So They Won't Hate the Wait: Time Control for Workstations

Beginning of article

With the Internet doubling in growth every year, the question is not whether libraries have time limits on computers - most do, typically ranging from 30 minutes to an hour - but how those limits are enforced. It would be nice to think library patrons are "self-regulating," as one administrator wrote me. (In that case, why have circulation periods for books?) More often, the reality is that when he spies an Internet computer, Dr. Jekyll, the patron who will willingly wait a year on the reserve list for the Eleventh Commandment, grows fangs and knuckle hair and becomes Mr. Hyde, who wants his Internet now and doesn't want to leave once he sits down!

On the dotted line

Sign-up sheets are the least-technical, most-obvious solution for controlling access; over 30 librarians wrote to tell me that they use them. Sign-up procedures are particularly useful if your …