Speeding Internet Access

[Rich.Harrington at co.hennepin.mn.us]

   I'm trying to find out if it's worth it to upgrade any of our equipment
to help speed access to our Internet resources.  The list has been so
helpful in the past that I'm asking this here even though there's only a
tenuous connection to the Web.

   We have an OPAC that used to be hard wired to staff and patron terminals
or PCs.  Now, it is available on the Internet (telnet://hclaw.lib.mn.us
[login:  library] or http://www.hclaw.lib.mn.us).  The county's IT dept.
didn't want it on the county LAN, so the catalot has its own frame relay
T-1 line.  The county IT dept. also doesn't want PCs that are both hard
wired to the OPAC and connected to the county LAN if the OPAC is also
available on the Internet.  So all staff must use telnet to access the
catalog, just as someone from the other side of the country would.

   Those of us who use the Net a lot know that when you use telnet, you
occasionally get a few-seconds delay between when you type something and
when you get a response.  For staff that were used to direct connections,
the delay has been hard to adjust to.  So, I've been asked to see if
there's a way to speed up access.

   Does anyone think it's worth it to even consider upgrading hub, router,
transceivers, etc. (they currently communicate at 10 Mbps)?  Would there be
any reason to even consider upgrading the data line?  Or do you think (as I
think) that the bottlenecks are beyond our control, and that we should be
trying to find ways to preserve one or two vital direct connections
(perhaps by putting the OPAC behind our own firewall system)?  Or, should
the staff just learn to live with the problem?

   I'd sure appreciate any insight anyone can give me.  Thanks so much!

Rich Harrington
rich.harrington at co.hennepin.mn.us
Hennepin County Law Library
Minneapolis, MN