Gebuehren fuer Internet-Nutzung an Hochschulen

[Ulrich Korwitz <Ulrich.Korwitz _at__ Uni-Koeln.DE>]

Liebe Inetbib'ler,

im folgenden Zitate aus einem Artikel von Sally Lehrman,
erschienen in: Nature (Vol. 381, S. 458) vom 6.6.1996:


"Universities charge for Internet access"

Californian colleges and universities have begun to charge faculty 
members and students for external access to the Internet. They say the 
move has been made necessary by unmanageable grwoth in the volume of 
on-line traffic, anf the resulting increased costs.
Almost two-thirds of traffic on the University of California's campus 
networks is now caused by students and staff dialling in from off-campus 
locations. As a result, links have become congested and slow, while lines 
are often engaged. Much of the increase in traffic is due to a shift in 
Internet use from educational and research purposes to entertaining and 
other activities, in particular using the WWW.
For students and faculty members at the University of California at 
Berkeley, for example, such dial-in connections are no longer free, with 
users now being required to pay $10 a month to a commercial Internet 
service provider (the service will remain free on campus). Other UC 
campuses and California state universities are beginning to follow suit.
Stuart Lynn, associative vice-president for information resources and 
communications for the University of California's office of the 
President, says the increasing demand has made it impossible to 
continue providing the service free. Other universities across the US
have taken similar action, he says.
The university says it has received few complaints about its new policy. 
But it admits some academics have expressed concern about the weakening of 
the tradition of free access to information and educational tools, and 
have been warning against the gradual invasion of commercialism into 
collegial values and the sharing of information."



Wie ich vor kurzem hoerte, sollen die Internetkosten an einer 
Hochschule in Deutschland von 1997 an auf die verschiedenen Nutzer, 
darunter auch die Bibliothek, umgelegt werden.


Gibt es anderswo auch schon solche Tendenzen?



Ulrich Korwitz
ZBMed Koeln