Conference papers

Access issues I

To Pay or not to Pay: is That the Question?

Leneve Jamieson

Customer services manager, State Library Services, State Library of Victoria.

The Web is challenging the principles and paradigms on which we base our fee-for-service policies. It is blurring the lines dividing information and communication and the fee versus free debate is beginning to rage within and between libraries and across discussion lists. Existing policies vary greatly - ranging from the electronic frontier approach which regard all 'lawful' uses of the Web as equally legitimate to those based on the pragmatic need for some return on investment. The issues involved are complex - which principles do we use as a basis for our service now? The State Library of Victoria is reviewing its service. It is seeking to develop a clear justification for charging for e-mail which can sit comfortably within a policy framework which will satisfy multiple stakeholder needs for equity, information and research.

At the State Library of Victoria in 1999, the suggestion that we should provide e-mail access only on a fee basis became not quite a life and death debate but it did raise some very difficult questions. In the call for papers for this conference, I stated that the SLV was reviewing its Internet service and seeking to develop a justification for charging for e-mail which could sit comfortably within a policy framework and which would satisfy client and organisational needs.

In January 2001, a new policy for our internet service is being introduced. e-mail services will be free for Australian citizens and residents - chargeable kiosk services will be the only e-mail service available for people who don't fit the criteria for residency. In reaching this policy decision, the question became one of determining whether or not, in the world of the Web, e-mail was a core service for a public library in Victoria and of balancing that against the broader issue of managing competing demands for scarce resources. Initially the path to an outcome seemed straightforward but as we examined the complex policy, financial and technical issues associated with this, it became a circuitous journey with a less certain destination. The paper that follows describes the journey we undertook in seeking that best possible balance at the State Library of Victoria.

Background - internet services at the State Library of Victoria

Internet services at the state library were first offered in 1997 under the broad strategic objective of 'transform[ing] the delivery of information and information services required by customers by unlocking the resources of the State collection and the world.' By 1999, in response to demand, a number of adjustments to our service model had been made and the number of workstations with full Web access had trebled. Across the Library's 5 principal reading rooms, access to full services was provided in thee ways - and it was a somewhat complicated package to communicate to customers:

• 8 workstations gave full Web services including e-mail access, able to be booked in half-hourly timeslots.
• 1 workstation was a 'fast-track', self-regulating 10-minute workstation offering full Web services including e-mail
• 13 workstations offered full Web services but excluded mail and chat ( through an access list on the router list) - these could be booked for one hour

In addition to this, 55 workstations delivered access to subscription-based Internet databases such as Ebscohost (as well as to the catalogue and to a host of CD-ROM databases) - these were freely accessible with no bookings.

As part of the State Library's goal to continuously improve services, a reference benchmarking process had been set up in 1999 to identify key customer service barriers in the delivery of our information services. Internet service provision was identified as a real 'hotspot'.

Debate about the role of the Internet had excited a level of passion unknown for years. The provision of information in libraries had previously been managed by librarians' professional selection processes. With the advent of the Internet, we were confronted not only by an uncontrolled flow of unsolicited information, but by the convergence of communication and information in a seamless process resulting in a variety of new 'non-library' activities (such as Internet banking, futures trading and online gambling). And with the proliferation of Web-based mail services, we had added free post-office facilities to our suite of services! The situation we were confronting had been foreshadowed by Gary Hardy and Deidre Lowe in their paper for the 1998 VALA Conference Getting beyond the read-only paradigm where they noted that competition for a scarce resource encouraged value judgements about inappropriate use. A not-uncommon complaint in relation to e-mail was that we had never previously handed our clients pen, paper and stamps, or free phone calls and we should not be starting to do so in this new environment.

Given this background and the knowledge of the policies of benchmarking partners , not surprisingly our benchmarking team recommended that free web-based e-mail in the reading rooms be discontinued, and that the viability of a commercial service in another area of the Library such as a café, or with other user-pays services such as copying and word-processing, be investigated.

The review process

Following the benchmarking team recommendations, a process review group was set up to look more closely at whether it was valid and feasible to charge for some aspects of our internet service - specifically, e-mail. Members of the group comprised the business development manager, two reference staff members and the customer service manager.

While initially group members had differing expectations of the outcome of the review, it was relatively easy to come to agreement on the component parts of the problem:

• The state library was the only 'free' provider of internet services in the central business district. We were featured in the Lonely Planet travel guide and advertised on noticeboards at city backpacker hostels. (These initiatives had not been instigated by the library). All other city providers operated on a commercial basis.
• We were taking 1044 bookings a week with queues at opening times stretching out the front door. Use of e-mail appeared to dominate.
• Despite our having added 8 'research only' PCs to the stable, there was a scarcity of workstations in our main information centre to meet client demand for access to the catalogue, to CD-ROM databases and to the Internet during peak periods.
• Customers expected immediacy of access to our electronic resources and expressed frustration at having to queue. Our suggestion box was sprinkled with complaints from Victorian taxpayers about the 'misuse' of their taxes in providing e-mail in the state's major reference library.
• The library's major building redevelopment program placed constraints on any expansion space; and within the main service areas there was a variety of competing demands for space - for more reading tables, for more workstations and for distributed photocopiers.
• Many staff felt frustrated by the high administrative component of the service - repetitive explanations to customers about the types of access available, the booking system and requirement for ID.

The steps we followed to determine our approach were to establish:

• the actual level of e-mail use at the state library through an internet use survey
• the broad policy context from the perspective of the library profession in Australia
• the Victorian government policy context, and the application of that policy in Victorian public libraries
• policy and practice in other Australian states
• policy and practice in the UK and the US

The investigation included a search in the professional literature and on the internet itself.

Internet use surveys at the state library

Internet use surveys of our general use PCs were undertaken on two separate days in April and May, 2000. 160 users responded which translated to a 67 percent response rate. While a number of different questions were asked, only the results relevant to this paper are included here: the first percentage relates to the April survey, the figure in parenthesis to the second survey in May.

• e-mail use accounted for 84 percent (88)of total use of the workstations
• 93 percent (95) of e-mail use was for social/personal communication purposes
• 75 percent (63) of e-mail users were from overseas
• 45 percent (35) of users had used cybercafés; only around 20 percent were using them more than once a week
• 47 percent of users were between 18 and 24, and 85 percent of users were between the ages of 18 and 39 ( these figures were much the same for both surveys).

General library policy and practice

Within the library and information profession we could find no useful guidance on whether the communication aspects of the Internet were part of a public library's core services.In March 2000, when the review group was undertaking its investigations, the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) had not indicated a position or generated any discussion on the issue of the convergence of information and communication aspects of the Internet. Neither the Statement on Free Library Services to All, nor the Interim Statement on the Use of Online Information in Libraries, (now removed from the website for revising) touched upon this issue. In Victoria an attempt had been made to clarify 'core and non-core' services in the current environment. The Victorian branch of the Australian Council for Library and Information Services (ACLIS Victoria) had revised the definition of basic services for Victorian public libraries to include service provision in the electronic environment and had further attempted a clarification of the charging issue:

libraries may charge for some forms of Internet use, where the nature of the use is not primarily focussed on information. Such uses include receiving and sending e-mail, internet chat, and financial transactions

After endorsement of the statement by the Library Board of Victoria, the Victorian Library Network Committee and the Victorian Public Library Network Committee (VICLINK), the Local Government Division of the Department of Infrastructure used this definition as part of its Funding and Service Agreement with local councils providing public library services. When the definition was adopted in 1998, a number of libraries moved to charge for e-mail. And in early 1999 a survey of Victorian public libraries undertaken by the City of Greater Dandenong Libraries indicated a growing intention by public libraries to charge for e-mail access. The situation in Victoria in early 2000 was that some Victorian libraries charged for all e-mail use; some offered both a fee and a free e-mail service to all (some libraries had received computers under specific funding grants which precluded them from charging for the use of those computers). Others maintained a clear stance that it was not possible to differentiate between any types of access and therefore provided all Internet services for free. It was clear that there was no consistency of practice amongst libraries - individual libraries appeared to establish their Internet use policies on premises ranging from personal philosophy of the library manager to council imperatives for return on investment.

Since the end of 1999, the new Labor government has continued to support the previous government's development of public library infrastructure through its agency, Multimedia Victoria. Through the Department of State and Regional Development it published a strategy for information and communication technologies entitled Connecting Victoria. This statement underlined a policy focussing on 'the development of a learning society made possible by the broadest possible access to technology and skills through education, industry and community networks'. The twin notions of electronic democracy and social inclusiveness were fundamental to the government's platform and public libraries were clearly considered to be part of this community network, along with town halls and net access centres.

Policy and practice in other State Libraries also varied. The National Library and the State Library of New South Wales blocked all e-mail and chat, with the latter's position based on a 1998 Discussion Paper entitled The Internet: a core or value-added service. This examined the legislation under which public libraries operated in NSW and aimed to identify public library responsibilities in providing internet access in public libraries. The Discussion Paper asserted that Internet communications facilities, such as e-mail, were similar to telephone or fax services and as such were not a core service of a public library. The State Library of Victoria's benchmarking team had particularly noted that all e-mail services at the State Library of New South Wales were provided only through fee-based kiosks in the Library's café. They felt that this enabled professional library staff to concentrate on professional tasks, free of the burden of differentiated internet services and associated booking processes.

The state libraries of South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia offered all internet services free, with Tasmania abandoning a 'free access for Tasmanians only' policy due to a challenge based on section 117 of the Constitution, which related to the issue of free trade between states. In other words, a government-funded service which is provided free in one state cannot operate as a fee-based service to residents of other states.

A literature search yielded little in the way of formal analysis of the subject. Karen Schneider in the brief article You've got mail offered the only comment on library practice and professional attitudes to Web-based e-mail in public libraries in the United States. In recording the polarised positions of librarians on the topic, she outlined what appeared with much greater emphasis in an exchange of opinion on the RefLibs listserv in March-April 2000. This revealed a vigorous debate and varying policies and practices. While most of the participants in the listserv discussion were from academic libraries, the dilemma over what constitutes legitimate use of the Internet was much the same as for the public libraries participating in the debate. The comments below give something of the flavour of the discussion:

[When we have library patrons who need to do research but can't find a free computer] I say loudly 'let's find someone who's doing e-mail and bump 'em', and then do so. If no-one is doing e-mail then I look carefully at what they are doing and ask those reading the sports news if they are actually doing research...

and

I am really puzzled at the vociferousness of those opposing e-mail and other non-scholarly pursuits using our public access computers. Are none of your professors using e-mail to communicate to students? Perhaps one of your patrons is doing research on the high salaries awarded to professional athletes... Would you ban reading the sports section of the print newspaper for those students? Just what is 'non-library' use anyway?

and

Some of the punitive measures that have been talked about really amaze me - lose your library privileges for six months for the heinous crime of e-mailing . . .let's try to find a positive soution . . . our future as librarians is unsure enough without our finding ways to drive people from the library.

In the United States, metropolitan libraries and libraries funded by larger jurisdictions have tended to provide more access and have less restrictive policies than their more rural, lesser funded counterparts. As US examples:

• Charlottesville (Virginia) Public Library. A well-funded city library with a major university actively encourages all users of their 'Technology Centre' and offers the full range of internet resources.
• Towns County (Georgia) requires proof of county residency before use of the Internet is granted. E-mail is available.
• Mobile County (Alabama) Library have blocked access to all web-based e-mail sites throughout all branches. No alternative is offered.

An interesting 1999 issues paper from the UKOLN (UK Office for Library and Information Networking) highlighted charging as a policy issue but discussed it in relation to networked services generally. One of the intentions of the People's Network appears to be the development of a national policy context under which local library authorities would be required to operate. The paper suggests that at present there is a wide diversity of charging practice which is considerably less inclusive than in either Australia or the United States. In the UK it appears that some library authorities charge for all Internet access. It will be interesting to see if this changes with the rollout of the People's Network - particularly with its emphasis on equity of access.

What Did We Learn?

Perhaps the clearest overall message for our review group was that the old paradigms are being so challenged in the digital environment that policy making is lagging well behind the realities and demands of the actual service environment. The online world is fraught with ambiguity and paradox leading to difficulty in determining clear and consistent practices in public library environments. Regardless of geography, Internet access policies vary as a result of local funding, demand, politics and philosophy. Every institution is dealing with globally common Internet access problems in its own way depending on local conditions.

In Victoria, the situation is very complex, in part due to the fact that no-one government department is responsible for funding public libraries and there is no clear statement of policy for the whole of government.

The State Library of Victoria sought policy advice from Multimedia Victoria, the government agency responsible for the development of network infrastructure in the community, on the issue of charging all users for e-mail. It was made very clear that charging Victorians was contrary to the spirit of the Connecting Victoria statement referred to earlier. On the other hand, the ACLIS statement on core and value-added services, which sits as the basis for public library charging and which is acceptable to the Victorian Department of Infrastructure, appears to contradict the MMV's approach. The Local Government Division of the DOI is aware of the anomaly that currently exists and plans to investigate it.

We found a further reason to question the ACLIS statement. The statement refers to the potential to charge for e-mail, chat and financial transactions. It is to some degree possible to block popular e-mail and chat sites and to therefore offer access to these services on designated equipment for a fee. However, because financial transactions are integral to many valuable information sites, such as the Stock Exchange or the National Bank, it is not technically possible to separate and charge for only the transaction.

After the Library Board of Victoria had endorsed the introduction of a policy which effectively charged only overseas visitors for the use of e-mail, ALIA published on its website a draft core values statement for comment by members of the profession.

The second value statement endorses:

The connection of people to ideas. We guide and educate the seeker in defining and refining the search; foster intellectual inquiry and freedom; and nurture communication in all forms and formats.

This statement seems to invite the interpretation that ALIA considers e-mail to be a core service in libraries. At this point in time, this has not been raised as an issue for debate, but it is to be hoped that this will happen. Without a shared understanding of what this could actually mean for library practice, such a statement will do little to assist libraries to develop more consistent access policies.

Conclusion

We believe at the State Library of Victoria that the decision we have made to provide all our internet services free to Australians citizens and residents is the best possible decision we could have made given the constraints with which we were dealing. We hope that we will have achieved a better balance of scarce resources given the number of computers and the space available. Essentially though, the Victorian policy context within which the state library currently operates means that we accept e-mail as a legitimate part of the free Internet access we are offering to our taxpayers.

The issue was not finally whether to pay or not to pay for e-mail services offered at the library. At the end of the journey, it became clear to the group that we had to make a pragmatic decision. We had to focus any restrictions on Internet access principally on the category of user (ie. overseas residents) and on the purpose of their use. Freedom of access to information continues for all users as they are still able to access any of our research workstations. We were unable to resolve one of the benchmarking team's concerns and to eliminate the complex and time-consuming administrative system for the service - we still have a booking system and we still require user identification. This constraint and frustration will continue until we have a system for user authentication and until a viable booking technology solution can be found.

A new libraries policy is being developed in Victoria. It is hoped that it will establish a clear policy framework for public Internet access.