Surely as librarians you make professional decisions every day about the
suitability of material for your users, clearly in academic institutions
this is in consultation with teachers/lecturers, but you would not provide
pornographic, racist material just because someone asked for it, although
you may direct them to an appropriate source perhaps in a closed collection.
We are taking the same decisions with the use of filters. Before we had a
filter in my last college, and when my colleague (a professional newly
qualified librarian) was supporting a student she inadvertently retrieved
information which from the page headings was clearly either racist,
pornographic or both. She was upset by this as was the young Asian student
she was supporting. Had it been a mature student with less sense of humour
and understanding of how search engines worked they could have been
extremely offended.
I have also heard from colleagues the kind of (mis)use undergraduate
students make of computers provided for learning during the evening at some
universities - I'm sure all colleges have their share of the sexually
frustrated! I would not want to staff a centre in such conditions, and I
would support my staff in wishing to be shielded from such harassment.
I also know of a teaching colleague in another college who had a middle aged
male student surfing for porn during an evening class where most of the
students were under 18. Neither she nor I would support censorship, but we
both wish to avoid such situations in our working lives.
I will continue to support the use of filters especially in learning
environments.
Lindsay Wallace
Learning Resources Manager
Luton Sixth Form College Tel: 01582 412005
Bradgers Hill Road Fax: 01582 486307
Luton LU2 7EW email: [log in to unmask]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roome, Nickie [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 6:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Internet Filtering Software Summary
>
> I agree with Ellie's comments:
>
> Ellie wrote:
>
> > Personally I feel that the use of filtering software in libraries
> (public,
> > commercial, academic) goes against our code of conduct
> > (http://www.la-hq.org.uk/directory/about/conduct.html) "members have an
> > obligation to facilitate the flow of information and ideas and to
> protect
> > and promote the rights of every individual to have free and equal access
> > to
> > sources of information without discrimination and within the limits of
> the
> > law."
> >
> > More importantly, filtering software is never truly "fit for purpose"
> and
> > will always stop access to legitimate sites whilst allowing pornography
> > and
> > hate speech through. Figures of "66% of [offensive] material blocked"
> are
> > hardly a ringing endorsement.
> >
> > I would be interested to hear what any other librarians think.
> >
> ---------
> Unfortunately, those who run our institutions of learning seem to
> be
> in favour of this kind of restriction of information flow.
>
> It isn't quite as dramatic as book burning but still.....
>
> Nickie Roome
>
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