[WEB4LIB] Floppy Disks

[Phillip B. Whitford]

Bill,

It's not an archaic policy but it is conservative. And you should be
concerned. But the question is how much risk do you want to deal with?
We allow patrons to use floppy and zip disks, theirs or ones they buy
from us, on our Internet machines. We even have a hard drive partition
they can download to. We use Norton and a variety of security measures
to keep patrons from tampering.  I also have a Ghost image of the
machines. We keep Norton up to date and keep the computers patched with
the latest software and operating system updates, service packs, and
patches. Our public machines get hit by viruses everyday and sometimes
patrons lose data and occasionally I have to Ghost an image back to a
machine that is fouled up. Most of the viruses we see are e-mail related
or Word Macro viruses. We do not allow patrons to use Outlook or Outlook
Express.

We think the risks are out weighted by the benefits to our patrons and
it really has not been a major problem for us. 

I know other Sys Admins who think we are being to risky and even a bit
irresponsible. I have been told out setup allows patrons to spread
viruses they get from the Internet to other computers either via the
Internet or by floppy or zip discs.  I don't deny it's true on occasion
but we try to take every precaution consistent with providing as much of
a full Internet service as we can to our patrons.  

Phillip B. Whitford
Manager of Information Systems
Braswell Memorial Library
727 N. Grace St
Rocky Mount, NC 27804
252-442-1951
Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Braswell Library.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of William M. Wines
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 12:59 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Floppy Disks


Hello all,

I'm looking for some authoritative answers to a question, and I figured
this is the place. :-)

Is there any reason for a library that offers public Internet access to
be concerned about patrons using their own floppy discs to download and
upload files?  (Given that it has an adequate virus-protection program,
such as Norton)

We have many patrons who use web-based email and currently our usage
policy prohibits the use of floppy discs; therefore they can't upload 
or download attachments.  Is this or is this not an archaic policy?

-----------------------------
Bill Wines
Assistant Director
Walled Lake City Library
1499 E. West Maple Rd.
Walled Lake, MI 48390
(248) 624-3772
http://walled-lake.lib.mi.us
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