The librarian’s tale
Too much demand for too few terminals
USUALLY by ten in the morning at the Erna Fergusson public library in Albuquerque a dozen people are waiting in line to use the computers. Shortly after the doors opened on a weekday this summer there was someone typing at every screen. Two young girls dressed an online doll together; next to them a man in a Dallas Cowboys cap applied for a job at a hardware chain. He’s living with his parents for a while, he explained, and he doesn’t like to wait to use the internet.
Almost all of America’s public libraries provide free internet access. Over the past two years, hard-hit Americans have been economising by cancelling their broadband contracts at home and looking to public libraries to fill the gap. At the same time, companies and government agencies are saving money by moving job applications and services online; so a rush of new visitors is arriving at libraries just as the local governments that fund them run out of money.
the worst damn trend
is for companies to put their pay stubs online. We have lots of trouble with these secure websites routing payment info through 3rd-party sites which make our computers think it’s a security risk and keep the documents from opening or downloading.
I don’t set up the PCs, but they are very secure and lots of stuff, particularly these sites for pay stubs and W-2s, won’t open on them.
Does anyone have a solution that keeps our computers secure but also allows these https sites to work properly?