At risk of taking an unpopular view, I think that most employers would like to trust their staff and DO most of the time. Unfortunately, it's the 1-2% of staff who abuse the system and take advantage of situations that cause employers to have to address these problems in formal policies. The reason I asked about policies other museums may have developed is because we've had a very bad virus/worm that infected 3 computers at work at a very inconvenient time--all as a result of an employee putting personal software on the company computer without permission from the supervisor. We have a couple of employees who feel it is okay to play games on their computer for the last hour of the day--and because there isn't a policy that specifically addresses the situation, it continues to be a problem--even though staff have been warned not to do this on work time. And, we have a couple of people who spend rather large amounts of time on the internet--and we have only so many phone lines. I did a search on the net and found that lots of universities have policies--especially physics departments--but they didn't quite fit what we are looking for. I appreciate all the helpful responses--in case I forgot to personally thank those who responded--thanks! Amelia Chamberlain Programs Director So. Or. Hist. Soc. [log in to unmask]