LD Resources

© 1999 Gary Sharp
Director of the North Bend Public Library
North Bend, Oregon

North Bend Public Library recently embarked on a year-long experiment, making five AlphaSmart 2000′s available for public use. The idea for this experiment came from an old friend of mine from Oregon who now lives in Connecticut, Richard Wanderman. Richard is an educational consultant who told me about the AlphaSmart a few years ago. He’s also a longtime and enthusiastic AlphaSmart user.

I’ve now used an AlphaSmart for personal and business use for several years. For those who do lots of writing as I do in my job as assistant director of a library, the AlphaSmart offers the portability of a laptop without the expense, and can be used with any staff or public access computer. I really appeciate the AlphaSmart’s portability. It’s great starting a document in my office on the AlphaSmart and working on it in between helping people at the public service desk.

Once I’ve finished a document, all I have to do is plug the AlphaSmart into a cable and hit a single key to transfer the document to a word processor on the computer. The special “Y” cable plugs into the keyboard port of any computer and allows you to use the AlphaSmart or the computer keyboard. It takes less than a minutes to install the cable, and it can stay attached to the computer.

AlphaSmart, Inc.’s Get Utility software allows the user to write a document in a word processor, copy it to the clipboard and transfer it in seconds to the AlhaSmart. Using the Get Utility at home, for example, I can use AlphaSmart as a “disk” to ferry a document in to work. I can continue to work on it on the AlphaSmart, or send it to the computer’s word processor.

All of this is easy, and our hope is that the public will adapt to the AlphaSmart way of getting writing done.

Here on the Oregon coast, our library is well-used. Circulation of books and other materials, at 236,000 checked-out last year, keeps our modest staff of 10 FTE busy. We’re open seven days a week from September through May, closed Sundays in the summer.

The population of North Bend is 9,800. We’re a popular place for people of all ages, running a full range of children’s programs, and have 90,000 items in our collection of books, magazines, and other materials. We’ve offered public access computers for over 10 years.

Several times each month I write press releases announcing library workshops, art exhibits, and special programs and I use the AlphaSmart for some of this work.

It’s great having a tool than I can take anywhere in the library. I’m not confined to my office for writing. I can work on writing without being tied to a computer.

Richard and I began a dialogue about the possibilities for offering AlphaSmarts in the public library while we visited in between his workshops at the Technology, Reading, and Learning Disabilities Conference in San Francisco last January. We both thought the AlphaSmart 2000 would be well-received by students and hopefully the general public. We felt sure they’d be a hit once people found out how easy they are to use.

AlphaSmart, Inc. supplied five AlphaSmarts in August, 1999 but it took several weeks before we had time to distribute them to staff. August was a time of staff vacations, and extra demands on the library.

August was not the best time to start this experiment, because the public library a few miles away in Coos Bay was closed for a major expansion of its building. During the closure, book-loving patrons from the Coos Bay Lirbary began using our library, sending our circulation up by 50%! We were swamped with people for weeks, and so the AlphSmarts stayed in their boxes until after the other library had its grand re-opening.

Our public service staff schedules and assists patrons using our computing center which features two word processors and 4 Internet computers. Getting the staff used to the AlphaSmarts is an essential part of this experiment. That turned out to be snap. Several staff members immediately liked the AlphaSmart. I’m sure their enthusiasm will be help us assist the public with these new writing tools.

September has come and gone, but it was not time wasted. Our staff started using and liking the AlphaSmarts. I passed them out at a staff meeting, and encouraged staffers to try them out. There was immediate interest. Two staffers borrowed them overnight to compose letters and for help with a student’s homework assignment. The reaction from staff was very positive. Our Interlibrary Loan Specialist eventually got on AlphaSmart, Inc.’s web site and bought one for her husband. Another staffer bought one for her college-bound daughter.

Two of our library board members work at the North Bend School District. One is the high school librarian, and the other is the district’s technology coordinator. I demonstrated the AlphaSmart at a board meeting, and everyone was excited about the prospects for AlphaSmart public use at the library. The board members from the school district were especially impressed.

Now, in October, the AlphaSmarts have been cataloged and bar coded. We’ll check them out for two-hour periods of in-library use, with our electronic circulation system. Patrons can use their library card to check them out. A sign-up sheet has been created, so we can keep track of the hours they are used. “Y” cables has been installed on public word processors and are on some staff machines too. We’ll transfer them to public access machines as needed.

I anticipate the AlphaSmarts will be attractive to students who are bound to like using them in our study areas around the library for taking notes, writing papers, and then connecting to our computers for printing or saving files to disks. As the school year progresses our computing center will be booked solid. Instead of turning away people when the word processors are all in use, we can get them started with AlphaSmarts.

We’ve created an attractive flyer, printed in color, that was sent out to the public schools in mid-October. A press release will accompany the flyer to local news media. Staff training and publicity are the keys to getting the public accustomed to the AlphaSmarts. Once people try them, I suspect they’ll come back to use them over and over again. It’s a very smart, compact device. It’s so easy to learn. After a two minutes of getting used to the layout of the keyboard, you’re ready for a session of writing with a lightweight, quiet, very cozy device.

As this year of using AlphaSmarts at our library continues, I’ll provide AlphaSmart, Inc. with progress reports. I’m anxious to get more AlphaSmarts into the hands of our library users.