We always notice the exceptions

[Masters, Gary E]

It has been a while since I put in more than a few hours a week on the
reference desk.  So, there may be problems that I am not aware of.  But
during all the times I have worked reference it has been clear that most
librarians deal with exceptions and have a distorted perception.  Some will
say "Signs never work." because they never talk to the nine out of ten who
use the sign and deal only with those who need additional help.  It may be
the same with "problem people" who look at a porn (or as in my experience
sports pages and comic characters) being a much small number in relationship
to the total amount of web pages used.  In Laredo, we had a few who were
printing home libraries of porn.  But my impression is that Dan is closer to
reality than our perceptions.  Because most of our work is with exceptions.

Happy Holidays!

Gary Masters


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Dan Lester [SMTP:dan at riverofdata.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, December 21, 2000 2:04 PM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Re: Nielsen Netratings in the library
> 
> 
> Wednesday, December 20, 2000, 1:47:26 PM, you wrote:
> 
> DF> It would be interesting to have concrete data on how much porn (or
> Hotmail)
> DF> is viewed on the public machines vs. "real" academic work.
> 
> DF> Maybe it could put to rest some arguments, or point out the need (or
> lack
> DF> thereof) for filters etc.  Sounds like an interesting oportunity.
> 
> You can get an idea of the amount of porn surfing from the logs of the
> public workstations at Boise State University Library.  We filter no
> content, though we continue to block certain functions (email, game
> playing, chat).  Check out:  http://library.boisestate.edu/proxy/   It
> is much less than many expect. But, just as we always remember the
> best of times and worst of times, forgetting the boring middle, we
> always remember the problem surfers along with other problem patrons.
> 
> cheers
> 
> dan
> 
> -- 
> Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com
> 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
> www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com 
>