[14507] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Computer access for unaffiliated patrons
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Laura G. Burtle)
Mon Sep 30 20:11:02 2002
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 09:38:16 -0400
From: "Laura G. Burtle" <liblgb2@LANGATE.GSU.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
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Our university library is located in downtown Atlanta, and we are open to the public. We get a lot of non-affiliated patrons, including students from other colleges, high school students, business people, and random people who come in off the street.
Our computing people have a strong objection to allowing unauthenticated access to university computers - they want everyone using a computer to be identifyable. All university affiliated users are issued a Novell login ID that gives them access to the university computers. Currently, we have a "generic" ID that our non-affiliated patrons use to access a bank of computers available for their use. It is just one ID, so multiple people use it at the same time.
We are trying to come up with a way to authenticate these non-affiliated patrons. We don't have an actual account of how many come in a day, but we know it is a significant number a week. On the weekends we get dozens of students from other schools. Has anyone dealt with this issue?
Laura Burtle
Head, Instruction and Learning Technology Dept.
Pullen Library
Georgia State University
