The Atrium

The Grand Rapids Public Library has quite a collection of CD-Roms for patron checkout. Often though patrons find that they cannot use the items on their home computers. Why is that? Imagine a golf cart on the highway. Obviously, while the golf cart can move under its own power, it cannot reach the required speeds because it does not have the engine power to do so. Your home computer is the same way. When it does not have the software or hardware required to run a certain CD-Rom, the game itself cannot run on the computer.

So how do you find out if a CD-Rom will work on your home computer? On the case of most CD-Roms it will tell you that a game or an educational program will work for Windows or Macintosh operating systems, or both. If your home computer is a Macintosh, CD-Roms made for Windows only will not work. The same applies to a home computer which is a PC. If the CD-Rom is only made to work with Macintosh, your PC cannot run the CD-Rom.

In recent years, CD-Roms have been made to work with both Windows and Macintosh. It must say both Windows and Macintosh compatible on the case though. When it comes to CD-Roms made for Windows, the version of Windows your home computer has can affect whether or not the CD-Rom will work. If the CD-Rom requires Windows 98 or above, your home computer which has Windows 95 may not be able to play the CD-Rom.

There are hardware and software requirements which can affect the performance of a CD-Rom on your home computer. For most CD-Roms you will need to have a sound card, video card, and enough RAM on your computer for the program to run. The sound card is what allows the CD-Rom's sound component to play on your computer while the video card does the same for the image component. RAM is the memory needed for the CD-Rom to run.

All of these small pieces can allow a CD-Rom to run on your home computer. Please feel free to ask any library staff member for help if you are not sure about whether or not a CD-Rom will run on your home computer. CD-Roms can be fun games and educational tools. Consider checking out a CD-Rom from the Grand Rapids Public Library today.

And lastly, we don't allow CD-Roms from the shelves to be installed on any of our patron stations. These CD-Roms are for home use only.