[WEB4LIB] Anonymous users on Lib computers

[John Creech]

On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, Kyle Harriss wrote:

> Web4Libbers,
> 
> The "public" computers in our library have never
> been authenticated by logon/password.
> 
> Our students, staff and faculty - and anyone who 
> walked in our door - could always sit down at a 
> PC and start using the networked resources
> for research.  
> 
> This is about to change.  All users will have to 
> log in before gaining access to the network.
> We may be giving temporary network accounts to
> local residents who request access.
> 
> Has anyone else gone through this change?
> Any issues we should be warned of, so we can start
> working through those issues now?  

Kyle, some stuff comes to mind immediately - we moved to a similar method
last year, and have since gone back to a generic login: 

1. Have extra user accts. for your reference folks to login people in on,
or leave some machines wide open for the public, or have a generic login
for x number of machines. 

2. Do all of your faculty have campus accts.?  And are they comfortable
logging in and using those accounts, and using file-sharing software,
working on a network, etc.?  Get any simple and reasonable utility in
place to make sure you can accomodate them, and they won't get their
grumpy faces on whenever they come into the library. 

3. Expect to do alot of training at service desks, at machines, in
classes.  Expect some impact on reference staff, some frustration on the
part of both patrons and staff when the network is unwell.

4. Will students have accounts activated when they come in?  Or will there
be a way to activate their accts. via say, campus computing's web site?
And who is supposed to help them with networking/software/file sharing
utilities and problems?  Get phone #s, names, names of offices and
office #s etc. to refer them to for help.

5.  Fire low; they're riding shetlands.  Good luck.

John Creech
Electronic Resources & Systems Librarian
Central Washington University Library 
400 E. 8th Ave. | Ellensburg, WA 98926 | 
office - 509-963-1081 || fax - 509-963-3684
creechj at www.lib.cwu.edu