Jaz,
can of worms is right - I'll be very interested to hear what others say about it.
We don't (yet) charge in Bexley - I did a trawl round on the PN listserv a few months ago to find out people's experience of charging and its effect on use - I'll forward that to you direct as you can't do attachments on the listserv.
The end result was that we are as yet not charging, as the potential return was not then seen to outweigh the drawbacks in terms of social exclusion etc, but it's still on the back burner - this may well knock it on the head altogether.
Hugh Paton
Library Development Manager - Bexley Council
-----Original Message-----
From: Jaz Chappell [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 15 December 2006 09:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Charging for People's Network Access & Licencing
Hello there
It is a long time since I have started a thread on this service ... please
add to and or help if you can.
My library authority has been considering charging for PN access and I have
been given the task of researching 1) what other authorities charge, 2)
what is the likekly income for us given our current level of use taking
into account a drop-off at introduction of charges 3)what sort of
investment we would have to make for this return. Very reasonable pre-
change stuff. However, what I have opened is the proverbial can of worms
regarding licencing.
It has been made clear that MS Educational licences have to be abandoned
and full licences purchased for each machine, both in terms of OS and
Office. The other really scary discovery is that every other licence owner
has to be approached to check for potential breach, so all of the plug-ins,
all of the "peripheral" software licences - some of which make it very
clear that "commercial" users pay a premium-style licence fee.
Has anyone else "out there" in PN land hit up against these issues when
setting up a "charged for" service? The ICT gurus at the council I work for
have come out against the use of Open Source - so that isn't a viable
option for us.
I truly look forward to your comments and hope no one keels over sideways
with chest pain on reading this!
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