Comments on: New Mexico State Library Staff Can’t Access Flickr, etc.

By: LarryN the LibraryN

LarryN the LibraryN — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:30:36 +0000

The weird thing about my library, is that we have ways to unblock sites if a patron requests it – in fact we have to – but there is no (approved) way around it for staff.
That’s why I downloaded some things from Youtube at home; did the conversion there as well (can’t install programs on a work machine, which I do understand); and loaded them onto the library iPod.

Sigh. And I am on the Emerging Tech committee too.

By: John

John — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:57:48 +0000

Michelle hit the nail on the head about access to social networking sites such as flickr and Youtube. The NM State Library is part of New Mexico State Government. The state CIO has shutdown access for all state agencies, including the library. We have multiple exception requests for the library on file, but htat does not seem to matter. Our public machines are on a separate network that the library IT manages and not subject to the same filtering restrictions as the staff machines. When library IT staff find a site that is blocked we can open access to that site that same day.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:39:52 +0000

This happens more often than you think with many different libraries. In general the libraries that are usually blocked are libraries whose IT departments are completely out of their controll and belong to a larger system. Hospital, business, legal, librarians have been complaining about this for quite some time. So it would not surprise me if various state and government libraries were also blocked.

Not all libraries have their own IT departments and despite even the best relationships they may have extremely little say in their company’s IT policies such as blocking social networking sites.

By: JohnVTL

JohnVTL — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:01:28 +0000

A new state librarian was recently appointed at the NM State Library. You might want to check back in few months. The future may be hotter than the salsa

By: LarryN the LibraryN

LarryN the LibraryN — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:44:45 +0000

Michael appeared at our library last October for a technology training gig. Since then, we STILL cannot use Youtube at work; we can get Flickr though. What I would like to do is produce some short videos and podcasts adverts for the library – but we wouldn’t be able to see them!

By: cj

cj — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 14:48:33 +0000

This struck me as strange as I know the NM state librarian and he is no technology stick-in-the-mud – he was actually my boss when I worked at the Gates foundation, so he understands the power of technology – and its downsides also, but my guess is that this is a state IT policy decision.

Here at the Texas State Library we are not blocked from these types of technologies and have implemented one external blog and have recently started posting pictures to a Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tslac/) – they are mostly historical at this point, but we hope to have more recent pictures soon also.