Chat Rooms (Policy)

[Karen G. Schneider]

Regarding filters banning chat--some include a "chat" category, and they
perform unevenly, the TIFAP project indicated.  And as Chuck points out,
it's hard to block telnet-based chat without blocking a lot of other
things.  And as others with experience delivering public-access Internet
services point out, there are many reasons to offer chat, and many "good"
chat groups.  

I liked Caroline's point about the library's mission.  If it's busy time
and you have six high school students sitting side by side, doing web chat
sessions *with each other,* you might want to block chat at those times to
allow more access to other things.  That's the point of role-setting--you
decide what you want to offer, when, how, how long, and how much (the ol'
"time place manner" rule).  A "no chat" rule is not as useful as a "no chat
because..." or a "no chat when..." rule.  

Sometime in the last year I went into a library somewhere on this planet, I
forget where, and asked at several desks for a current schedule.  Finally I
reached a desk where someone knew the schedule.  Another librarian
interrupted her and told her to tell me that the schedules were ONLY
available at the circ desk.  In other words, in another moment I would have
the information (there were no other customers--just confused little me)
but nooooo, I had to go stand on a line and be handed a printed schedule
(which I did, thoughtfully meditating on the experience).  This was an
example of being so rules-oriented that it interfered with customer
service.  Rules should be our servants, not our masters.  

To see a good example of chat, see my February AL column, "A Giant LEEP
Forward," at http://www.ala.org/alonline/netlib/il298.html

_________________________________________________________
Karen G. Schneider |  kgs at bluehighways.com http://www.bluehighways.com
Director, Garfield Library of Brunswick, NY 
Author: A Practical Guide to Internet Filters, Neal Schuman, 1997 
Information is hard work
------------------------------------------------------------