The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
What is the best way to keep public keyboards clean?
Do the staff or a company do this, or does your library have a policy of regular recycling/replacement of keyboards?
Deborah Mould
I worked for a while as tech support / computer janitor for UW Madison and we replaced all our keyboards with Kensington Anti-Microbial Keyboards Now I see they make them washable, that's pretty cool. Probably the best bet as keyboards are notorious fungus hoarders.
We clean the keyboards each morning before we open with a Lysol/Clorox wipe or a disinfectant sprayed on the cloth which we've done for awhile. Doing this hasn't affected the keyboard at all. Usually, the janitor does this but if he doesn't get to it, I generally do it (IT Department Head). We replacement keyboards when needed which doesn't happen to often. Usually it's general wear and tear.
At both the Grinnell College library and the Grinnell (Iowa) Public Library, I saw dispensers for disinfectant wipes so each user could clean the keyboard first, or their hands afterward. At my library, we have a few folks who will ask for a wipe, and we do wipe down the Ref. Desk keyboards between shifts when someone has a cold. It does not seem to affect the performance of the keyboards.
'Best' has a few qualifiers ...
If you want the most hygenic, there are keyboards made specially for hospitals and the like. They tend to have a solid surface, so there's no crevices for things to hide and they're waterproof they can be soaked in disinfectant. Some have a way to disable it so that they won't type while you wipe them down. Unfortunately, they're quite expensive (\$200-400 each), so not quite what you want for libraries if you don't need to.
Your next alternative is keyboard covers -- you can then strip them off & clean them when needed, and they protect from the occassional spilled drink. The unfortunately wear out faster than the keyboard, and some people really don't like the feel of them. You also have to get ones that fit the keyboards you have, or replace the keyboard to one that you can get covers for.
And then there's just wiping the keyboards down each morning with alcohol wipes and/or making them available when needed. (when I worked for a university computer lab, there were some pretty disgusing keyboards ... like the time when someone found a stack of chicken wing bones stacked up above the keys, and the genteral grime associated with it)