[Publib] Question about Wi-Fi

[James Casey]

PAT:  I do think that wi-fi is great for libraries.  We have it in Oak Lawn Public Library, South Suburban Chicago, and patrons are using it quite heavily.  We started in Summer 2005 and two years later we hade as many as 25 simultaneous users with an average of about 12 at any one time.   http://www.oaklawnlibrary.org/wireless.aspx

Patrons who have busy, noisy homes can get away to use their laptop computers in our Library.  Many do so.  

Jim Casey ---  My own views.


-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Pat McMahon
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 11:18 AM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Question about Wi-Fi



Dear Colleagues,

I am wondering what you think about wi-fi in libraries?

The Irish government are giving us €2,000 per branch library to install wi-fi. I’m wondering if the Irish government were not giving us the money, would we bother with it.

We have yet to install wi-fi. And I have just got a flavour of what it might be like. Some library users have stumbled on the fact that there is a wi-fi signal available in Galway City Library branch in Augustine Street here in Galway. I am not sure where the signal is coming from, but a lot of young people with lap-tops are suddenly in the library all surfing the web.

The seats they are using were formerly used by regular library patrons who sat there with a book or a newspaper or just to doze. Now the place is beginning to look like the foyer of a five-star hotel when a business conference is in session.

Up to now, people came to the library to read library books, or read our magazines, or even to use the library’s internet pcs.

But wi-fi usage makes the library/user link very tenuous. Users have their own laptop and are accessing material which is coming from somewhere else out there.

If we actually install our own wi-fi system in our library, I am beginning to feel that every seat will be taken by someone with a laptop.  

I am beginning to feel that we are ceding the library service to things of little value. As the International Herald Tribune commented recently about Facebook: “To its users, Facebook is a way to keep up with friends, …and a way to waste fantastic amounts of time.”

And I reckon that most users of wi-fi in the library are Bebo or Facebook addicts….wasting fantastic amounts of time.

Pat McMahon,
County Librarian,
Galway County Library.


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