Tip for 12.01.14 | Updated: October 15th, 2020

It’s easy to use Chromebooks in your library with Alexandria. They can be regular circulating items for your teachers, your patrons, or both; and/or you can use them as stations in your library.

It works well if your students are required to have Google accounts, as they can customize their own accounts, and their bookmarks and so forth will transfer across Chromebooks.

If your students don’t have Google accounts, or if you are setting up a Chromebook as a general kiosk in your library and want an all-accessible login, you can use a Google feature called Family Link, which lets you manage "child" accounts by limiting access.

Add a Chromebook as an item
  1. Open Items Management.
  2. Add a new item with the plus (+) icon.
  3. Hit Enter on your keyboard or click Search.
  4. Change the title to Chromebook.
  5. Change the policy (e.g. Equipment, Electric Device).
  6. Add copies.
  7. If necessary, enter the Serial # for each Chromebook in the Copy Information tab.
  8. Save the record.

If you're adding Chromebooks by importing a file, you can change the Title Update Matching setting in Imports to Title & Author & Medium if those fields are included in your file. That way, you won't have to add an ISBN for each Chromebook.

Use a Chromebook as a kiosk

Set up a general Google account and add it to your Chromebook. You can then use Family Link to control which apps and websites your patrons will have access to on that general Google account. 

You may also want to customize the homepage and startup page to control which website appears when you first launch Chrome on your device. Set the startup page to your kiosk link for quick setup and access.

Check out Chromebook Help to learn more about using Chromebooks.