Bad enough for our patrons if we make them do extra work, but why would we want them on-line for an unnecessarily long time. A new set of measurements are needed for service provided on the Internet. The following four characteristics form the beginnings of a way to measure what we put onto and get off of the Internet. This may be a good measure of an institution s attitude toward the Internet. Many services are feeling the pressure of popularity, and they are responding in different ways.
Additional users mean slow response times or even choked off service.
Some put up firewalls, and password protection, others add more bandwidth to the access. The predictability of entry to a service is an important factor. Frustrating the user before they even reach a service does not add to conviviality. It is understandable that progress on the net may mean upgrading equipment and software to add functionality, but the bare bones user should not be left with no access at all. This is not so for on-line information.