[WEB4LIB] copies of older browsers

[Joyce M. Latham]

I am going to answer this drawing on my own experience, but I think the
reason there is so much 4.7 out there is because it was the leading
browser when the big Internet push occurred & Bill was doling out his
agenda to public libraries in the form of donations they couldn't
refuse.  Those big sweeps occurred without much thought to follow-up and
the upgrades haven't occurred because there is either no will or any
money for it.  The cost, of course, is not in the browsers, but in the
staff time.  Time spent doing upgrades is time not available for other
responsibilities, which may be much more visible.  Remember the impact
of the OS -- some installations are still stuck on the NT 3.5 Bill gave
them.  If anyone has read Arnold Pacey's 'The Culture of Technology',
you can see the same old same old playing out -- technology dumped into
a culture (organization) as a solution, and the culture left to figure
out how to live with it ...

Some just opt out for AOL!

Joyce
> 
> Also, if Netscape 4.7 is so problematic, why are so many people using it?
> This is not meant as a browser war question.  I just want to know.
> 
> Wilfred (Bill) Drew
> Associate Librarian, Systems and Reference
> SUNY Morrisville College Library
> E-mail: mailto:drewwe at morrisville.edu
> AOL Instant Messenger:BillDrew4
> BillDrew.Net: http://billdrew.net/
> Wireless Librarian: http://people.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/wireless/
> Library: http://library.morrisville.edu/
> SUNYConnect: http://www.sunyconnect.suny.edu/
> SUNY Morrisville College: America's Most Wired 2 Year College - 2001, 2000
> Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
> http://www.bookcrossing.com/referral/BillDrew

-- 
Joyce M. Latham
GSLIS -- University of Illinois