Faced withToo LittleBandwidth, Some LibrariesLimit Streaming Media, Porn
Aim is to ensure access to ILS, databases
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 11/24/2009
- Most libraries have inadequate connection speeds
- Sites like MySpace can hog network
- Need for more capacity planning
Nearly 60 percent of public libraries report inadequate Internet connection speeds to meet patron demand, according to the American Library Association's (ALA) Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, and a few, at least, are cutting back on the amount of bandwidth for streaming media to assure that the integrated library system (ILS) and other functions remain robust.
Slowing pornography
The Greensboro Public Library, NC, has been relegating streaming media identified as pornography to less than dial-up speeds—1KB a second—as part of a way to ensure that the bandwidth is not occupied by material that would violate the library's Internet policy, which states that users won't access anything "inappropriate for public viewing."
The tactic, director Sandy Neerman told LJ, is a way to avoid the problematic use of filters, while discouraging those seeking to access pornography, which has been the source of 89 complaints in a half-year—a relatively small number compared to loitering complaints, but way too many for some concerned parents, as the News-Record reported. (The newspaper editorialized in favor of the policy.)
Slowing MySpace
While Greensboro has chosen not to slow the bandwidth of sites like MySpace and YouTube, some other libraries are doing so, using the same product, made by Cymphonix. The Weber County Library, Ogden, UT, found that its four T-1 lines were becoming overburdened on school day afternoons because students were spending so much time on sites like MySpace.
"You could go through a session, hit a couple of dozen pages, and you've generated several thousand DNS (domain name system) requests, so the traffic was horrendous," Scott Jones, IT director and assistant library director, told LJ. "We were having bandwidth issues trying to do some cataloging work and [for] online databases. It was taking away from things we purchased." (It's the subject of a Cymphonix case study.)
Now, he said, with about 1MB devoted to streaming media, sites like YouTube can be slow if several dozen people are trying it. He said complaints are few. The library "throttles bandwidth" for both streaming and for advertisements, though not for games.
He noted that three of the library's bandwidth are connected to the Central Library by lines with an aggregate total of 3MB. The main library, with much more bandwidth, can devote more to streaming media. Weber County also uses Cymphonix to block pornography completely as mandated by state law.
Net neutrality
Does this violate network neutrality, a policy supported by ALA that ensures that no material—say commercial movies versus educational programming—gets privileged by Internet Service Providers (ISP)? Jones says no, given that the library doesn't act as an ISP that profits from providing access.
ALA officials agree. "We would not consider this kind of approach a network neutrality issue, but more a form of network management for already overburdened library networks," said Carrie McGuire, director, Program on Networks at the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP). "Clearly the best solution to a problem like this is more bandwidth, and this is why ALA advocates for broadband funding for libraries on the federal level."
She added OITP has applied for a grant, via federal stimulus funds for broadband access, to create a set of tools and resources for libraries to help them with capacity planning. Moreover, about one-quarter of libraries sharing wireless and public access workstation connections employ some kind of bandwidth management techniques to alleviate traffic congestion when the connection is shared, though the techniques were not specified.
Larra Clark, project manager for the ALA Office for Research & Statistics, said that the issue of bandwidth management had come up in some focus groups and site visits related to the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study. One library, for example, chose to block the Final Four tournament in college basketball, because "so many people were streaming media that it brought the network down."
Using Cymphonix
Cymphonix spokesman Scott Hair told LJ that, along with shaping bandwidth, the product can be used for filtering and to block malware. He said bandwidth can be sliced by both upload and download speed, as well as by group, so staff bandwidth could be separated from that offered to patrons.
Another library customer in a Cymphonix case study is Corpus Christ Public Libraries, TX, which learned that streaming media accounted for consumption of 30 percent of the libraries’ available bandwidth, with even more devoted to online communities, pornography, and gaming sites. Knowing that allows the library to prioritize bandwidth to ensure that "public browsing does not negatively impact the business-necessary ILS," according to the case study.
