( AOL IM). This decision was based on a survey that showed 95% of student laptop users use AOL IM already.

This service is popular among students without adding much work for the reference librarian on duty. On a typical day the service is provided as part of the reference desk duties. At present, it is available only when the library is open. Use has not been overwhelming, with about one “conversation” an hour. Most questions are about which database would be best for research in a particular subject. We also help a significant number of students in evaluating web sites. Many of our users are located off campus near our branch campus.

Securing access

Our library had an obvious need to provide access to remote users. These users are branch campus students and faculty, distance teaching students, Morrisville campus students and faculty on campus, and students and faculty at home. A secure environment is one requirement of providing remote access. This was accomplished by using Ezproxy. Ezproxy allows us to ensure that all users of our databases are part of our college community. All the user needs is a computer with a browser such as Internet Explorer, an internet connection, and the computer must have “cookies” must be turned on in the browser. All that is needed to run an Ezproxy server is Linux (Pentium 100 with 64 MB of RAM) or Windows NT (minimum — Pentium 100 with 96 MB of RAM).###I don’t understand how this insures that the user is a members of the college community. Is something installed on their computer???###

The laptop impact

In both ways large and small, wireless laptops have changed our library. The library web site, for example. has undergone a redesign to better fit the laptop display. The entire web site was redesigned to eliminate any scrolling left-to-right and to minimize scrolling up and down.

We are now more proactive instead of reactive in the use of technology and in our planning. Before the laptop program much of our effort was spent in educating students in library/librarian jargon. In moving so much of our activity to the web, we soon discovered that we must be more student centered in all our efforts.  Our web site links were changed from such descriptions as “Databases” to “Find Articles in Journals and Magazines.”

The new technology has forced us to be proactive on campus as well.  Our instruction librarian now chairs a college-wide information literacy committee that is anticipating SUNY wide requirements for information literacy.

Librarians are also participating in trials of Compaq IPAQ Pocket PCs. The purpose of the trial is to see how PDAs could be integrated into our computing infrastructure and how they could be used in academic areas. In the library, we found that the IPAQ could display and use our web page. We have experimented with using the IPAQ to read e-books, and found it quite satisfactory. Such uses for textbooks and reference material via e-books will make the use of the IPAQ as a reading device ever more important. The IPAQ also has huge potential as a tool for library workers. Combined with a barcode reader/scanner it could be used to do book inventory. A reference librarian could use it access the library catalog and other resources while helping patrons around the library building; we have already used our wireless laptops in this way.

Perhaps the biggest change is a shift in our attitude towards technology. We now see the need for us to use and experiment with new technologies before the students do. With our experience we can help educate students and faculty in the most efficient ways of using new technology to locate and evaluate information.

The future

What does the future hold for us at Morrisville? In the not too distant future, it’s likely that will be using PDAs to search our new online catalog from any place on campus. These devices are all wireless broadband with full access to the Internet and the world wide web. These same students are chatting with librarians in the library via instant messaging, getting help locating material that could be in the library or online. Librarians will be needed more than ever to evaluate and find quality information.

Reference librarian will be no longer tied to a reference desk, but will be able to help patrons from anywhere in the building using wireless devices of all types. Librarian will use a tablet PC  to show students the best sources and strategies for finding accurate, timely information.