Our Defective Computers Strike Again

A patron came to the desk to tell me that her computer was not connecting to the Internet. I followed her back to her computer and watched her go through the who process of typing in her barcode and agreeing to our terms of service. The Interweb is the default state for these things, so Interweb Exploder automatically launches (Why do IT departments still put IE on computers? I don't get it.) The home page for the browsers is the library's home page. Why this would be so is a mystery. Perhaps it is based on the insane notion that the people using the Interwhat are there to use library resources. No--that's just too far-fetched. I think we should make Facebook the home page.

The patron pointed to the screen. "See?"

I didn't see and told her so.

"There," she said, pointing again. "No Internet."

I quizzed her a bit and found out that on the computer she typically uses, Google is the home page. To her, Google=Internet; no goog, no Internet.