[Web4lib] Dedicated OPAC stations

[McMahon, Daniel]

At Marin County Free LIbrary, the WebPACs are Windows XP machines, using Public Web Browser, which I believe is very common for this kind of use.  It's an IE shell, configurable with simple text files.  They also have a utliity to keep "real" IE from opening, which is handy.
 
1. XP (or later) set up to autologon to a "user" level account, largely secured by regedits
 
2. That account launches PWB from startup, which goes to a page with several options, such as catalog, databses and any special programs like summer reading signup.
 
3. In PWB, rather than using a "whitelist" of allowable pages, I've always used a "blacklist" to block ways out of the catalog, so people wouldn't be using the few catalog PCs to check their email.  (There are public PCs for general Internet use.  Dedicated catalogs are the only way at most sites to have a public catalog available during open hours.) 
 
4.  PWB is $125 a year for a library system (site license).
 
Upsides: Easy to build, easy to modify for staff, can use PC for training or really anything if logged into another account.  Easy to get almost every kind of plugin to function.  Stable.  (8 years of using this recipe now.)
 
Downsides:  Windows OS costs, virus scanning needed, also desirable to have an anti-executable program or disable USB ports (flash drives). 
 
Irony: the downsides have always made me want to try Linux with Firefox.
 
Dan McMahon
Tech System Specialist
MARINet

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Bravismore mumanyi
Sent: Mon 6/27/2011 3:48 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] Dedicated OPAC stations



Dear All

Please share technologies you have successfully used to implement dedicated Web OPAC stations in your libraries. We would like to have few stations distributed throughout the libraries for access to Web OPAC only.

We have disabled all toolbars on firefox on a linux platform but this has not worked.

Regards
/Bravismore?
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