[14509] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Computer access for unaffiliated patrons
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mary Munroe)
Tue Oct 1 20:11:21 2002
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 08:30:40 -0500
From: Mary Munroe <C60MHM1@WPO.CSO.NIU.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
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Hi Laura,
Art Young sent along your note to me. We use IP authentication for all
of our resources, and therefore we only authenticate people who want to
come in outside of our networks, say from home. As I remember it, when
GSU went to authentication it was to keep some computers reserved for
GSU students because we had so many visitors.
Do the computer people explain why they want to lock down the
computers? I know our people want to do the same because they want to
monitor the use of the computers. We use Centurion on the public
computers, which prevents downloading, etc., but we feel that further
monitoring of the computers would violate the ethical dimension.
If you need anything further, please let me know. Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Mary Munroe
Mary H. Munroe
Associate Dean,
Collections and Technical Services
University Libraries
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115
mmunroe@niu.edu
(815)753-9805
Fax (815) 753-9803
>>> liblgb2@LANGATE.GSU.EDU 09/30/02 08:38AM >>>
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
