Nielsen Netratings in the library

[Charles P. Hobbs]

Nielsen Netratings (same as the TV ratings people, now they've gone over to
rating web sites) has talked to one of the faculty here about putting their
monitoring software on the library's public use computers. This software would
(ostensibly) would send information back to Nielsen for their use in determining
what websites are the most popular.

The faculty member is mostly interested because our students, faculty and
staff do "research" (online searches using Ovid, PubMed or MDConsult) at our
computers, and that our institution might indirectly get some sort of public
recognition (e.g it might be easier to get grant funding)  if Nielsen finds out how
much "research" goes on at our machines.

Of course, I thought "What about privacy and all that"? Of course
Nielsen has a "Statement of Confidentiality"
(http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/privacy/us.htm). But I'm still a bit
nervous about the idea...

Has any other library dealt with them (or any similar service?) How about
the idea that it will get us some sort of "recognition"?

--
Charles P. Hobbs
King Drew Health Science Library
http://www.cdrewu.edu/kdhsl