Tired of troubleshooting? Try PCPL

Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Director Mike Acsbok (right) and Technical Assistant C. J. Shields are the CPU to the Putnam County Public Library’s technology department.
Banner Graphic/Chelsea Modglin

Good things sometimes come in small packages. The Putnam County Public Library’s technology department is one of them.

The department consists of just two people: Director Michael Acsbok and his trusty technical assistant, C. J. Shields. Together, these two maintain the entire network of library tech as well as programming for library patrons.

Regarding the library itself, the department oversees maintenance of the servers, all library cards, the online card catalog, the Microsoft Windows network, the wi-fi and 20-30 staff computers as well as patron computers, which is enough to keep anyone busy.

Also for patrons, the department offers the Community Help Desk. This program has one-one-one assistance with electronics, normally repairing computers in about 20 minutes. But if they can’t figure it out, they’ll send you to someone who can.

The Community Help Desk takes place every weekday from 4-7:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 1-4 p.m. every other day.

And if you have more questions than the help desk can answer quickly, which often happens, there are technology classes on everything from specific devices to all you’ll ever need to know about the Internet. The classes are free, designed for beginners and open to everyone.

The classes are take place at the library in Greencastle, but they’re also taught at Heritage Lake and Cloverdale.

The technology department also works to keep ahead of the constant changes happening in technology so patrons will always have somewhere to go with questions and frustrations.

It’s a big task for two people to keep the residents of Putnam County from using baseball bats on their computers, but seem to have it managed just fine. The next time you feel like pestering your grandchildren or busting a cap in a CPU, take it instead to PCPL.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: