Worried? The new restrictions placed on non students’ access to the internet reminds me of the omni present “eyes” of Big Brother. Non users would be required to “register” with picture ID and valid address to get on the internet. Many libraries do not have such a restrictive rule. What are you going to do with the data you collect about surfing habits and don’t you think this will breach privacy and raise concerns about diminishing our creative and personal freedoms? Just the notion that where I surf can be tracked places a severe limitations on my creativity and freedom. The one hour restrictions will severly impact members of the community that cannot afford but would like to be involved with the digital age. What research can one do in one hour? HSU is not being a good community member and neighbor. As a student, I sometimes would like to surf the net or do research without using my student login number. It gives me a better sense of security when I know nobody is watching what I am reading. Hope you will reconsider your new restrictive rules. Hope this complaint will show up on the blog with your answer!

Dear Worried,

We have implemented logon and registration for community users to allow members of the community to continue to be able to use our public workstations for unrestricted internet access. Many libraries, such as UC Berkeley, allow no unrestricted internet access at all for unaffiliated members of the community. The one-hour time limit is twice the time allowed by the Humboldt County Libraries whose mission is to serve the community. We have had a 30 minute time limit posted on many of our machines for quite a while, but some users have regularly exceeded this time limit. The Library’s catalog and databases are our primary research tool and they are available using the public logon.

As to your concerns about “big brother” watching your activites, the Library performs no logging or monitoring of internet useage. There are logs of network activity that are maintained by the University’s Information Technology Services. If you are interested in finding out about these logs, please feel free to contact the University’s Information Security Officer. His contact information is available on the University’s web site. While we do not want to interfere with anyone’s intellectual freedom, all use of Library Computers must comply the the Library’s Policy for Responsible Computing in the Humboldt State University Library.

Jeremy C. Shellhase
Systems Librarian

this Policy for Responsible Computing in the Humboldt State University Library blocks resonable use related to class activity. there are better ways of monitoring who uses the web than blanket bans on every site imaginable except your own.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but our filtering is a direct response to student’s requests that our workstations be kept available for the resources that the Library provides to support coursework.  If you log in to a library station, the internet filtering is disabled.  There is also no filtering of any sort on the library’s 23 new Learning Commons computers on the first floor. 
Jeremy C. Shellhase
Systems Librarian

About the logins needed to access catalogs… This is pretty annoying. I wish the catalog was just easily available without requring logins. Also, it would save a lot of trouble to make a new password. The current password has lots of capitals and spaces. I always seem to mess it up three or so times before it lets me login. Maybe a password like ‘password’ would save a whole lot of trouble. Thanks!

Sorry for the inconvenience with logon at the library stations.  We installed the logon system so that we could reserve machines for student use and also so that we could provide some additional features and conveniences for our students.  New security regulation from the federal government have also required that we institute logons for unrestricted internet access.  The campus system requires so called “hard passwords” with upper and lower case letters and special characters, but we’re tying to make it as easy as possible to remember and enter our public password.  Maybe we’ll try a new one soon.

We are also getting a number of our computers logged in as the public user as we open the Library, so that they’ll be available for more convenient use of the catalog and our databases.  Once they’re logged in as the public user, they will stay logged in for easy use.  Obviously, we’ve not gotten enough of them logged in every morning, but we’ll start doing more.

Thanks for the feedback.
Jeremy Shellhase
Systems Librarian

Having a password just to access the library book database is poorly thought out. It slows down the system to an excessive degree and creates a lot of problems. I know the excuse is “security”, but in my estimation of it, all this “security” is simply a tactic for someone trying to justify their paycheck. Not even UCLA, Stanford, or other large schools make people put in passwords just to use the libraries online catalog. Yet tiny little HSU feels the need to ratchet up security to an almost east berlinian degree.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience. We will be making sure that most of the computers are logged in as the public user in the morning, so that simple, walk up access to the catalog is available more easily. We’re in the early phases of implementing logons and will be improving our proceedures soon.

We’ve had multiple requests from students to institute a system of logons, to make our computers available for student use.

Jeremy C. Shellhase
Systems Librarian

Everytime I have come into the library and look for books, often they are on the third floor, and I see that the three computer’s are monopolized. If I need to do additional searching, I have to go down a flight of stairs or across to the other side of the building to do another search in the catalog, and I find this very inconvenient and would like to see more computers available in this area for people like me. I have also noticed that the people using those computers are always the same people, and they are there at all times of the day. Also, there should be hand sanitzer’s throughout the building.

We are aware of the shortage of computers on the third floor of the Library and the inconvenience caused by some users monopolizing them.  While the Library does have a policy requiring that all users limit their sessions to 30 minutes or less at these machines, it has proven difficult to enforce.  To make these computers more available to HSU students, we will be requiring users to log on with HSU ID and password in the very near future.  We will not be able to provide hand sanitizers in the Library, but do provide restrooms on each floor.  We also regularly clean the keyboards on all of our public stations. 

Jeremy C. Shellhase, Systems Librarian  

I would like to see other alternative browsers in the library computer labs. Firefox 2 just came out and is gaining popularity.

Thanks for your suggestion.  We will be installing Firefox as an alternative browser on the Library’s public workstations in the near future.  We will be keeping Microsoft’s Internet Explorer also as our default browser.

Jeremy C. Shellhase
Systems Librarian

Please put Firefox on all the library computers. Right now they have very outdated versions of IE that haven’t been patched and are a significant security concern to those that use these machines. You can also setup Firefox to flush personal information when the browser window is closed, which would really increase privacy on these computers.

Thanks for the suggestions.  We are planning to add Firefox as an alternative browser to all of the Library’s public workstations in the near future. 

The Library workstations are all set to automatically install windows updates, including updates to Internet Explorer, every evening.  To date, an upgrade to the recently released Internet Explorer version 7 has not been included in Microsoft’s schedule of automatic updates.  We will be investigating this, to see if we will have to manually install this upgrade.

The Library’s computers are also protected by security software that completely restores their configuration when the systems are rebooted.  If you are concerned about the persistence of your personnel information on our public workstations,  restart the workstation as you leave it.

Jeremy C. Shellhase
Systems Librarian