Re: Circulating CD's

["Steve K. Grant" <sgrant@EIS.CALSTATE.EDU>]

On Fri, 22 Apr 1994, George Piattoni wrote:

> Help - I need your input on several pressing issues.
>
> 1.  Are you allowing K-12 students to check out CD-ROM programs?
> 2.  If so, what problems have your encountered?
> 3.  Are you able to utilize our theft detection system?
> 4.  If so, how are you able to keep the CD and jewel case together?
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.  Please respond
> directly to geopia@bbs.xnet.com
>
> George Piattoni
> geopia@bbs.xnet.com
>
George,
   1. No, we don't check them out; too expensive (DISCovering Authors is
$500, as I recall!)  Students _do_ have to "check them out" from the Desk
to take them over to our one standalone multimedia-capable computer to
use them.
   2. They hand us their school photo-ID card; we put the card in the
CD's jewel case, put the CD in the carrier, and hand that to them.  The
jewel case with their ID card stays at the Desk.  If the CD doesn't make
it back to the desk, the ID card shows us who to charge for replacement.
   3. I won't consider checking out CDs because of cost.  I can't think
of a way to attach a security "strip" to the CD itself that won't foul up
the CD-ROM drive, and stripping the jewel case is too obvious and easy
to defeat (student just peels off the strip).  Also, I can only afford
one copy each of CD-ROM software, and only that which has
research/reference value (vs. "edutainment", where it's designed for one
user to spend an hour or more working through a complex simulation,
tutorial, story, etc.)
   Maybe one day, in the high-tech, heavily-funded future (fantasy?), all
our students will be accessing multimedia CDs (or other storage
technology) via high-speed data connections from their classrooms and/or
homes to our CD-ROM servers installed on our LMC networks.

        Steve Grant, Library Media Teacher
        La Jolla High School (619) 454-3081 x228
        sgrant@ctp.org