Dougherty Central Library to offer tech class

ALBANY — The Dougherty County Library System will host a Tech Q&A class that focuses on adult patrons on Saturday.

Christina Shepherd, head of the system’s reference department, will teach the class along with an assistant. The information planned can range from finding good educational apps for children to working with Excel spreadsheets.

“For Christmas, everybody’s getting all their nice, shiny new tablets and their new phones, and a lot of people don’t know what to do with them or how to do anything with them,” Shepherd said. “If they come into this class, they can sit and listen to other people’s problems as well and maybe learn something from that. Or they can ask questions about what they need.”

She added that the branch will move away from having formal computer classes three times a week in favor of people reserving 30-minute one-on-one sessions with instructors to ask questions more specific to their issues.

Along with helping people learn how to utilize their new devices, Shepherd said she informs patrons about programs and services they might not know about.

“If somebody comes in with their new e-readers or their new tablets, I will talk to them about how we now have PINES (library system) on an app,” Shepherd said. “They can download that app to their device, request books through the app and they’ll be here at the library for them.

“I talk to them about RBdigital as well, where they can check books and magazines out online. So those (are) little things I usually creep in while we’re going as well. I expect a lot of people are stuck on something on their device, and they want to know how to get past that.”

The department head added that the most common thing she teaches people is how to copy and paste.

”Sometimes it’s because they want to print out a picture, and they try to just print the picture that they find on Google,” Shepherd said. “Once we show them that they can copy and paste it, that they can adjust the size of it, it changes their worlds.”

The most complex question Shepherd said she’d answered so far related to working with email addresses in bulk.

“There was somebody that came in one time asking about mail merge,” Shepherd said. “She had (email) addresses, and she needed to set them up so that they would do a mail merge in Word. I wasn’t sure how to do that offhand. I had to go and look real quick, come back and show her. There are sometimes things that catch us, but we can usually figure it out and get right back with them.”

The class is set for 3-4 p.m. at the 300 Pine Ave. branch. Patrons can set up an individual appointment by calling (229) 420-3210 or emailing [email protected].