So, some people have been pushing back against this by saying there are reasons not to do it (the implication being that I don't know that, maybe?). Sure. There are always reasons not to do something. 1/x https://twitter.com/redlibrarian/status/1348781617574146048

The question isn't whether there simply *are* reasons, but whether those reasons are compelling enough to outweigh the reasons to do it. Having said that, I worked at a large (for Canada) university where admin rights were the norm and we had *zero* issues. 2/x

The biggest problem we had was people installing iTunes and forgetting to set their home directory to their local HD rather than their roaming profile, which cost large amounts of space on our profile server. An email reminding them of that fixed it. 3/x

In contemporary 2020s computing environments, It's almost impossible for a user to really bork a computer, and if they do, resolution is usually a reimage away. BUT (and I think this is the most important part): 4/x

*IF* you have a problem with users borking computers, the answer is to give them admin rights so they can become *more* comfortable and knowledgeable about how the computer works. Treating the computer as a fragile piece of rare and wondrous technology leads to users... 5/x

afraid to learn anything because they're afraid to break something. It leads to centralization of computer knowledge/power in the hands of IT and then (often) to BOFH. It leads to users deciding knowledge of technology is not their responsibility. 6/x

I'm currently in a situation where our IT context really needs our users to become more comfortable with their own computers, which means giving them the ability to install things and try things out. Those reason, in my case, outweigh the reasons not to grant admin rights. 7/7

Here are a couple of articles on the need to "decentralize" IT in libraries:

https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/finding-a-way-from-the-margins-to-the-middle/

https://cjal.ca/index.php/capal/article/view/34028