free e-mail service...

[Ulrich Babiak]

> http://www.hotmail.com/  -   Hot Mail says it provides free e-mail.  Does
> anyone have experience with this?  Would it provide e-mail access for
> patrons and students and relieve libraries of the administration details?

I think it *CAN* be really useful: you can offer full email
support to any user on a public www-workstation without 
any hassle. They choose a password and username and can
use an user at hotmail.com address from then on. 
In simple words, it "emulates" an email client program
using a www browser and having all the data on hotmails
server. All you have to do is to write a little manual
to explain your users what to do.

It is also
possible to retrieve your POP-mail from any POP account into
the hotmail system and read it with a www browser (very handy
if you travel and do not have access to an email client, we
recommend this to visitors who want to check their mail on
personal accounts somewhere else).

I see two problems in a library setting: privacy and 
resource "waste". If a user forgets to press the logout
button (I even recommend restarting the browser) the next in
line can read and send mail under the account (not to mention
that the hotmail people can keep track of your mail and the POP passwords
for other servers if they feel like it...)

Also, we have only three internet terminals and would like
to dedicate them to "informational" use. Although you CAN
use email for this purpose, too, it is a lot more private
than using the web. 

Enthusiastically, I placed a link to hotmail  on the startup page
of our library internet workstations, but the folks in charge
of keeping the waiting list for the terminals asked me to remove it.
They didn't want to encourage the use of hotmail. Someone 
really wants email and asks for it - they tell them about hotmail.

I don't really agree with this, but it's not my business. In an
ideal world, we would have enough terminals and bandwidth to 
accomodate all the potential users ...


-- 
       Ulrich Babiak - ubabiak at dom.de / ubabiak at stbib-koeln.de
     Minimalsignatur - mehr:   http://www.dom.de/FreiRaum/uli/