[WEB4LIB] Re: E-mail in libraries

[Richard A. Edwards]

> And I suppose you provide a bank of free and unlimited telephones? We see
> E-mail and chat as extensions of the same principle. And free phone service
> would be cheaper to provide, too. A fifteen dollar phone costing $15 a month
> seems lots cheaper than a $1000 PC hooked up to an expensive ISDN or T-1
> line with lots of maintenance costs. 

I don't think any of us would try to argue we should spend thousands of 
dollars to provide public email as a separate service. But then that's 
not the real question.

The real question seems to me to be that since we're spending the money to
provide the equipment for other uses and since it doesn't cost anything
MORE to allow its use for email, why not do so when it's possible?

In those places where there are too few stations and users wanting to do 
library research have to be turned away by others hogging the computers 
to do email, I can see the point. But in those with sufficent terminals, 
why not allow it?

Why not have a policy which gives academic use first priority,
recreational use second, and email last? Then if they are all busy, bump
the email users. 

Perhaps it is not so black and white as all or nothing.

Rich Edwards
Director
Instructional Technology Project
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA