Public PC's and Client validation

[Annanaomi Sams]

Hi Peter,

Until about 6 months ago I worked in an academic medical center library
which was also open to the public. _All_ our clientele had to have user
logins and passwords to sign onto the system. Our primary clientele
(students, staff and faculty) had opportunities to receive individual logins
and passwords at any time; we encouraged them to do this in order to save
themselves time and frustration. We also made a generic login and password
available for our primary clientele...but it changed everyday and they had
to wait in line at the Circulation Desk with medical center I.D. in hand in
order to receive the generic access. For the public who used our library, we
also had generic logins and passwords, and modified access controlled by
menus linked to these logins and passwords. These too changed daily. We ran
everything off a Novell, and one of the Circulation Staff members changed
the passwords just before the library closed each night. If you have any
questions, I'd be glad to try to answer them. Oh! And yes, there was a
timeout set on the workstations so that if the workstation was not activated
within 6 minutes, the system would reset to the menu requiring the login and
password.

                                                                            
            Annanaomi

p.s. We made Internet access (web, email, telnet and ftp), MS Office and
databases available to our primary clientele. We made databases available to
the general public; they also had web access, but we de-emphasized this. We
hadn't reached conclusions about how to monitor the length of time spent
online, and could not justify becoming an "internet cafe" for the city.

At 12:58 AM 10/27/97 -0800, Peter Green wrote:
>
>I am interested in the methods being used to ensure Public PC's are being=
> used by valid clients. I would like to be able to require clients to enter=
> ID and PIN (we have these for other systems) before they can get access to=
> what is on the PC. A timeout would be nice for unoccupied terminals. I am=
> looking at Windows 3.xx or Windows 95.=20
>
>I am interested in ensuring that only our clients can actually use the=
> machines. This will ensure compliance with our licensing agreements for=
> databases for example. I have read the archives about FORTRES and IKIOSK=
> but these deal with securing Windows or Netscape. I am not interested (at=
> this point) in what they do once they have access.
>
>Please reply to me and I will summarise appropriately for the list.
>
>Cheers
>
>Peter
>
>--------------------------
>Peter Green
>LISWeb Coordinator
>Curtin University of Technology
>GPO Box U 1987
>Perth   Western Australia  6845
>Ph + 618 9266 2439    Fax  +618 9266 3947
>greenp at boris.curtin.edu.au
>http://www.curtin.edu.au/curtin/library/staffpages/pgreen.html
>
>
>
>

--

Annanaomi Sams
Associate Director			
NN/LM South Central Region
HAM-TMC Library				
1133 M.D. Anderson Blvd.			
Houston, TX  77030-2809
			
ph: 713-799-7107
f:   713-790-7030
e:   asams at library.tmc.edu