[44] in Information Retrieval
Re: [djtowner@Athena.MIT.EDU: how about being able to access the library's circ system?]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (gyoung@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jan 7 13:37:37 1992
From: gyoung@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: akajerry@Athena.MIT.EDU
Cc: elibdev@Athena.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 07 Jan 92 11:19:14 -0500.
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 92 13:36:12 EST
Sorry, I don't think that has a snowball's chance in hell of flying.
There was some debate internally within the Libraries when we brought Barton
up about giving patrons access to the circulation system for their records
but the security and privacy problems were much too thorny even before we
had external connections outside of library terminals. Any circulation desk
can perform the functions, particularly the address corrections, requested
and I believe the Library administration still feels that circulation staff
should control those functions. Our experience getting Barton on the
network would also indicate that trying to provide circulation access as well
would take more work on our end than we're willing to commit. The circulation
database is our most protected asset, probably even more sensitive than
the Student Info System will be. The best time to revisit this might be when
we spec the new Barton, which is soon. You or djtowner could call David
Ferriero, Assoc. Dir. for Public Services x3-7058 if you want to take it
higher (I'm just a peon.)
-- Grant Young, Libraries Systems Office, x3-1617
"Nothing fancy, just so it works good."
