[EXLIBRIS:31784] RE: Internet service in reading rooms

["William S. Peterson" <wsp@wam.umd.edu>]

I'm not sure that I agree with this. Many of us who use special 
collections are university faculty and students. Hence all we need is 
ordinary access to the Internet; we can then type in our usual password 
to access the university library's closed databases, just as we would 
from home. Even if that's not possible, just to be able to consult, from 
time to time, your own university library catalogue, or the LC or BL 
catalogue, while at your desk is a great boon. This doesn't seem like a 
complicated decision to me, though perhaps I don't understand all the 
implications of a wireless system. But nearly everyone nowadays is 
accustomed to using his/her laptop in coffee shops, airports, hotels, 
and other hot spots; why shouldn't we be able to do it in library 
reading rooms?

William S. Peterson

-------------------------

Huttner, Sidney F wrote:

> I should echo Jessy Randall's message: 
>
>  
>
> > > > None of these are ideal, but I understand from the I.T. folks that
> > > >        
> open
> wireless would be a disaster for the college, security-wise.
>
> I too suspect this is (nearly?) universal; and there is probably no way
> around it. If someone logs wirelessly to the internet from our reading
> room, they then come into our portal as a public user -- which means no
> access to databases restricted (by contract) to University users (which
> includes readers using publicly-accessible machines in the Library). To
> access restricted resources, they would have to be assigned an ID and
> password which would permit them to log on as authorized users or check
> out a wireless laptop which our network can identify as a machine
> authorized to access restricted resources. Permitting unauthenticated
> access to the University network would indeed breach security in major
> ways.
>
> So, the reader in the reading room has to make a choice: (1) use a
> personal laptop and access its contents and the internet in public mode,
> (2) use an institutional machine and access restricted resources,
> without direct, simultaneous access to resources on a personal machine,
> or (3) become an authenticated user by undergoing whatever process local
> IT policy requires.
>
> Since you can now put a lot of content on a flash stick, sticks become
> an attractive option -- if you are allowed to use a USB port on an
> institutional machine you may be able to put your personal machine
> (virtually) on the stick. Launch of software from a stick to a network
> may still be blocked, but you should be able to access your data folders
> and files and change or add to them.  
>
> Cordially --------- Sid Huttner, The University of Iowa Libraries       
>
>