By T. Scott Boatright
The Lincoln Parish Library (LPL) paved the way to improve the LPL parking during its October meeting.
That involved the Board of Control giving their approval to accept a $29,500 bid from Pate and Sons Paving in Monroe.
Lincoln Parish Administrator Courtney Hall explained to the Board of Control what that work would entail.
“There’s a method of preserving existing asphalt,” Hall said. “It’s called fogging, for fog, a fog sealant. Church parking lots have them a lot.
“It gives it a fresh, hot mix look but it also seals in any cracks and prohibits water from getting down (into those cracks) and causing contraction, expansion, so on and so.Then they’ll do the striping. So the (Pate and Sons) bid included that fog sealant,which will help match the new QuikTrip parking lot.”
The Board of Control also amended its budget as they OKed a line item change moving the project cost from maintenance of equipment on line up on the budget to the building and ground maintenance line.
Also approved was authorizing the closure of the Library on Dec.14 to allow LPL employees to be able to attend the Lincoln Parish Police Jury’s annual Christmas.
The Board of Control also discussed the library’s technological future as they heard a presentation from Mike Rainwater and Brent Kennimer from the Lincoln Parish GIS Office, which share an internet technology team with the library,
Kennimer, an IT manager, told the Board of Control that the BMware running the library’s virtual servers is currently functioning as it should be but that within a year the softball version is going to be out of date.
He also said the library’s servers — the hardware — aren’t compatible to run the new version of VMware.
Kennimer said just to gauge he had asked for a quote to replace the IT system at the LPL from NetTech in Ruston, and was given a rough figure of around $30,000 to replace the two servers, the storage and some other miscellaneous equipment.
After Kennimer heard that price quote, he then started thinking about the feasibility of running the LPL system remotely from the GIS Office.
“We’ve got the capability here at the Parish Office to run all the virtual servers at the Courthouse that are basically ran here at the library,” Kennimer said. “We’d have to put some things in place on our end for that to happen, like physically connecting the library to the Courthouse. There’s different ways of doing it. One would be using a circuit from AT&T or would could use fiber optics through the city of Ruston”
Kennimer said doing it that way would eliminate any equipment and licensing fees because of the cost-sharing agreement already in place between the LPL and GIS Office.
Board of Control member Bill Jones asked that a typed copy explaining in layman’s terms what the plan would mean be presented by next month’s meeting before any serious talks considering the option be held while adding that he realizes that it’s a concern for the future that needs to be at least discussed soon.
