March 20th Readings

One Law with Two Outcomes-Jaeger & Yan

This article looks at the history and implementation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

Perhaps I should start out by saying I don’t agree with this act. Perhaps I should’ve kept that to myself. Either way though, it boils down to the fact that this act is a form of censorship. The government has finally found a way (via funding) to state what is and what isn’t appropriate. That is a parent’s job. Yes, I am not going to get into the public school portion of this act, schools have a primary adjective to educate their students while public libraries focus on access to all information. It is clearly laid out via the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights. Perhaps if filters did their job properly with a 100% accuracy rate and were only installed on computers minors used, the act wouldn’t be so wrong. But as it is, it is far from perfect, often blocking content which is appropriate and educational.

Studying Indiana Usage of Internet Filters-Comer

This article looks at the internet restrictions placed in Indiana Libraries. 

This is an interesting article in that it really shows how dividing this topic can be amongst the profession. My take on it is that monitoring what patrons view online seems exactly like monitoring what they read, and that is not what libraries are about. I firmly believe that as long as what a patron is viewing on their computer screen is not visible by anyone else, then they should be able to look at whatever they want. It isn’t just pornography that makes patrons uncomfortable, medical procedures and related subject can also be offputting. Who is to judge what is and isn’t appropriate. Librarians are not the internet police. Perhaps instead of looking at filters, libraries should look at ways to make computer stations open enough to be inviting (and only as monitorable as much as the rest of the library is) and yet private enough that only the person on the computer can see what is on the screen. MCPL seems to have started on that route with their flat paneled screens, even though I’ve heard they don’t buy them anymore.

Sex in the City-Adamson

This article recounts the events that led up to the decision of some Minneapolis Public Library employees to file a complaint with EEOC in 2000.

For those that are reading my post today, you may be surprised to find me agreeing with the author that what the MPL employees were dealing with was wrong. While I support fighting censorship, librarians shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in their workplace. Patrons have the right to view what they wish, but patrons also have the right to not be offended and feel comfortable in a public setting. It is like the rights of smokers verses the rights of everyone else. Yes, you have the right to smoke a cigarette, however, I have the right to breathe fresh air. One right obviously trumps the other. It is the same way with viewing disturbing images (pornographic or otherwise) in a public setting, once other people can also see it and are therefore affected by it, different rules apply, hence the stress in the previous article recap of privatizing screens. 

 Public Access Technologies in Public Libraries-Bertot

This article looks at the development of public access technology in public libraries as well as management and the implications of it all.

I’m going to focus on a small part of this article, but it’s the part I found most interesting. This article briefly discussed fully integrated OPACS (especially when it comes to ebooks and the like) and it reminded me some of what we discussed in my library systems class the week before spring break as well as what I learned during PLA last week. Polaris and 3M have teamed up and are actually the first to integrate downloading ebooks straight from the OPAC and that system was literally just announced. It isn’t even fully past beta testing. "3M Cloud Library Integrates with Polaris ILS" And to think it only took vendors three years to listen to what the patrons wanted.

Please Disable the Entire Filter-Anten

This article discusses the tendency of “over-blocking” in public libraries and why filters should not be installed in public libraries.

I think this author has some good points. It reminds me of an article I read via the emails that the ALA sends out every week to their members. I managed to track the story down. "Missouri Library Sued for Barring Wiccan Websites" & ACLU Filing Announcement

It also made me wonder how other countries handle internet censorship. From what I’ve found, its about as murky everywhere else as it is here in the US. While ten years out of date, Australia did some interesting research while they prepared to pass their own internet censorship ban: http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html