Getting an Earful.(keeping headphones in libraries clean; places libraries can purchase inexpensive headphones)(Brief Article)

Dealing with that necessary evil: headphones

MULTIMEDIA COMPUTERS--THAT IS, COMPUTERS that play sounds and video--are now such a part of the landscape that we forget they've been affordable for only about a decade. Today it's almost impossible to buy a home PC without speakers, and young people expect to hear the same sounds through a library computer.

In most libraries, however, speakers aren't practical. You certainly wouldn't want someone listening to samples from a hip-hop Web site sitting next to someone playing Oregon Trail with its synthesized "pioneer music" unless those computers are equipped with headphones. But headphones come with their own set of problems. Many library users will wear the same set of headphones over the course of a day, and school and public librarians worry that sharing headphones can spread head lice and various infections. And then there's the replacement problem; kids grab headphones away from each other, and they break.

Daniel Messer, technologies instructor for the Yakima Valley (WA) Regional Library, says, "Our [headphones] don't break too often, but boy, oh boy ... don't they just seem to grow legs and walk out of the library?" Messer says that the best way to deal with missing headphones is to buy lots of decent, cheap ones. "If they break, we toss them," he says. But where should these cheap headphones, which would solve both the breakage and the "walking" problems, come from? It's not that hard to find inexpensive sets online; a dealer called Computer Gate (www.computergate.com), for example, sells, "Dynamic Headphones" (#MHPF002) for $1.95 each, or five or more pairs for $1.45 each, plus shipping.

What about the possibility of headphones passing head lice among users? Sadly, there's been minimal research--and no conclusive findings-on the topic. The Harvard School of Public Health looked into what's called "fomite transmission" --that is, transmission through objects such as headphones--and found no definite link. On the school's site at www.hsph.harvard.edu/headlice.html, Richard Pollack, who led the research project, says, "Shared helmets and headphones in schools or recreational settings may rarely and transiently harbor an occasional louse or nit ... [T]he effort necessary to effectively inspect and clean these devices, however, ...