Columns

At library computer, time waits for no one

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 7, 2006

Carol Thackham of St. Petersburg, 80, a longtime library user, recently sat down at a computer at the Gulfport Public Library. She routinely clicked "yes" on all the rules and set about writing e-mails.

She wrote three short ones and then started on a longer message. A couple of popup windows appeared, and she clicked them away as well.

"Suddenly, or so it seemed to me," she relates, "the screen went totally red and the computer crashed. For an instant I thought that my right pinkie had hit something. ... I thought I had done something awful to the machine.

"My heart began to thump, and I even felt my hands begin to tremble. I walked up to the lady at the desk to confess, and she sent me to a young man at the desk adjacent to the computers. He explained to me that when your time is up, the computer closes down and all of your work is lost. ...

"What problems exist," Thackham asks, "that would warrant such an awful, arbitrary, offensive, assaultive, mean, nasty, humiliating, demeaning, debasing, vicious, slap-in-the-face response that, certainly in my mind at least, borders on being abusive and approaches being a form of attack and violence?"

Well, that's too strong for me, but the frustration is understandable. Neither was she mollified by the news that the popups she had clicked away were warnings that her 30 minutes were almost up.

Any librarian will tell you these days that computer use is soaring. There often are waiting lists. Gulfport's library director, Kitty Smith, told me the library has eight with a 30-minute limit, and six with a one-hour limit.

The trouble is that we've long since crossed a threshold - computers are not a luxury, and the library is the only recourse for a lot of people. Libraries are trying to balance demand with user needs.

For Thackham, her time limit meant losing an e-mail. But people rely on library computers for lots of uses:

- Some take computer-based driving courses.

- Some use library computers to fill out job applications, conduct banking and manage their personal affairs.

- Some use them to apply for social services, or deal with medical and insurance forms.

- And lots of seniors who don't own a computer themselves go online at the library.

"More and more government agencies are telling people to fill out forms online - and telling them to go to the library to do it," says Barbara Pickell, director for Clearwater's library system.

Pickell says Clearwater has a one-hour limit for computers, but users can automatically get a second hour at branch libraries, and even a third hour at the main library, if no one is waiting.

There's another good reason for shutting down a computer when time is up, she said: Some people invariably leave personal identifying information on the screen.

In the Tampa-Hillsborough libraries, that system's Jackie Zebos says, the limit is one hour, but it can be extended if there's no waiting list.

Carol Thackham wishes that libraries could use a "kinder, gentler" approach. Why not, she asks, a friendly tap on the shoulder?

Unfortunately, most libraries don't have the staff, and demand is growing. I like the idea of automatic extensions when there's no one waiting. But in general, kind and gentle gives way to warnings and shutdown screens, as we ask our libraries increasingly to serve as providers of last resort in an online age.

[Last modified December 7, 2006, 00:14:38]