The Information Technology team at Parkland provides so much to our member libraries. In our last blog post we talked about their provision of hardware and software, so in this post we will focus on the services offered by the department.
Parkland provides tech support during regular business hours but also understands that sometimes things go wrong on weekends or evenings. As a result, emergency after hours support for core services is provided on a set schedule. Please review the IT Service Parameters document to see the full schedule. You will also find detailed instructions on how to use this emergency support system depending on the severity of your problem in this document.
Another service that the IT department will provide is purchasing support. Parkland will assist libraries in buying hardware and software when possible. Working with the IT team on purchasing is a good idea to ensure compatibility with other Parkland services and also a great way to access pricing discounts. Please note that there is an administration fee associated with this service.
If you need help with implementing your new hardware or performing maintenance tasks on your technology, the IT department can help. Member libraries are entitled to one free visit per year from Parkland IT staff. Libraries can request additional visits as well, although there may be a charge to help cover labour, mileage and materials depending on the type of help you need.
Finally, we want to highlight some of the most important but under-recognized work the IT department does: proactive support. Much of this occurs after hours in order to prevent downtime during open hours and to minimize interruptions in service to library staff and patrons. This type of work is usually on back-end infrastructure such as servers, networks and storage.
Parkland cannot fully support everything that the technology industry encompasses so the IT team has put together a list of services that they cannot provide. A full list of these services can be found in the IT Service Parameters document but you can always reach out to helpdesk@prl.ab.ca with your questions as well.