It all seemed so simple when the Steger-South Chicago Heights Public Library added an electronic card catalog. But when the staff obtained a grant that funded four Internet-capable personal computers and CD-ROM resources, things got more complicated.
After ordering computers, a scanner and a laser printer, the staff realized that finding adequate space for the equipment would be a challenge, recalled Jane Schulten, administrator of the library serving Steger and South Chicago Heights.
“We’re a small library. We already had run out of shelf space for books,” Schulten said. “We had absolutely no place to set up the community computer center.”
Staff members began wrestling with the question of how to shoehorn the new equipment into the space-starved facility.
The answer was to move the children’s section into a little-used meeting room just off the main part of the library. The former children’s section has been replaced by the new reference section, with research-oriented books lining three sides. The fourth side of the area features the electronic catalog. Also available is a portable viewer magnifier that aids vision-impaired individuals. The tool magnifies an item up to 45 times.
The new equipment responds to requests from patrons, said Schulten, adding, “Once a week, people call wanting to know if we have access to the Internet. We’ve had to send them to University Park and the Grand Prairie (in Hazel Crest) libraries. A lot of people have computers, but a lot of them aren’t connected.”
Thanks to participation in a consortium with 14 other Suburban Library System libraries, the Steger-South Chicago Heights operation has been able to gain affordable Internet access, she said.
Schulten said the new computer equipment–much of which is still being prepared–will be operational in time for the open house scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. Oct. 18.
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An offshoot of the coming computerization is that the library gained additional shelf space “that should hold us for a while,” she said. “We still don’t have enough seating, but we have more.”
Asked whether computerization played a role in the space redesign, Schulten said she and staff members reconfigured the old-fashioned way: “We counted the shelves, we eyeballed, we measured and we prayed.”