[Libs-Or] A somewhat technical question involving gmail and persistant login...

[Martin, Greg]

Hi All,

We're having a problem here at the library and I thought I'd throw it out to everyone to see if anyone in libraryland has a great solution.

We have about 20 publically-accessible computers, many of which are occupied at any given time. Quite frequently, patrons are accessing their email. It turns out that gmail has a checkbox called 'Stay signed in' that is checked by default with a lovely green checkmark. If the patron unchecks this box before signing in...no problem. If the patron remembers to log out of email...no problem. If, as frequently happens, the patron just clicks the browser shut and walks away...problem! The next person who accesses gmail ends up signed into in the previous user's account. I'm not sure if this happens with IE and Firefox, or just with Chrome.

The solution would be to somehow automatically uncheck the 'Stay signed in' checkbox at the login screen. Way back when, this checkbox was unchecked by default. Obviously, Google wants to collect as much data as possible on gmail users, so they globally changed the setting, but this option works poorly in a public setting like ours. An online search led me to a variety of supposed solutions (e.g.  to uncheck the box then NOT delete cookies; to change an HKEY via ResEdit, etc.), none of which work. Also, patrons don't read signs. They just don't.

We have the ability to make our PCs restart at the end of each session. This would solve the problem, but is non-ideal for several reasons I won't bore you with, but you might be able to imagine.

So, for those of you who have read this post to the bitter end...do any solutions spring to your fertile mind? If so, please share!

Thanks!

--gm

Greg Martin
Adult Services Librarian
Wilsonville Public Library
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