Google Floor Plans

[Richard Wiggins]

I am sorry that your request was denied.  The institution's decision makes
no sense at all to me.  The whole purpose of a library is to make
information public.  Information about the library itself therefore should
be public.  I would not include the location of the phone closet or the
server room in the public floor plans, but any information normally
accessible to the public ought to be public.  If your library is open to
the public, then the location of collections and public computers will be
open to the public simply by walking in. Whoever made this decision
apparently believes in security through obscurity, which any competent IT
person realizes is not security at all.

I do not understand how your security people consider such information to
be a high-value target for terrorists.  Instead, how to physically navigate
the library should be a high-value target for users of the library.  I
wonder how the security people would react if - and when - a patron simply
publishes a floor plan of the place on their own.

/rich


On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Amanda Izenstark <amanda at mail.uri.edu>wrote:

> We wanted to do this, but being a state institution, we were advised by
> the state's department of administration that this would pose a security
> risk, as it would make obvious the locations of public computers,
> collections, etc.
>
> Certainly any member of the public could come in and determine these same
> things in a matter of moments, but our request to do this was denied.
>
> I hope you have better luck than we did!
>
> Amanda Izenstark
> Reference & Instructional Design Librarian
> University of Rhode Island
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jason Michel" <micheljp at MIAMIOH.EDU>
> To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 4:04:18 PM
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Google Floor Plans
>
> Has anyone implemented Google Floor Plans? What were the legal
> wranglings you had to deal with?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jason Paul Michel
> User Experience Librarian
> Miami University Libraries
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
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2013-02-17
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