Thin Clients in Libraries: A Brief Reflection

“Thin Clients” are inex­pen­sive com­put­ers, throw­backs to the days of com­puter ter­mi­nals. The thin client itself has very lit­tle power, instead con­nect­ing to a pow­er­ful shared server for most of its smarts. In many sit­u­a­tions these com­put­ers can save orga­ni­za­tions money in pur­chas­ing, setup, and maintenance.

I recently devel­oped a brief, 12-minute overview of “dumb” com­puter access devices begin­ning with dumb ter­mi­nals, end­ing with thin clients, and touch­ing on their poten­tial appli­ca­tion in libraries. In case any­one would find it use­ful I’ve uploaded it: the Pow­er­Point includ­ing presenter’s notes.

P.S. I was sup­posed to develop an 8–10 minute overview. Oops.