Public Machines

["Donald, A. Wayne" <wdonald () VT EDU>]

Being a state institution, Virginia Tech is required by law to permit
access to the general public; not only is the university library an
academic library, but it is also a Virginia Public Library and the
repository of government documents which the public is entitled to have
access to.

 

Access to workstations and the network is unrestricted. While logging in
you are presented with the Virginia Tech Acceptable Use Policy (AUP),
but you are not required to provide any additional information.  To
control the computing environment, both in the reference area and
library labs, the library uses Deep Freeze from Faronics.  The computing
environment is set to a library standard, and every night the computers
are reset to the library's original configuration. 

 

I have been asked to look into this practice and see if there are ways
to make it more secure - like restricting what can be accessed, actually
having each person get some type of ID, etc.  I'm curious to find out
what some other libraries at public institutions might do and if this is
even an issue.


Thanks in advance.