Chat Rooms (Policy)

[Carol Brown]

We banned chat, but only after it started interferring with other
students using the computers and affecting the performance of the
computers long after the student using chat had gone.  When the innocent
next person sat down at the computer, pop-up messages that attached to
the IP address of the machine came through, much to the amazement of the
patrons.  And as you can guess, not many of the messages were inspiring
to the next innocent person ready to search one of our periodical
databases.

We put up signs on the computers telling the students no chat and since
it was a core group, the message spread rapidly.  It takes little
monitoring now and except for those who have found "messaging" to be
their way to continue chatting, we have curbed the problem.  We do allow
commercial e-mail during non-peak times since our students don't have
campus mail addresses yet and we are their only computer access for the
most part.

Carol Brown
Asst. Library Director
Southwest Texas Junior College
Uvalde, TX