dual-monitor displays on the ref desks

["Walters, Martha" <Martha.Walters@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a little off-topic, but if anyone has any experience setting up dual-monitor displays on the reference desk, could you contact me off list?

We are trying to get our IT folks to enable this on some new machines we purchased to do just that, but they insist that only one (and the same) program can be displayed at a time on each monitor, and we need for multiple programs to display.  We bought dual video-cards for the pcs but I.T. says they can only "clone" the machines to display the same program viewed by the librarian to the patron.

In addition, they want us to direct the patrons to just push the "ON" switch on the monitor to enable viewing, and we told them we want to control that from our keyboard and mouse.  They are having a hard time grasping the necessity of such.  

Any ideas or help would be very much appreciated!!

Martha Walters
Systems Administrator
Palo Alto City Library
Palo Alto, CA  94303
650-329-2694
http://webcat.cityofpaloalto.org