Library Furniture

Libraries have always offered people a chance to escape, to explore other worlds through books, journals, and forms of self-education. The library is becoming a learning center, a homework club and a leisure venue for young people. To expand the means of avid learners beyond the bookshelves, we encourage the consideration of listening centers for educational purposes.

It is our recommendation that you promote the use of listening centers to strengthen student listening and comprehension skills. All of the listening centers we offer are ideal for extending an existing system, or creating a tailor-made set-up to meet your needs. But which product would be the best match for your learning environment? With this guide, you’ll be able to make the proper decision after answering just three simple questions:

• How many listeners will be using the center?
• What type(s) of media will you present?
• Where will the listening center be used?

You should make sure you have the proper quantity of headphones available for your listeners, to meet their potential learning capacity. They are offered from a range of two to eight sets of headphones per center. If you will need to add on additional sets of headphones in the future, a wireless system will be ideal; with this type of listening center, there is no limit to how many pairs of headphones can be used at a time. To answer this question if you already own headphones, look to our selection of jack boxes; these allow multiple pairs of headphones to connect to a single media source, and are available with up to ten jacks. (The jacks are also sometimes referred to as positions or stations.) And with both the full listening center and jack box options, much of our product selection includes individual volume controls for each listener.

If you are looking for a listening center that includes a media player, you have several options. Some products come with a cassette player (which on most models is also an audio recorder), while others offer more advanced technology like CD, DVD,and MP3 compatibility; the DVD and MP3 players come ready to connect to a television or computer. Additionally, we offer some centers with AM/FM radio.

One important thing to keep in mind is if you already own a media player and are just getting a listening center to use with it, please make sure to choose the proper stereo/mono option. If you choose a mono (single channel) listening center but hook it up to a stereo (two channel) media player, you may cause a short circuit in one of the device's stereo channels. Furthermore, you will only be able to hear the audio through one side of your headphones. If you are using a stereo device, please select a stereo listening center. An exception to these shortcomings is any of the products that we offer with patented “ASM” technology; this feature enables the headphones to automatically switch between mono and stereo, depending on what type of media player you’re using.

Note: If you own a media player and are unsure if it is mono or stereo, generally older devices like cassette players will be mono, while newer components like CD and DVD players will be stereo.

If you are going to use your listening center in a room with arts and crafts or science clutter, a center with a dust cover would greatly help to keep debris away from the headphones’ ear cushions and electrical components. If the listening center will be in a computer lab or library, the wireless option may again be ideal, to avoid wires getting tangled on furniture. If your listening center will be shared between multiple rooms, many of the products we carry come with sturdy carrying cases. Finally, if there will be other activities taking place in the same environment as your listening assignments, a noise canceling unit will help to keep your students focused, thus allowing more absorption of the material.

If you'd like a little more advice from our audio visual experts, or have a specific question that we haven't answered here, feel free to give us a call (800) 675-4024 - our staff at CSN Library Furniture is always happy to help!