I haven’t tried Highlanes for wifi yet (although I like it as a Cafe because it has a lot of light).

Two other good wifi-enabled places in Drogheda are the D-Hotel and Bru , both beside the river.

Paul

When you think of it, you’re paying your tax money so that somebody can be rude to you. Fine if you’re into S&M, but most of us can do without it.

The revolution will not be printed, and will probably happen somewhere like Estonia where the Government does as a well as talks about doing things online.

Paul

From where I’m sitting in this very small library I can see 6 CRT displays guzzling energy and only being used intermittently for searching the catalogue, internet use, or video magnification. This library is wasting far more electricity than it would take to power four laptops – and that’s only what I can see from this chair.

Books, tapes, DVDs, CDs, etc. really are a dead-end in learning and communication when compared to internet technologies such as the hyperlink, streaming video/audio, e-books, etc. – not to mention the environmental impact on our long-suffering earth of producing the materials used.

The revolution will certainly not be printed.

Thanks for your comment, and I’m just after subscribing to your site

Drogheda also has the ‘free internet access’ – they look like toasters with a screen attached. So why don’t they go the whole hog and allow wireless internet access? It’s a bit like the difference between using a payphone and using your own mobile : both will get you going, but which are you going to use in the long term?

To me , it smacks a little bit of checking the boxes : ‘Ohh , we’re doing e-government – we’ve got a couple of computers’. But in the wider scheme of things (encouraging the information society) they’re being a bit short-sighted.

While I appreciate not every student is fortunate enough to own their own laptop (and hence the toaster-connected to-the-internet is the best first step), for the sake of less than 100 Euro and a couple of plugs, they could take a huge step in fulfilling what a library should be: access to all knowledge in the best way possible.

Paul

Thanks for the link

Simon,

They stopped him from using the plug – which given that he said he had no battery left , meant that he couldn’t study for his exams.

The whole point of a library is to facilitate learning. Trouble is that student will be waiting 5 years for some policy to be written to allow him to do it.

Talking of Ryanair, I have it on good authority that their latest cost saving measure is banning staff from chargine their mobile phones!

Paul

And doomed is *bad!*