WebJunction is delighted to name the Polson City Library our Library of the Month for April 2006!
Computer security is one of those necessary evils that some of us might rather not think about. But at the Polson City Library
on Montana's Flathead Lake, the teamwork of library director Marilyn Trosper and information systems consultant Jim Semmelroth
has led to an exemplary public access computing security implementation.
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Patrons surf at the Polson City Library.
Photo courtesy Polson City Library
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Located at the southern tip of Flathead Lake, the library serves a population well beyond the city limits. Despite being funded
out of city and county general funds with no dedicated amount for the library (a model unique even to rural Montana), the
Polson City Library has managed to routinely rank around 14th out of 79 libraries state-wide in terms of circulation. They
have some dedicated supporters, including an active Friends of the Library group and at least one generous patron who noticed
the line-up at the public access computing stations and returned six months later with a $18,000 donation to increase the
capacity.
Good fortune has also beamed on Marilyn and her library in the form of the technology support provided by Jim Semmelroth.
Thinking back ten years to the first intrusion of computer networks into the library, Marilyn recounts a “period of time where
I really felt lost.” She approached the Missoula Public Library to see what they did for IT support and they connected her
with Jim. She recognized immediately the value of working with a consultant who has “the library perspective.” He understands
the relationship with the patrons and “really cares about our success.” Jim trains Marilyn as he goes through his tasks and
is very willing to answer questions and provide explanations, thus enabling Marilyn to increase her trouble-shooting skills.
Jim knows that this kind of learning at the point of need is the most effective. Marilyn now knows to take a deep breath,
slow down, and think through the problem, trying to solve it on her own before calling Jim.
Marilyn is looking forward to the library’s third summer with wifi, which was hugely popular with the influx of tourists last
year. As the first location in the town of Polson to get DSL, the library is meeting the public access computing needs of
the community in a big way for such a small library.
You can read more about the best practices Jim used to advise Marilyn on implementing security for public computers in this article Jim wrote for the January 2006 issue of Computers in Libraries.
Contact library director Marilyn Trosper at mtrosper@polson.lib.mt.us, or by phone at (406)883-8225.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
