Why disable access to software features?

[Ronnie Morgan]

** Reply to note from Thomas Dowling <tdowling at ohiolink.ohiolink.edu> 11/03/95 09:12am -0800

> I can easily imagine a professor setting up a guest lecture via IRC, complete   
> with question and answer session.  Let's not make this kind of   
> overgeneralization. 

But it is unlikely that 6 patrons would be in this IRC topic.  It is more likely that they  
would be in some other topic.  And besides that, the library wouldn't be (in my opinion) the  
best place to be a part of the IRC topic that you mentioned.  Those computers are not there for  
"classroom" use, they are there for patrons doing research.  At least, this is the case for the  
library I work for.

> >Yes, but what about that http://www.sex-r-us.com URL?  Would you allow a   
>  
> >patron to open up that URL? 
>  
> Yes, I would.  And in the absence of a clear policy related to your library's   
> mission, I have to wonder how you would justify barring it (assuming you could   
> do it). 

Harding is a Christian university.  I don't have a choice in the matter, I *have* to try to  
prevent access to such information...  Although it is up to the indivdual library's policy, I  
certainly would not want my child to be able to walk into any library and start accessing this  
stuff.

> Don't pretend that disabling a Goto command will prevent users from getting to   
> any given site.  In fact, some institutions are providing a kludgy Goto form   
> just to support users who have to use a kiosk mode workstation. 

I am also quite aware of the many avenues available to get to the mentioned "stuff".  The more  
avenues I block, the better.  But, still allow easy access to the more appropriate information  
on the net.  Yes, the patron can still gain access to it some how or another, but at least they  
can't say that they simply clicked "here" and got in.  

A firewall is the best answer for this problem, not disabling Goto.  But if you don't have a  
firewall set up, disabling Goto would be *a* solution.

> I'm uncomfortable with the way this argument conflates restricted workstation   
> access with restricted net access.  I think the nature of publicly available   
> workstations demands that the people supporting them put forth their best   
> effort to head off deliberate or unintentional mischief.  At the same time, I   
> expect better of the library profession than to use this as an excuse to try   
> restricting access to any network site.  Obviously, some librarians have an   
> institutional mandate to try to impose such restrictions; those efforts should   
> be a result of that mandate rather than an side effect of workstation security. 

I certainly don't think anyone would use mischief as an excuse to restrict access to any  
particular network site.  Restricting access to network sites is probably more in line with the  
library's policy.  As is the case with me.  

I think we would be better off dealing with solving the problem that someone has asked, and not  
worry about all the reasons behind the request.  If we had to give reasons why we wanted to do  
something that we needed help on, the messages would be a lot longer than they need to be in  
order to ask a simple question and get a simple answer.  


Ronnie Morgan
Team OS/2
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