The computers in the library are frustratingly slow, take eons to load and often freeze. I’m not a computer expert, but I think these problems can be fixed with a little attention to the cause of these problems.
Consider log-in time. Unlike the computers in the Eads computing lab, those in the library and other parts of campus require a user ID and password. This allows the computer access to a student’s campus card account, so that he or she may print at a cost. Of course, many students do not print in the library because the ArtSci computing lab in Eads is free. So what is the point of a log-in for students not planning to print?
Logging in offers the student other options as well. For one, students have access to a personal and private folder that retains their documents on campus hard drives. Of course, there are other options than storing documents on campus hard drives. There is Google Documents, or simply your Google inbox or a flash drive. Thus it is not necessary for students to have access to a personalized My Documents folder, as long as library computers are connected to the Internet.
There are other parts of the log-in process, however, that offer the student no added benefits and only slow down the computing experience. During login, scripts run to customize Outlook or Outlook Express. Who uses Outlook anymore? Or further, who synchronizes their home Outlook accounts with their account on University computers?
Another part of the personalization process is the installation of custom software programs. Thus, if I download Google’s photo editor Picasa, it will show up the next time I log in. This seems like a nice feature, but at the risk of waiting five minutes to log in to a computer, I would rather not have the option. Further, considering that students use library computers mainly for Microsoft Office and a web browser, the ability to retain custom software is unnecessary.
If my proposed reductions in computing capability seem too drastic, however, there is another solution: create an improved visitor log-in process that doesn’t include the advantages of a custom user log-in and thus doesn’t take as long to load. Thus, if students don’t have plans to print or access a saved document, they may log in as if they were visitors. Currently, even signing in under visitor designation is just as lengthy as not, only there are no custom preferences to be installed.
This solution may not solve all of the problems of slow library computing, but it will certainly allow students to access computers faster by bypassing a lengthy and unnecessary log-in process.
