Date: 28 April 2008

To Our Regular Clients (with Authorization Letters on File):

Faculty who are using the checkout service for teaching purposes (and
other clients), we'd like to provide suggestions that might help.  Let me
point out that the Property Office has sold dozens of laptops through its
IDR sales process over the past year, usually for somewhat less than
market price.  (On eBay, a Thinkpad A22, same as those in our main
checkout line, goes for $239 on the "Buy-It-Now" option.)  These sales
have been taking place twice a month, announced on the staff mailing list
and the "Property" website.

Housing the equipment in your own college or department would allow you to
configure and install software to your own needs, judge borrowers'
reliability, require whatever scheduling or paperwork you like (or none),
and press for overdue returns with collegial authority.  A departmental
computer falls under the aegis of IT for maintenance.

Projectors are another story.  They have been more expensive, but prices
for new ones are dropping to near $1200.  And as you know, the Property
Office will offer some of ours.  We will continue to work with the
classroom technology and audio-visual staff to ensure the presence of
needed equipment in class.

Please do not hesitate to come to us with the technology needs associated
with your teaching.  We will do our best to accommodate them somehow,
perhaps with the equipment that we plan to retain for our own purposes.
We will still assist you with advice and software for your own computers,
subject to licensing arranged by you, as always. 

--
  Robin Hill        hill@uwyo.edu     307-766-5499
  UW Instructional Computing Services Ellbogen Center