Why disable access to software features?

[204.177.98.220 at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu]

We only have two Internet machines at our library, and we would like to 
have those dedicated to "research" use.  We did not think that chats, for 
instance, were a valuable use of limited resources.  We found that two or 
three people tied up the Internet machines for the majority of the day and 
did not allow others to access them.  

Also, we found that people like to change the appearance of the machines to 
their liking, so we always had to be ready to explain the new appearance to 
a computer-illiterate person.  For obvious security reasons, we are doing 
whatever we can to limit access to the hard drive.  This ideally prevents 
people from downloading, extracting, and using games on these machines.  It 
also helps prevent the possible spread of a virus.

Hope this helps, from our perspective.

Michael A. Cobb
Associate Systems Librarian
Liberty University