I have seen this marvelous display in action, and it's really cool!
Forwarded with permission of the writer. Thanks, Lisa! Laurie Message: 5 Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 15:33:08 -0400 From: Lisa Charbonnet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Publib] Electronic Displays in the Foyer To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi all, We've been looking for a flexible electronic display format to make announcements in our foyer. We wanted great graphic capability to capture patrons' eyes with lots of photographs as well as the flexibility to change it at least daily. I sent out a call to publib and we investigated several vendors. A couple of the vendors offered lovely displays- 37" monitors mounted on sturdy stands that could be programmed with content from a flash drive. The price? Almost $5,000 and way beyond our budget. So, we got inventive. New flat screen TVs have come way down in price. We found a sleek 32" model for $600 and mounted it on the inside foyer wall. It took special heavy brackets- you can usually pay to have the store you bought it from install it or you can get brackets from most any hardware store- and we mounted it high enough to be out of reach of little fingers. We pulled the cord through the wall, conveniently next to a desk, and hooked it up to both a plug and an old computer of ours. The computer does not have to be new or particularly powerful, it will only run one thing, the TV display. What about the display? We composed a simple Powerpoint to show upcoming programs, news, and items of interest. We played with the timing, (for us 3 seconds a slide is just about right), the color and background (we loaded the Master with a soft blue and our logo), and the graphics (photos are great, a 300 dpi resolution seems to work fine). Every now and then we insert something to jazz the eye further. Maybe a subliminal word? Read? We just leave it up, looping continually, all day long. How to change it? With a real computer on the other end of the TV, we loaded VNC (Virtual Network Computing- open source under the GNU general public license) to connect that computer to our library's shared internal drive. With VNC and a password, we can control the display computer from any other connected computer, even from main to branch and back, and we can change the display from minute to minute if we like. Our display has been up and running for two weeks now and all is well. Maybe we can cut down on some of the paper brochures. Maybe we should load the occasional You Tube video (though maybe the repetitive sound would drive the Circulation folks crazy). Maybe we could have contests. Lots of fun thoughts! Best, Lisa Lisa Charbonnet Branch Manager, Laura's Library Westbank Community Library District 1309 Westbank Dr. Austin, Texas 78746 512.314.3585 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Laurie Mahaffey, Deputy Director Central Texas Library System, Inc. 1005 West 41st Street Austin, Texas 78756 www.ctls.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] 512-583-0704 x18 800-252-4431 x18
