Whilst "elle's" original post went perhaps into too much personal
detail for an open professional discussion list I think some
interesting issues were raised, both in the original post and
subsequent reaction.
"Elle" referred to searching for information - the nature of which
we have seen is offensive to some members of this list - in a
public place; which quite possibly could be open terminals in a
public library, and also to the requirement for "reasonable
Internet skills" in order to find helpful material and *avoid* the
purely pornographic.
The role and responsibilities of a reference librarian in dealing
with personally distasteful enquiries was certainly well covered in
tutorial sessions when I took my degree at Loughborough and I
am a little surprised at some of the responses evoked on the list
and through e-mails to members of the list.
There are perhaps two issues here worth some continued
discussion on the list, without further reference to the earlier
particular example.
First; the visibility of many public access 'net terminals in
reference libraries which may discourage people from attempting
to find information - a whole host of minor, but embarrassing,
medical conditions comes to mind and
Second; the possible requirement for Librarians to assist users in
'net searches for legitimate minority interests without either the
user, casual observers or the Librarian being exposed to grossly
offensive or potentially illegal material.
Regards to all
MDG
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