e-mail policy -

[Edward Wigg]

 "Paul H. Gray" <phgray at tcjc.cc.tx.us> wrote:
>....
>
>Ultimately it has to come down to whoever is working the floor being
>willing to show an offending patron the door.  

This is only possible if you are willing to spy on what your patrons are
reading on the screen. Some web based e-mail sites may be readily
distinguished from a distance, but others would be hard to tell apart from
another web page with a form on it without getting close enough to actually
read the page. Is this level of supervision of your patrons acceptable?
Would you look over their shoulders at what they were reading or writing
away from an Internet workstation?

>IMHO - if it is not considered a big enough issue to do this --and do it
>consistantly-- then it is --not-- a big enough issue to call it a policy. 
>
>Stated policies that are not enforced are at best a waste of paper.  At
>worst they encourage a tendency to ignore other policies.
>Partial or sporadic enforcement only breeds anger and resentment against
>the individual doing the enforcement when the patron wants to know why it
>was OK for someone else.

This is definitely true. Policies that are difficult or impossible to
enforce only make the organization look foolish. It is even worse when the
only way to enforce the policy is effectively a breach of professional ethics.

Edward

--------------------------------------------------------------
Edward Wigg                      "Just another guy, you know?"
Evanston Public Library             e-wigg at evanston.lib.il.us
Evanston, Illinois