An Academic Solution

May 2005 , Sponsored by Gateway

The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library in Indiana is an important part of the community. Like many public agencies, the library needed to find ways to effectively serve the public while staying within its limited budget.

In the mid-1990s, the needs of a growing community led the library to seek a bond for library renovation. The $44 million project intended to create state-of-the-art library facilities that offer the latest technology.

Part of this project required new PCs to be installed throughout the central library and its seven branches. By offering the best technology and the best fiscal plan, Gateway was able to provide the library with Gateway� Profile all-in-one desktop PCs.

Three-Year Lease
Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library acquired 350 Gateway Profile desktop PCs, all with Intel� Pentium� Processors with Hyper-Threading Technology, through a three-year lease program that was more cost-effective than purchasing. This enabled it to schedule payments at an affordable price and stay within budget.

"Since we were going to the new library situation, we looked at something for the overall system," said Mike Abaray, associate director of library services. "We were mindful that we did not have a technology replacement plan, so we decided to lease 350 Profile PCs from Gateway."

The lease program broke new ground for library systems in the state.

"This was one of the first leases by a public library in Indiana," Abaray said. "Gateway helped us demonstrate there was no other all-in-one machine available for their price."

Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library will own the computers after three years and will replace all desktop PCs when they are four years old. "We decided to implement a four-year replacement plan," Abaray said. The library system's total number of PCs can continue to grow when it adds new libraries or if public demand exceeds current capacity. Thanks to the reliability of Gateway machines, Abaray doesn't have to worry about them becoming obsolete.

Public Access
For much of the 1990s, Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library operated with computers built by a local vendor. These were used primarily for simple functions such as word processing. But over the years, the public increasingly required sophisticated technology for tasks like accessing the Internet and conducting research. "We had a number of fairly ancient machines running Microsoft� Windows 98," Abaray said. "They were slow. We had a hard time keeping up with the technology, especially on our public access PCs."

About three years ago, construction planning began for a new central library building. Library administrators were able to accept a bid for new computers. Gateway was the only company that offered the all-in-one functionality the library needed at a price that fit within the library's budget.

"We were able to pre-build the machines with the software we wanted," Abaray said, adding that the general public can now do just about everything on the library's computers -- access the Internet, conduct research and write papers.

Meeting Demand
While installing the new Gateway PCs, Abaray said the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library deployed an automated system to manage access to the library's public computers. Fortunately the library leased enough PCs, so waiting is not usually a problem.

"We have a program that allows you to schedule the next available PC," Abaray said. "You can schedule one for the same day or the next day. So far, we have enough PCs at the library that we see very few people having to schedule a time to use the machines."