[Publib] "Serious" internet users versus "entertainment" users

[Audrey Lewis]

What is the difference to the library if they are on myspace.com or if they are doing "important" research?  Do we judge some books to be more important than others?  Anywhere I have worked, the patron gets so much time if others are waiting.  Everyone gets their "hour" whether they are playing solitaire or studying medicine.  We don't make value judgements on what they are doing on the computers unless, of course, you have rules about what they may and may not do.

Audrey Lewis

Audrey Lewis
Director
Hoyt Library
505 Janes Street
Saginaw, MI 48607
989-755-0904

>>> "Anne Killheffer" <anne at stratford.lib.ct.us> 6/28/2006 1:47 pm >>>
Now that it is summer, the number of young teenagers who are spending the day at
the library has skyrocketed. We have ten internet computers which are almost
always booked all the time. We have software that ends each session after 30 or 60 minutes if others are waiting, so your time on the computer comes to an end automatically.

The computer users who are trying to write a resume or research a term paper are annoyed, and I think rightly so, when they have to give up their computer to someone who wants to check myspace.

I can't think of a clever solution. We can't (and we don't want to) prohibit people from using myspace, watching Youtube, writing emails to their friend who is actually sitting at the next computer....But I feel we have some kind of greater responsibility to serve people who are using us as a resource to find work or further their education.

Limited computer time to two hours a day seems like it would penalize everyone. Giving longer sessions to people who are doing research or looking for work would work for about one day, when everybody realized that all they have to do to get a longer session is tell us they are doing research.

Anyone have a solution that cuts through the Gordian knot?

Anne Killheffer
Reference Librarian
Stratford Library Association
2203 Main St., Stratford, CT 06615

203-385-4164
anne at stratford.lib.ct.us 


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