Hi Helen,
EARL's Networked Services Policy Task Group has been quite active in
publishing issue papers on this topic, and has also gathered acceptable use
policies in the UK http://www.earl.org.uk/policy/index.html
You might also want to refer to a series of presentations made at the last
EARL event on Children and IT
http://www.earl.org.uk/events/presentations/001207/index.html
In addition, there's been quite a bit of discussion on the American lists
about filtering or monitoring of content, with suggestions ranging from
having a walk around the library to including in an acceptable use policy
the provision that children under a certain age must be accompanied by an
adult when using the Internet to the development of "walled gardens" (this
for the non-filtering among us).
Of specific interest might be Best Practices: How Librarians are managing
the Internet
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/bestpractices.html
Hope this helps.
Linda
"leech, helen" wrote:
>
> I'm looking for some ideas. We've got public access terminals in all our
> libraries and do not have filtering software. Recently a child of
fourteen
> was using the Internet in one of our junior libraries and was looking at
> horrific medical pictures. A member of the public has protested
strongly,
> and we are trying to think what action we should take. We are very
> reluctant to install filtering software.
>
> Our options seem to be:
> Install filtering software, across the board or on any machine children
are
> going to use
> Move PCs out of junior libraries
> Remove Internet access from junior library PCs
> Say that children (under the age of?) wanting to use the Internet have to
> have a parent present.
>
> Can anybody suggest other options, perhaps from a technological point of
> view?
> Many thanks
> Helen
________________________________________________________________________
The EARL Consortium for Public Library Networking
http://www.earl.org.uk
Linda Berube
Research and Development Co-ordinator
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Gun Court 4th Floor
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London E1W 2RS
tel: 020 7702 2020
fax:020 7702 2019
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