Iain, your message caught my eye as it relates well to both what I have
tried to do here and what I would like to do in the future. We currently
run two public pc's in a gallery of our museum, one giving access to cdrom
packages, the other access to a standalone version of our catalogue. My
plan is to replace at least one of these with a pc giving access to parts
of our Intranet and selected internet sites, the intention is to do that
for free. On the basis that we are not offering total internet access, just
access to the bits we choose. Some thoughts that might help along the way,
interspersed with your original message....
----------
> From: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: network cafe
> Date: 24 August 1999 14:20
>
>
> I hope you will allow a new member of the list to begin his membership
with
> a request for help . . .
>
> At the Durham Light Infantry Museum in Durham City we are developing (as
> part of an HLF funded project) a network cafe, top include a number of
PCs
> providing access to the web, CD-ROMs and intranet resources. We are
> currently considering issues such as:
>
> Do you restrict the length of time one person can use a PC for ?(e.g. by
> allocating a certain amount of time with an admission ticket, or by
> charging for a ticket)
We allow use of both of these free, but then we aren't incurring charges.
In the future we want to allow free access but that may depend as much as
anything on whether we can 'tap in' to the council's existing network and
allow internet access through it, and if so how we do that, and if it
incurs phone charges (either analogue or ISDN) . We MAY invest in further
leased lines, but only if this is justified. Our libraries currently allow
internet access and charge about £5 per hour
>
> Do you allow printing from PCs and if so do you charge for it, and do you
> use a coin box or honesty system?
Honesty system is in use in libraries, mostly with open learning packages
but also with internet. Users get the first ten pages in any one session
free I think, thereafter they pay so much per page.
>
> Do you provide access to the same resources on each system or do you
> dedicate individual PCs to particular resources - e.g. some will be quick
> reference whilst others might involve more browsing?
Both PC's we are using at the moment in the way described above are legacy
PC's running windows3.11, low on speed and memory. We inherited them from
other departments who were chucking them out and put them to use ourselves.
They are not really up to any more use now. However, people (I mean the
public here) don't I suspect, expect the best. They just expect something
that works, and so you may get away with relatively low spec machines for
some jobs, so long as they meet the minimum requirements of whatever
software you decide to run. Of course, if you are buying in software
specially written for you, then you might have to specify what it will run
on, otherwise the developer will assume you want to run everything on a
pentium2 at about 500 mhz and with gigaquads or whatever of memory, and
before you know where you are you need the top brass of IBM and Microsoft
just to set it up and run it for you.
>
> I would be grateful to hear from anyone who has any thoughts on or
> experience of this area or who could guide me to some relevant literature
I have a feeling there was something in the last year in Museums Journal,
but may be wrong about that. Worth a quick check though. Or was it Museum
Practice?
Regards
Alasdair
Alasdair A Joyce, Senior Museums Officer
The Moray Council, Forres, Scotland
[log in to unmask]
http://www.moray.org/museums/homepage.htm
>
>
> Iain Watson
>
> Arts, Libraries and Museums Department
>
> Durham County Council
>
> County Hall
>
> Durham DH1 5TY
>
> Tel. 0191 3834478
>
> Fax 0191 3841336
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
