At least we tried? #tfr

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: March 14th, 2021

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  • Interesting perspective, but I’d tend to argue that the technologies such as WiFi have massively increased inclusiveness and accessibility for magnitudes more people than it has raised issues for.

    WiFi, for example, allows libraries to offer servises 24 hours a day without the need to physically enter the building. Wirh such openness comes some security and resource sharing challenges, and metimrs addressed by throttling or overly aggressive firewalls. But for nearly everyone the expanded accessibility has been fantastic.

    I am also concerned with outsourcing. But worried about cloudflare are pretty far down the list. Adobe controlled DRM on most ebooks, and even third party cloud based catalogues, are way more concerning. But unfortunately these happen to be the most cost effective way the limited funding of libraries can manage in many cases. I hate these circumstances but it seems to me the compromise is providing more access to more resources for more people, not less.

    This is not to discourage always better ways and more freedom and efficiency. But overall I just can’t see how the issues you cite are excluding people more than helping include more people.

    Lets face it, the half dozen people per million (if that) who care about the FLOSS status of thier WiFi hardware’s firmware, probably are technically capable enough to find a way to access library resources securely more than most people!