I was going to avoid this little digression, but I just have one comment
to make. (If you don't like soapboxes delete now)
1. What is bad for one patron may not be for another, and who decides
what's bad. Case in point, every public library in America that has
open Internet access. They are fighting various groups over the issue
of filters. Most libraries would agree that blantant pornography isn't
appropriate to view at public computers. But what about artistic nudes
or anatomy diagrams. And what about sites promoting "alternate
viewpoints." Should the Catholic Church be allowed to demand that
libraries filter access to pro-abortion or pro-homosexuality sites?
Even inaccurate sites can be good, especially when I'm teaching how to
evalute resources. And I keep a list of the worst sites (by page
design) for my web page design classes.
We in developing Dublin Core are working on information access and
retrieval. This places us in the same realm as librarians. It's not
our job to decide what's good or bad. The issue shouldn't even be part
of the discussion. What we are attempting is to make sure that the good
sites receive equal indexing treatment as the 'bad' so that
researchers/visitors can actually have a choice to make.
Okay I'm getting off my soapbox. I feel better now.
Paula Browning
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