email in libraries

[Reeder Norm]

We considerd allowing e-mail here, but decided against it.  With over 
150,000 registered borrowers, we felt we couldn't provide the service 
effectively.  What we have told our users is that we can't be their 
full service Internet provider.  There are lots of $19.95 per month 
accounts out there that also include configuration "help" which we 
didn't want to get involved with either.  Yes there are some users who 
can't afford that, but in our local community luckily that's not 
common.  Therefore we put in our acceptable use policy specific 
language asking users not to use e-mail or IRC either.

There are many positive aspects to both sides, but it does come down 
to what you can handle at your local site in terms of numbers of PC's 
and numbers of users.

Norm Reeder
Library Services Manager
Torrance Public Library
3301 Torrance Blvd
Torrance, CA 90503
310-618-5950
reeder.norm at mail.ci.torrance.ca.us
The views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the City 
of Torrance

----------
From: 	Miriam Bobkoff[SMTP:mbobkoff at ci.santa-fe.nm.us]
Sent: 	Wednesday, May 28, 1997 11:56 AM
To: 	Multiple recipients of list
Subject: 	Re: email in libraries


OK. I'm _really_ speaking only for myself here.

For me the quintessential internet experience is asking for help on a
listserv and getting the answer I need
     a. within five minutes from a perfect stranger 2000 miles away
 and b. from six or twenty people over the next couple of days

The analogy that "the library doesn't offer a bank of free telephones" 
does
not encompass this possibility.

I have felt that I wanted this experience of global interactivity for 
our
patrons--most particularly for those of our patrons who don't have 
their
own machines or any idea what all this internet fuss is about--since 
the
time I helped a hard-to-help very confused newbie with a very 
confusing
health problem discover that--alas--the most pertinent information 
out
there on her condition was via a listserv of fellow sufferers. "Do you 
have
an email account somewhere?" I asked her, as if I didn't know that of
course she did not, and in fact she probably didn't have any friends 
that
technologically sophisticated either.

Then we had a text-only connection. Today I would suggest she get a 
HotMail
account.

I am also grateful down to the tips of my fingers when I'm somewhere 
far
from home and find a machine I can telnet from to check my mail. 
Until
there are corner telnet booths as common as corner pay phones, I 
don't
think this is an irrelevant service either.

Miriam Bobkoff
Santa Fe Public Library
mbobkoff at ci.santa-fe.nm.us