Albany Library Branches Will Have Tablets Available For Loan

The city's largest branch this week began loaning eight Android tablets that also serve as Wi-Fi hot spots capable of providing Internet access to an entire household, for free. Albany's program, modeled after one in Queens and at other libraries around the country, is part of a larger effort to make library resources available to patrons around the clock — a push that increasingly means web-based services, library Director Scott Jarzombek said. Jarzombek, who credited Assistant Director Melanie Metzger with spearheading the program, said the library has also begun keeping its Wi-Fi networks on at night to provide Internet access to people nearby and plans to loan laptops for people to use inside the branches — a recognition, he said, of how users have grown to expect less tethered access to the web. While some local libraries have been loaning Wi-Fi-enabled e-readers like Nook Tablets for several years to familiarize patrons with their growing e-book collections, Burke said Albany's program is the first he's aware of in the Upper Hudson system, which covers Albany and Rensselaer counties, to focus specifically on the tablets' broader uses beyond reading devices. Queens Library in New York City has been lending tablets for two years — a program that began with 5,000 Google devices donated to help the victims of Superstorm Sandy.