Library network experiencing 'growing pains'
Daniel DeBolt
Daily Staff Writer
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Local resident Ying Luk has been using the library's laptop Internet connection daily since the building opened last August.
"The entire building is unstable," he said, commenting on the library's network and laptop connections. "It's not a very big problem. It's just inconvenient."
The Iowa State university graduate is looking for a job in the Bay Area.
"The eighth floor went down over the weekend for 10 minutes - that's happened twice in the last month," he said, adding that it has been a problem since the library opened.
Sitting next to Luk was local resident Sue Geary. She was trying to hook her laptop to the network but was having little success. After she realized that she was trying to use the wrong type of port, she said, "It's not clear enough."
A little pink sticker at the end of the desk said "SJSU student laptop connection."
Librarian Carolyn Skene shed some light on the pink stickers.
She said that connection ports with pink stickers are exclusively for the laptops San Jose State University students can check out, while the ports usable by others are accompanied by a green sticker.
Skene said users should make sure they have the right connection.
Skene said she had not heard any consistent complaints about the laptop connections.
Luk said he has seen other people have problems with the network and believes that computers with newer operating systems work better.
He also believes the seventh floor is slower than the other floors.
"It's been half a year. I think the engineers should be able to figure out the problem," Luk said.
Blake Morse, information technology consultant at the King Library, said that the problems may be normal for a newer building.
He also added that the maintenance people may not have much experience with a network like the one in the new library.
"We never had anything like that in the old Robert D. Clark library," Morse said. "Growing pains, I think."
Susanna Chung, a sophomore business marketing major, has been using her laptop at the library two to three days a week since it opened.
"I never experienced any problems," she said. "I always used the green-labeled Internet connections, so maybe that's why I never had trouble with it."
Aaron Piazza, a senior majoring in management information systems, is grateful that the library has any connections at all.
"The old (library) building had nothing," he said.
Piazza said he relies heavily on the Internet for his major.
A computer lab is available to him and his classmates, but it is often overcrowded and has broken equipment, he said.
He said, when he has to do a group project, his team uses the library conference rooms, but according to Piazza, the laptop ports inside them don't work.
"There are a lot of tables that have a connection but aren't hooked up," he said. "The only ones that seem to be live are around the atrium perimeter. By this time, you would think the group study areas would be working."
Library Database Programmer Lyna Nguyen suggested that people who have problems report them to the webmaster at webmaster.sjpl@sei.sj.ca.us, who will forward problem reports to the appropriate technician.
There is also a feedback form at www.sjlibrary.org/about/contacts/feedback.htm.
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