E-Mail

[Monica King]

Andrew's page with its solutions to e-mail in libraries is great.
I completely agree that using a browser without the mail client like 
Netscape Navigator solves many staff problems and eliminates many 
privacy concerns for patrons.  Like Andrew's library, we spend a lot of 
time teaching patrons how to set up and use web-based e-mail services.  
For those that do want to check other POP3 accounts, we direct them to 
the emumail and mailstart sites; which work for many but not all other 
accounts.  Having telnet set up on your machines is particularly 
important if you have a university in your town. We often have students 
using our public library when the university is closed and they are able 
to check their accounts via telnet sessions.
For those libraries with additional privacy concerns, there are several 
products which allow you to delete certain cookies and hold onto to 
useful ones-if you want.  NSClean and IEClean advertise such products 
(although I have never used them). I found them at 
http://www.nsclean.com  There is also a shareware program called Cover 
Your Tracks that might do the same thing available at 
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/5610/cyt.html
Hope this is helpful.

Monica King
Ouachita Parish Public Library
Monroe, Louisiana


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