Chapel Hill Public Library in North Carolina is more than just a book repository; it is a hub of activity for the town’s residents and the surrounding communities. The 80,000-square-foot facility includes four meeting rooms that are available for public use. The upgraded AV systems include a variety of improvements such as larger displays with enhanced image quality, overflow capabilitie, and intuitive control for users with a wide variety of experience levels. KONTEK designed and integrated Extron switching, audio, streaming and control systems to support each meeting space. They also added a NAV Pro AV-over-IP system to link the four rooms.
“We had many discussions involving the best ways to create user-friendly environments that maintained some sort of conformity,” says Ryan Chamberlain, library experiences technician at Chapel Hill Public Library. “Members of the community immediately understood how to operate the Extron systems, making the transition straightforward and relatively painless for everyone.”
Benefits of Upgraded Services
Members of the community can now reserve any of the Chapel Hill Public Library meeting rooms, now available for use during library hours. The two larger rooms are flexible spaces with multiple display devices. They can seat up to 84 and 162 people respectively. The two smaller rooms function as a board room, with a conference table and at least one wall-mounted display. Any room can serve as overflow for another.
Here, KONTEK deployed an Extron NAV system, creating flexible integration across the rooms. The multiple NAV encoders and decoders create an IP-based video and audio switching matrix. All four rooms use a similar AV system design scaled to the space. To operate a room’s AV system, the design includes an Extron IP Link Pro control processor and TouchLink Pro touchpanel with a custom GUI. The control interface pages are available in five languages. The library also has plans for additional languages in the future.
The intuitive nature of the installation allows the library patrons who reserve a room to take full advantage of the hybrid AV systems capabilities. Moreover, they can do so with virtually no assistance from the library staff. According to the company, the library’s meeting rooms, upgraded with Extron systems and products, are now in constant use. In fact, they are so popular that they are often reserved months in advance.
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