[WEB4LIB] Re: E-mail in Public Libraries

[Gayane K Merguerian]

I agree with this 100% ... the library must decide not whether email is
legitimate research activity, which would require you to read everyone's
email(!), but whether you have enough resources to provide open access to
email and still have computers available for students who wish to search
the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of databases you've invested
in--and who need reference assistance on the spot in order to search them
in the quickest, most efficient way. 

The way I see it, one strategy is to provide everything and make people
wait or go elsewhere, and the other is to ration--which one you choose
depends on your organization and which alternative you think is likely to
present a scenario that will convince them to give you MORE RESOURCES,
which is of course the ultimate goal. 

The situation is different in public libraries of course.  They may be the
only community resource available for email, whereas most academic
institutions also support computer labs for this purpose.

Karen Merguerian
Northeastern University Libraries
Boston, MA

On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Drew, Bill wrote:

> I think the only legitimate reason to restrict use of e-mail is scarce
> resources in a library, public or otherwise.  We restrict use of e-mail,
> chat, and games on our public machines because:
> 
> 		*only 8 public use computers.
> 		*over half of our students now have laptops.
> 		*many computer labs around campus with no restrictions.
> 
> 
> -----
> Wilfred (Bill) Drew
> Associate Librarian, Systems and Reference
> SUNY Morrisville College Library
> drewwe at morrisville.edu 
> Home: http://www.morrisville.edu/~drewwe 
> Not Just Cows: http://www.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/njc/ 
> Library: http://www.morrisville.edu/library/
>