TechBits

Sanitizing Staff and Patron Electronic Devices

General Guidelines

SCLS recommends these general guidelines regarding sanitizing electronic devices in between staff and patron use:

• Work with local public health officials and follow their guidelines, especially to establish frequency of cleaning, etc.
• Follow manufacturer’s instruction for cleaning and disinfecting (see section below).

SCLS Tips (incorporates guidelines from CDC)

• Wash or sanitize hands before sanitizing equipment.
• Unplug the devices (mice, keyboard, touch screen monitors, etc.) from the PC. It is not necessary to unplug the power or turn off the PC.
• If no guidance from manufacturer, use alcohol-based wipes or sprays containing at least 70% isopropyl alcohol.
• Do not spray directly onto the device. Always spray onto a cloth. Do not use paper towels. Microfiber or white/light cotton cloths (including old dish towels or t-shirts) are preferred.
• Make sure wipes are damp, but not dripping. Dry surface thoroughly.
• Do not get moisture into any openings, gaps, ports, keyboards, etc.
• There is a concern that repeated and frequent cleaning of any electronic devices of a long period of time may cause problems. We do not know what the effect will be. These tips are based on manufacturer’s guidelines.
• Wash or sanitize hands after sanitizing equipment.

If all else fails, encourage patrons and staff to wash hands before and after use.

Ways to Reduce “Touch” on Touch Screens

• Provide a stylus per patron that can be cleaned in between use (SCLS is researching these)
• Reconfigure settings for self-check settings to reduce touch (for example, disable PIN)

Manufacturer’s Instructions

The following are known manufacturer’s instructions:

• Apple How to Clean your Apple products
• Dell Guidance for Keeping Your Dell Technologies Equipment Clean
  • Exception: Libraries may choose to unplug the mouse or keyboard rather than unplug the PC.
• Bibliotheca Cleaning methods for Bibliotheca solutions
• Envisionware Cleaning Envisionware Self Checks

Encourage Washing Hands

Based on access to cleaning supplies, it may not be feasible to perform frequent, if any, regular cleanings. Encouraging staff and
patrons to wash hands may be your only option. You may post signs regarding proper hand hygiene before and after using the computers to minimize disease transmission. 

Um, excuse me? Weaponized PDFs?

I was going to do a Tech Bits post about Carla Hayden's (Librarian of Congress!) proposal to digitize the  Library of Congress (!!!) but I ran across this other article and thought "What?!  Like with little guns and knives and stuff?"  

American Libraries linked to an April 19, 2019 article on the Nextgov website that has the title "Report: Weaponized PDFs on the rise." (sounds like an excerpt from a Terminator movie, right?) But it is no fantasy my friends, just the next generation of malware, scamming and spamming.   

So in addition to reminding your patrons, staff and coworkers about suspicious emails, ads and hyperlinks you also need to warn them about weaponized PDFs.

Welcome to the 21st century.

 

 

 

Implementing a PC Replacement Plan

Over the last several months at SCLS we’ve generated reports on how many PCs in our system are currently on Windows 7 and the number was surprisingly high. The reason this came up is because Microsoft will be ending its extended support of Windows 7 on January 14th, 2020. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind staff about the importance of implementing and maintaining a PC rotation plan.

SCLS recommends replacing 20% of your PCs every year (you don’t have to replace monitors that frequently). Let’s say you have 15 PCs at your library, then you should be planning on replacing 3 systems every year. This ensures all of your PCs will have a modern operating system and software. This is noteworthy because as we upgrade the software of our systems on a weekly basis the chances of those upgrades running into an incompatibility issue with the older operating system increases. An added benefit of having modern operating systems is that we don’t have to maintain the older servers and software licenses used to keep the older PCs on our network, which helps reduce costs.

Since it’s budget time for a lot of libraries, I’d like you to think of a rotation plan as a budgetary tool that helps spread the cost of buying new PCs over a five year period. If you know you have to replace 3 computers a year and the average cost of a new PC is around $500.00, then budgeting $1,500.00 per year for new PCs makes filling out your budget a little simpler.

We maintain an inventory of all the systems on our network and release a monthly Status Report available so libraries can see what the status their PCs are. Please take a look to see where your library is in the PC rotation cycle. If you see that you need to order some computers this year you can request a quote from our order form.

Wireless Laptop Labs

I’m sure everyone knows SCLS has wireless laptop kits for libraries to borrow for in library training and programs.  We currently have 3 kits available and you can reserve up to 2 at a time.  For those that need a refresher here is everything the kits come with:

 

7 Laptops

A wireless access point

Multimedia projector with RGB cable

A surge protector

Extension cords

Documentation Binder

 

As of June 2017, all the laptops have been updated with the latest versions of software and browsers! All laptops now have Microsoft Office 2013 instead of 2010 too.  It keeps getting better because Lab 3 has brand new laptops with Windows 10!  Labs 1 and 2 have Windows 7.  Note: Labs 2 and 3 do not have CD/DVD drives

These kits are great for staff or patron training and programs and includes different software and browsers.  Each laptop comes in a carrying case and includes the power adapter and a wired mouse. 

If your library has Enterprise Wireless the laptops will automatically connect to the signal.  If you don’t have Enterprise Wireless, it comes with a wireless access point that is super simple to setup and laptops will connect automatically. 

These kits can book up fast for programs and you can reserve them for 2 weeks.  To check the availability for Lab 1, Lab 2, and Lab 3 click the appropriate lab to check the calendar.  Or to reserve the lab use this handy form here. 

Create strong passwords with a roll of the dice

From the American Libraries Magazine; 5/1/2017.
Meredith Powers, young adult librarian at Brooklyn (N.Y.) Public Library (BPL) teaches workshops on digital literacy and data privacy as part of the Data Privacy Project, which is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund. Password security is always a hot topic.
She says that Diceware is an easy way to teach patrons how to create better passwords for their library, service, and email accounts. By rolling an ordinary die, users create a five-digit number that corresponds to a word in a Diceware word list. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) maintains multiple Diceware word lists.
“Even though the list of words is publicly available, the security of a Diceware password comes from the number of words selected and the number of available words on a Diceware list,” Powers says. “By rolling dice to create several words in a sequence, you can create a strong, memorable passphrase. The creator of Diceware, Arnold Reinhold, currently recommends a six-word sequence to protect against a brute-force hack attempt.”

Solid State Drives vs Hard Disk Drives

If you have seen the SCLS PC order form recently you may have noticed the addition of Solid State Drives (SSD) to the list of options available for you to choose. Previously we’ve only offered traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDD), but now you have the option to get either one.

What is a Solid State Drive and what’s the difference between the old and new technologies?  I’m glad you asked! A SSD and HDD perform the exact same function in a PC or laptop; they store system files and your data. A HDD uses spinning metal platters to perform this function while the SSD utilizes flash memory chips to store data.

The advantage of using a SSD is that it accesses the data much faster than a HDD. A typical patron PC using a HDD with MyPC and DeepFreeze installed on it takes roughly 2 minutes from when a patron logs out to when the next patron can log in. The same PC with a SSD takes about 30 to 40 seconds before the next patron can sign in, from what I’ve seen it’s closer to the 30 seconds, I’m just hedging my bet.

The disadvantage of the SSD is that it costs more than the HDD per gigabyte. Since SSDs cost more the typical size of a SSD is between 128 and 256GB whereas the HDD is between 256 and 500GB. These sizes are based on the systems we currently purchase. If you look in the consumer market you will see HDDs in the 500 GB to 2 TB range for the same price as the 128 to 256 GB SSDs.

To learn more about SSDs check out this informative article in PC Mag.

Photo from pcmag.com

Choose Privacy Week 2016

ALA's Choose Privacy Week is held annually May 1 - 7. For more information, see these previous TechBits posts for helpful links and resources:

• 2013 - "On the Topic of Privacy"
• 2014 - "Choose Privacy Week"

In addition to all of the great resources mentioned in those posts (can we talk about how much I still love the video of an amazing mind reader revealing his gift?!), I have a new privacy-related resource to share. To help create confident online interactions, San José Public Library (SJPL) developed the Virtual Privacy Lab, a free, encrypted online learning tool for all libraries to share with patrons. The lab includes content that was also professionally translated in Spanish and Vietnamese and a page with information about how the library manages patrons' privacy.

SCLS-supported public PCs have many privacy measures in place to help keep patrons safe, some of which include:

• anti-virus software
• disk-locking software so any patron data (downloads, browser history, etc) saved to the PC is cleared with a reboot
• Firefox and Chrome run in private browsing mode, which allows a person to browse the Web without storing local data that could be retrieved at a later date (this helps protect patrons who don't restart the PC after they're done)
• automatic weekly software updates so programs are running at the most current version
• network protections so a patron on one computer cannot access another user's computer
• (subscribing libraries) an automatic reboot to clear a patron's data when a patron logs out of their MyPC session 

For maximum privacy, an SCLS-supported public PC should always be restarted after the patron has finished using it to remove any personal data and browsing history.

How to save as a PDF on patron PCs

Do patrons ever come to you and say that they want to save something as a PDF, but they don't know how?  Well, let me tell you about a couple of ways that they can do this.  If they have a webpage or web-based email that they want to save as a PDF you can have them use the Chrome browser.  Once you have the item up in a Chrome browser press Ctrl+P to open the Print dialog.  Then click the "Change..." button found to the right of "Destination".  Then under the "Local Destinations" section choose the "Save as PDF" option. Then back in the Print dialog click the "Save" button.

If they have a picture they can paste it into a Word document.  Then click File and then Save As.  Then click the drop down box to the right of "Save as Type" and select the PDF option.  Then click the "Save" button.

These two methods should handle almost all requests to save something as a PDF file.

'Tis the season for...germs in the library!

Scrubbing the gunk off of keyboards and mice turns out to be a little different than disinfecting them... and when it comes to disinfecting, would you be surprised if I told you that alcohol doesn't disinfect against everything? Hand sanitizer either! Disinfecting against enterovirurus, norovirus (stomach flu), and influenza (flu) requires some special action.

Disinfecting against viruses
A little Google searching brought me to this excellent FAQ by the New Jersey Department of Health about the respiratory virus Enterovirus-68. It gives recommendations for what WILL work to disinfect surfaces to prevent the spread of enteroviruses (and noroviruses) in the section, "What is the best way to clean surfaces?" 

Is it worth the trouble?
Before you don your hazmat suit and sanitize your public PCs, you should know this: in the case of the influenza virus, disinfecting might not make a big difference. From WebMD:

But before you douse all your possessions with bleach, there’s one thing you should know: Experts say that you really don’t need to bother.

“Honestly, if you’re trying to prevent the flu, there’s just not evidence that spraying everything with disinfectant is going to make any difference,” says Christine Hay, MD, assistant professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Read more here: http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/features/killing-flu-germs-what-works

So...what's the take-away for stopping viruses?

• Disinfection. If you feel like you want to disinfect, use a bleach solution or look for products that specifically say they kill norovirus and rhinovirus. Make sure that they will not damage the equipment you are disinfecting! (Monitors and other types of screens especially may require special products)
• Prevention! Focus on handwashing (scrub those nasties away!), not touching your face with unwashed hands, and trying hard not to spread any viruses you may be carrying (stay home when you're sick, cover your cough and sneeze!).

Additional resources:

• CDC: How To Clean and Disinfect Schools To Help Slow the Spread of Flu
• Oregon State University: Cleaning, Disinfecting, & Sanitizing

What's the status?

This post was first run in 2009. It is being re-run with minor updates to reflect services that have changed.
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Technology doesn't always have to be super complicated. Sometimes the best technology projects are very simple. A great example of this is the SCLS status wiki. This web page allows you to see which SCLS technology services have known issues in almost real time.  You can view this page from any computer, that's right any computer!  (not just a PC on the SCLS network)

Here is a list of some of the SCLS technology services that might have updates on the SCLS status wiki:

• Koha
• Library Online
• SCLS network
• Web services
• OverDrive and other online resources

Let's look at a real world example

The first one will be before you knew about the SCLS status wiki and the second after you started using the SCLS status wiki.

Background

You are sitting at your desk and a coworker says they can't access OverDrive. You spring into action...

Before the SCLS status page

...and in a panic you sprint towards the nearest computer, but on the way you trip and twist your ankle. Down but not out, you crawl to the computer and see that OverDrive is indeed not working. With tears in your eyes, you fumble for the phone and call the Help Desk. After all that, you get a busy signal because everyone else is calling at the same time. Battered and broken, you sit on the floor defeated.

After the SCLS status page

...and calmly open your Internet browser, navigate to the SCLS status wiki see that OverDrive is down.  You also see that SCLS staff are working quickly to resolve the problem. Relaxed and comfortable, you sip on your morning coffee and realize what a beautiful day it is.

Can you really afford not to check the SCLS status wiki?