[WEB4LIB] RE: internet access and games

[Michelle Martin]

Hello!

We also used to try to enforce a no game/no chat policy, but it became too
hard. (We have over 40 public Internet terminals/5 of which are focused).
We gave up on these restrictions because of two incidents.

1) A child came in (no computer at home, low-income, no parent with him,
etc.) and wanted to find a chess game on the Internet because he was
entered in a chess tournament and wanted to practice. We had signs
everywhere that said "no games" and so felt like we had to enforce the
policy. We reevaluated that policy within the next few days.

2) Not just one single incident related to chat. We realized that a few
people wanted to use chat for educational, research, or business purposes.
Although these people are few and far between, we did not feel it was
right to restrict chat rooms either. However, we do have a lot of people
using chat rooms for personal reasons, and several teen groups who will
set up in chat rooms and talk to each other across the library! If asked
about chat rooms, we simply say that we (the library) does not encourage
the use of chat rooms and point them to the Help section. 

Although legitimate use of games and chat rooms (i.e. for educational
purposes) is pretty uncommon, IMHO you have to consider these uses and the
few people who may want them to be available. And as librarians we need to
remember that there are other games out there that are not related to
Pokemon. Some of us have even started selecting games which are
educational and fun, guiding kids and teens towards these resources via
our webpages. If you have unlimited Internet access at your library, as we
do, you'll know that no matter what you do to block things, somehow they
find a way around it anyway.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Michelle Martin, Reference Librarian
Kitsap Regional Library
1301 Sylvan Way
Bremerton, WA  98310
email: michelle at krl.org 
-------------------------------------------------------------