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A message from Dawn Vogler at the state library: Hi everyone. On a recent trip, I had the opportunity to visit the Hurst Public Library near Ft. Worth. It's a medium-sized library and quite nice. Perhaps some of you have run across this idea before, but they use restaurant pagers to let customers know when it is their turn to use a computer. I was so intrigued by the idea, that I had to call back their Multimedia guru, Jessie, to ask how the idea evolved. Hurst procured 3 quotes from the following companies: Visiplex <http://www.visiplex.com/> (they went with this company and paid about $1400, but not sure how many pagers they ended up with) 847-405-0771 Long Range Systems <http://www.pager.net/> Jtech <http://www.jtech.com/intro2.htm> They used the pagers in conjunction with a VB script Jessie created. The script alerts customers via a pop-up message on their screen that tells them their time is up. They are migrating to PC Reservation software (http://www.envisionware.com/ <http://www.envisionware.com/> ) since the technology has evolved and their little script became outdated. Anyway, they started out with pagers from Radio Shack (they no longer make them though) just to see if customers liked the idea. It took hold and worked well, so they upgraded to the visiplex system. Just thought I would share since this has come up on the publib mailing list several times in the past few months. PC Reservation frees up staff from the omnipresent computer sign-up sheet. The pagers allow customers to use other library resources and to browse freely while waiting. Hope this is helpful, Dawn Dawn Vogler Continuing Education Consultant Texas State Library & Archives Commission 1201 Brazos Street P.O. Box 12927 Austin, TX 78711 (512) 936-4449 phone (512) 463-8800 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Include in body: unsubscribe ctls-l For information on CTLS-L please visit: http://www.ctls.net/document/ctls-l.htm
