ACQNET v3n040 (April 8, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/serials/stacks/acqnet/acq-v3n040 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 3, No. 40, April 8, 1993 ===================================== (1) FROM: Christina McCawley SUBJECT: Staff use of the Internet (31 lines) (2) FROM: Betsy Kruger SUBJECT: Staff use of the Internet, acq. on the Internet (34 lines) (3) FROM: Mark Braden SUBJECT: Staff use of the Internet, acq. on the Internet (47 lines) (4) FROM: Cynthia Coulter SUBJECT: Staff use of the Internet (55 lines) (1)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 21:00:14 EDT From: Christina McCawley (West Chester Univ.) Subject: Staff use of the Internet I am more than a little bit interested in the topic of staff members on e-mail lists. I have become increasingly concerned about members of my staff using staff time for hobby-related lists. The problem is that I may have started things because I am an opera buff and I started last summer subscribing to opera-list. I became concerned that I not spend work time reading my opera mail, so I would come in on my own time to clear out my mailbox. Then I developed the capability of reading my mail from home, which helped. Then two of my staff members decided to subscribe to Dorothy-l (on murder mysteries). One of our catalogers had been a subscriber and told me she had to get off because of the huge volume of mail. I told my staff members about that, but it didn't discourage them from signing up. Now one of them is also on a bird list and the other one on a dog list. It would be easier for me to tell them they can't do it if I didn't myself have my opera-list. Last week, the one with birds said she had seventeen screens of messages and the one with dogs had 50. (She did come in on her afternoon off in jeans to clear out her mail, which I thought was a positive sign). I told them both I thought they were nuts, but so far they haven't shown any inclination to get off the lists. In my own case, I feel bad because even though I try to do most of my opera reading at home, a certain number of messages come in during the day with my regular mail, and sometimes I take the time to reply to them. So it is very difficult to separate recreational e-mail from business e-mail. As you can see, I am troubled about this, but I haven't really found a solution yet. (2)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 7 Apr 1993 09:30:20 CDT From: Betsy Kruger (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Subject: Acquisitions and the Internet Ron Ray poses some interesting questions regarding acquisitions work and the Internet. Here at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, we are just beginning to test the usefulness of accessing vendors' databases via the Internet, a service which several of our major vendors are promoting. While I see many advantages, I am also concerned about staff having to learn the ins and outs of multiple systems and wonder if in the long run some of this might be overkill. We too have established e-mail accounts for everyone in Acquisitions, and as more and more staff throughout the Library also acquire them, I think we will do more and more of our in-house correspondence on acquisitions related matters over e-mail. I'm less concerned about staff overusing e-mail for personal use than I am of an occasional nightmare vision I have of our office a few years into the future--a world of work so entirely accessible from our keyboards that we rarely walk across the room to talk with a co-worker. As to the question of commercial use of the Internet, I wish some of the vendors who subscribe to ACQNET would address this issue. It's my understanding that sites arranging for Internet connections have to declare themselves as either research and education sites or commercial sites, with fees for commercial sites considerably higher. Acquisitions work conducted over the Internet certainly supports the educational missions of our parent institutions--one of the permissible uses of the Internet--and I assume that it is in that arena that our use of the Internet is sanctioned. By the way, this whole subject of Acquisitions and the Internet will be the topic of a panel and audience discussion at the Acquisitions Administrators Discussion Group in New Orleans this summer. (3)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Apr 93 14:32:52 PDT From: Mark Braden (Occidental College) Subject: Ron Ray's notes about use of the Internet Ron Ray at UOP described various ideas and concerns about providing all staff with campus computer accounts. I appreciate his concerns about staff time and effects on productivity, but this note offers some thoughts on behalf of providing folk with a general campus computing account. Here at Occidental, we have been slowly moving toward all staff having accounts on the campus general computer (a Sun 4), principally for purposes of electronic mail. At the moment a great deal of interaction among library "administrators" (librarians and two supervisors) occurs via mail. The Library Administrative Office is considering distribution of our weekly newsletter via computer mail (either all or in part). Nearly all staff have a terminal at or near their desk to either the Library's INNOPAC system, or to the campus data switch network (which can connect them to the Sun 4). By either means, they can be connected to the Sun 4 and use their accounts. Staff do not seem to make extensive use of these accounts, at least so far (as system administrator for the INNOPAC's computer, I monitor who's using the system, and I check occasionally on the Sun 4 as well). Unless your staff dive energetically into subscribing to Discussion Groups (i.e., listserv groups), or to reading USENET feeds, I suspect you'll find them using it as necessary, but not much more. Amongst the librarians/ supervisors here at Occidental, we have only minor overlap of subscriptions, and everyone's accustomed to receiving forwarded messages when pertinent (e.g., I'm the one who normally forwards Innovative (INNOPAC) Discussion Group messages to others, although one colleague also subscribes). If you have shared terminals (in the style of OCLC terminals a few years ago), I think that the need to share will create some self-policing. As I say, even with terminals at or near every desk, our folk appear to use computer mail only as necessary. Finally, regarding "commercial" use of the Internet: perhaps some lawyer- type would say that our correspondence with vendors is inappropriately "commercial", but I think that proviso is directed at *advertising* and the like. There are HUNDREDS of commercial organizations using the Internet (i.e., addresses with the suffix ".com"), and nearly all the interaction involves work to support the education and research missions of the ".edu" and ".org" folk. Hence, charge forward and send messages to your contacts at Faxon, EBSCO, Yankee, etc. (4)------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 08 Apr 1993 08:22:00 -0600 (CST) From: Cynthia M. Coulter (Univ. of Northern Iowa) Subject: Staff use of the Internet - response I think Ron Ray did a good job of outlining his concerns about the use (more appropriately, the misuse) of Internet by staff members. Like his library, the library at the University of Northern Iowa has begun providing access to Internet for its staff. We have encouraged our staff to do so in a deliberate effort to make them feel even more comfortable with computers and electronic access to information. We have a library committee (of course!), the Library Departmental Computing Liaisons, one of whose charges involves promoting computer literacy and usage through the use of training documents and sessions. Their other charge involves testing and evaluating microcomputer hardware and software. With the instruction provided by this group, a number of our 65 staff members have accounts on our university computer. Several use the Internet for in-library communication only (usually the ones most hesitant about jumping into bulletin boards; when we add our in-library communications package this summer, all of us will do our in-library communications that way), but a number of others have signed up for bulletin boards and some others actually contribute to the bulletin boards. The Acquisitions Department hasn't begun much Internet communication between vendor and library yet, but intend to do so as the staff becomes more familiar with Internet. I look at the Internet as another tool for use by faculty and staff in the performance of their tasks. Many of the comments and concerns mentioned by Ron seem to echo those I've heard about typewriters, telephones, photocopiers, and microcomputers. The potential for abuse does exist and will continue to exist for each new technological advance which could conceivably provide personal benefits. I don't monitor the staff's professional reading, (they should read non-work related on break or lunch), so I don't feel I would monitor their bulletin board memberships, either. As far as guidelines, I would apply essentially the same ones we have for those other tools. Limit personal use to non-work hours, or breaks, or lunch, if no one else needs the terminal for work-related tasks. Abide by the rules applicable to the technology (fair use for photocopiers, use rules established by the listservs, etc.). The library has addressed some of these "guidelines" via formal policies, but I guess most fall under common sense work expectations. I would "interfere" only in the case of abuse, when work didn't get done. Workstations...we have one shared between Acquisitions and Collection Management, one for the department secretary, one just for Acquisitions, and micros in the offices of the department heads and the library faculty. So far, no congestion, but we do have a calendar by the departmental micros on which people can reserve time if needed. We have wired the faculty's and the departmental secretary's terminals into our university computer, so we can access INNOVACQ, Internet, our CD-ROM network, our LAN (Lotus, WordPerfect), and LEXIS/NEXIS from them. Eventually, all micros will have the same wiring. ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 3, No. 40 ****** END OF FILE ******