Category: ‘puters

So, not to belabor a point, but the final post in this “man gets hassled by cops for using WiFi outside of a closed library” is up. In a weird turn, the Atheneum has now posted a policy saying, in essence, their WiFi hotspot isn’t supposed to be used when the library is closed. Am I missing something here? Isn’t it easy enough to just shut it down if you don’t want it to be used? Or password protect it after hours? Are the police going to enforce this policy? Is there any legal precedent for that? What’s going to happen when the whole island becomes a hotspot? Or is this enforcement of free WiFi supposed to drive people towards the pay services? I’d be really interested to hear from librarians who offer WiFi: What is your policy for patrons using WiFi 1) outside the library, and additionally 2) when the library isn’t open? Thanks.

More from the fellow who was told by the police to not use his laptop + WiFi outside of the Nantucket Athenaeum. [lisnews]

Man gets hassled by the police for using library’s WiFi while seated outside the library. Apparently you need to be inside to use the wireless signal, so said the policeman anyhow. As you know, I have also been guilty of this, slap the cuffs on! [update: this guy didn’t seem to have any problem doing the same thing…] [thanks shannon]

If any of you were at all curious about follow up to the link I posted a few days back [about the link to a Republican web site appearing on the “hot links” section of all iBistro OPACs, a Sirsi product] I swapped a few emails with Sirsi Central about it.

You know, I know this is just me having a hard time getting with the program, but I really miss being able to look at the card in the back of a library book to see how many times it had circulated. I liked the idea that this information was available to both staff and patrons, as if information about the public library books somehow belonged to the patrons as well as the staff. I liked knowing when my books were due by looking in the book, not keeping a little slip of paper that represented all my books. I liked not having to be sure to remove that piece of paper once I was at the library so that some other patron wouldn’t find my reading list tucked into one of those little pockets that we still put into our library books, even though there are no cards to go in them now. Sort of like what this author says.