[WEB4LIB] Re: Blocking web-based chat

[Nancy Sosna Bohm]

In my small school, it's a matter of bandwidth.  When 18 computers in the
lab are all being used for email, the written policy of "no email or chat
[on the library's 6 computers]" is worthless.  A user can sit in front of a
Library machine for 5 minutes before even connecting to a site like InfoTrac
if the computer lab is not being used for non-Internet-connected
wordprocessing.
But since the Network administrator sees blocking email as an infringment on
the freedoms of the students, this discussion is purely academic for me, the
lowly Librarian.

----- Original Message -----
From: Darryl Friesen <Darryl.Friesen at usask.ca>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 1999 9:59 AM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Blocking web-based chat


> > How is this censorship?  Chat and e-mail are functions.  Prohibiting the
> use
> > of those functions is a policy like saying "no wearing of hats" in the
> > building or "no eating in the library."  Prohibiting one from seeing
> obscene
> > materials is censorship...there is a difference.  Gee, some of us are
> surely
> > standing up for a wild-opened and chaotic society while the rest of us
are
> > trying to maintain some law, order, morals and sanity!
>
> I hope that's an exaggeration for effect.
>
> I doubt that allow a university student (or professor, or staff member) to
> chat with another using the Internet will bring about nuclear winter,
> another holocaust, or the decline of western civilization.  Just doesn't
> seem that "wild-opened and chaotic" to me.
>
> I understand the occasional need to block functions -- we do so here on a
> few of our OPACs where use is high and machine availability low
(especially
> during peak times of the year) -- but the apparent need to block _every_
> function deemed by one person to be not of academic value, seems to point
to
> a control issue.
>
>
> - Darryl
>
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Darryl Friesen, B.Sc.                        Darryl.Friesen at usask.ca
>   Programmer/Analyst                            http://gollum.usask.ca/
>   Consulting & Development, Computing Services
>   University of Saskatchewan                   "The Truth Is Out There"
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>