Computers are everywhere, especially at NIU, where 13 places on campus offer students access to anything — within reason — on school computers.

“There is nothing you can’t get to,” said Michael Prais, director of Academic Computing Services. However, he added, “You have to be sensitive to other people.”

Prais and Elizabeth Leake, assistant director of computing services, make sure everything in campus labs runs smoothly, and that lab attendants are enforcing the rules. NIU lets students access whatever kind of information they like or need for an educational use, just as long as it doesn’t offend others. According to the NIU information technology resources acceptable-use policy, a student should refrain from “sending or storing for retrieval patently harassing, intimidating or abusive material.”

NIU computers are considered public property. A student can access any site he or she sees fit, but if the site offends another student or the lab attendant, the user will be asked to close the Web site or stop printing the material.

If the user refuses, lab attendants can call campus security and have the student escorted out of the lab. Also, if a student continually abuses the computers, Prais or Leake may talk to the student to try to resolve the matter. If all resources have failed and the student doesn’t want to cooperate, the student can be referred to the student judicial board.

“We dealt with a racist and pornographic issue a couple years ago, but there hasn’t been anything recent,” Prais said.

Students either simply don’t access offensive information or leave the Web sites immediately if there is a problem. Most students don’t want to get in trouble because they were looking at an “offensive” site, Prais said.

He added it would be hard for NIU to make a mechanical or technical policy regarding censorship because of difficulty deciding what is right or wrong. Reasons exist for students to access material that others would consider offensive.

For example, if a student is researching the effects of racism, he or she might have to access unfavorable sites.

“I would be offended with some material, but it depends on what they are looking at — what is the situation,” said sophomore business major Sarah White.

White doesn’t like how any student can access whatever he or she pleases, but she understands it’s sometimes merited for educational purposes. She would just like students to be respectful of others — maybe by sitting as far away from others as they can.

If anyone is offended by what another person has accessed, Prais suggests telling the lab attendant, who is supposed to address the issue. Another way to solve the problem is to ask the person to sit elsewhere or go to a lab that’s not busy.

The busiest labs on campus are at the Holmes Student Center and the computer science building, Prais said. Other labs are located all across campus, from Graham Hall near Chick Evans Field House to Jack Arends Hall near the East Lagoon.