Limiting browsers to sites -Reply

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

I wrote Stacy privately to say that we did encounter this feature in
passing during TIFAP, and  even briefly discussed it in our
(infamous) assessment of The Library Channel; in this product
you can limit movement past 1 or more domains.  (I wouldn't use
the product for this, but the feature exists.) Also, support for local
"allow" lists and third-party lists is something I address in my book
for each product review, in addition to many other
resource-allocation features, such as barcode support, etc. Most
of the products have free downloads for demo purposes, so why
not take a looky-loo yourself, and if the product fits your
environment, give it a more sustained test.  Otoh, if you really just
have a few specific domains to point to, as Sharon Centanne says,
a proxy server might be the simplest & cheapest way to do this.   

I warned Stacy to beware the law of unintended consequences...
if your webbed catalog links to a site that links to sites, but your
allow list or domain surfing doesn't allow you that flexibility, your
users may be unhappy if they can't link to that second site.  I
know, I know, that's what you are trying to do--limit movement,
not make patrons unhappy :-)--but try it first before you decide
this is really how you want to go.  You could address this problem
on a case by case basis... let's see, the last time I checked, there
were (est.) 4.3 million live hosts on the Web...  ;-)   Otoh, if you are
really sure you will almost always stay within the
www.foobird.com domain, and there are general-purpose
workstations for patrons who, say, want to check out the Jets'
latest game (ugh) or even do some real research, you may be
able to tolerate a small amount of  hearing "that computer won't let
me connect to the XYZ site," particularly if users are warned that
this is indeed the case so their outcomes match their expectations. 
It's not that much different from pointing out that you can't look up
articles in the Washington Post in the index to the NY Times
(though having written that, maybe it is different--a lot different;
the digital environment develops different expectations... but this
is too dense a thought for Monday morning).

K. Schneider
author, A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal-Schuman, 1997)
opinions mine alone