Bloodless Coup

it probably won't make you feel better, but there's a similar process with the outrageously expensive (and thus, one might fairly expect, well-designed) westlaw (and perhaps with lexis, though i very seldom use it). although it takes maybe 20 minutes, once you've timed out on westlaw, _any_ operation you try will return you to the login screen, but logging in will merely return you to the default entry page. there are ways to find your former location, probably more than are available to you, but it's not the fastest site so it can take several page loads and thought-involving steps just to get back to where you were. so at least to a point i empathize.

But Westlaw (and related thing; Lexus/Nexis) are useful to normal people (if you include lawyers in a definition of "normal"). What binky is talking about is used entirely by academics. Our university has built in these firewalls to keep out non-academics from getting access to knowledge. They do this because of copyright law (the university has bought an exemption from the copyright, but only for university faculty/students/employees; they are required by the contract to exclude those people who aren't part of the university). But, who the hell would "steal" contents of academic journals? Who, exactly, are they trying to keep out? Is there some great raft of hackers knocking at our firewalls trying to steal the latest issue of American Political Science Review?

I understand the contract says that the University has to exclude non-paying people, but what I have never understood about this library system is why they have invested so much time/money in creating these elaborate and complicated security systems. They actually have a different username/password than normal student/faculty email login (which, to boot, is a different login/password than the ones students/faculty need for their financial/student records). Why? Why not use the normal email? It adds a level of complexity that makes it significantly harder to actually get an article/book (fact: you can't even search the holdings in the library without a password: in other words, a random citizen (who's tax dollars paid for the library) can't even know what books exist in the library. That's just insane.).

I could rant on and on about this.

all good points. of course the law is by definition public, and one cannot help but question what compromise among evildoers has led to the most efficient legal collections and interfaces being exorbitantly expensive private sources, or why our governments can't provide the masses with a legal interface every bit as functional and complete as westlaw's (which is very good, in its way).

Huh. That is a good question.

So today I was at it again, and discovered something. I'm not sure if this is a new feature, or I was too blinded by rage to notice last time. On the library search page (for the library collection, not the electronic journal access) there is a timer ticking downwards, with minutes and seconds. That's right kiddies, you get 30:00 and counting to use the li-berry. :eyeroll: