Good question; I have heard it a lot in my career in the online library catalog industry. There are good arguments to each side.
In favor of keeping it wide open and available: 1) library visibility in the community - something to crow about, publicity, etc. 2) Adds to the prestige of the synagogue as a central place to go 3) ability to tally outside 'hits' to see how outreach is going 4) statistics and numbers can be used by synagogue board as justification for funding the library more generously. Downsides: 1) outsiders will find things and want to borrow them. Do you have policies for handling that sort of request? 2) potential that non-members will check out all the 'good' books (which is actually a positive- see above) 3) more visibility might mean more susceptibility to hackers (but I doubt it) If you keep this only as a member 'perk' you'll have 2-3 people a day using it. I question whether that's worthwhile. If it's open, the sky is the limit (but of course, usage will grow) Ask yourself this: 1) does my collection have titles that people want? (members and non-members both). Why would someone come to *your* collection? 2) how big is the collection? 3) How many members? 4) how will you deal with outsiders wanting to borrow? My vote is to keep it open, unless (and until) you are so overrun with business in the library that you can't keep up with the level of activity. Ted --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
