Article V of the ALA Library Bill of Rights states “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” Under the First Amendment of Freedom of Speech, this article had the righteous standing in the eyes of the public. But, the time has changed and there came the information revolutionary technology called “internet”. Before the time of internet, when parents sent their children to the library, they were assured that their children would be safe and unharmed. Even without the supervision of the parents, the library was assumed to be reasonably safe and educational place for the children to hang out.
But as the technology advanced, the confusion and concern was raised whether the library was still safe for the children. The legislation made some regulations such as Children’s Internet Protection Act(2003), and Deleting Online Predators Act(2006), concerning the children’s use of internet in the public libraries.
But ALA disagrees with the people who assert that the public libraries need filters for the internet to protect children from accessing obscene websites. ALA argues that even the children need uncensored information to pursue their intellectual freedom. ALA’s arguments are; filters don’t work because they either overblock or underblock; CIPA is unconstitutional because it blocks legal information; libraries shouldn’t have to choose to censorship to get funding; CIPA abolishes local decision-making, since most library funding is local and libraries are locally governed. (Norman Oder, 2002)
Its adversaries are the people who argue that the public libraries which are funded publicly should listen to what their customers want for their institution and that they want filters installed for the computers in the public libraries. They want to protect their children from the obscenities of life until they are mature enough to distinguish right from wrong and decent from indecent behavior. (Gary Deane, 2004) They make it a point that they want protected environment for their children from life’s obscenities and that they want their institution which is funded by tax-payers to acknowledge their sponsers' need.
Social evolution won’t catch up with technological evolution any time soon, (Gary Deane, 2004) and for now the libraries should consider what would serve better for their patrons’ interest.
References
1. Colaric, Susan (Spring 2003) Children, Public Libraries, and the Internet: Is It Censorship or Good Service North Carolina Libraries (Online) 61 no. 1
2. Deane, Gary (Winter 2004) Public Libraries, Pornography, and the Damage Done: A Case Study Library Administration & Management 18 no. 1 8-13
3. Oder, Norman (May 2002) CIPA Trial Ends with Judicial Skepticism about Overblocking Library Journal 127 no. 8 16, 22
4. Pike, George H. (Jl/Aug 2006) MySpace.com and Library Filters Information Today 23 no. 7 15, 19
5. Wolf, Sara (N/D 2008) Coping with Mandated Restriction on Intellectual Freedom in K-12 Schools Library Media Connection 27 no. 3 10-12
7 comments:
You did a good job touching on both sides of this debate. Those trying to promote Intellectual freedom are not trying to traumatize kids. And those promoting filters are not trying to impose "Draconian governmental controls over our libraries." (Jost, 2001) This is a real issue, and not just for parents.
I found this quote from last week's reading thought-provoking, "Public libraries don't stock Hustler next to House & Garden in their magazine section, so why should they offer Hustler.com? They shouldn't."(Jost, 2001)There must be some place to meet in the middle, but the debate does not seem near resolution.
Jost, K. (2001). Libraries and the Internet. CQ Researcher .
"Its adversaries are the people who argue that the public libraries which are funded publicly should listen to what their customers want for their institution and that they want filters installed for the computers in the public libraries."
This is a fair argument, depending on how customer opinion is determined. So often, the loudest voice is considered the majority. The main problem is determining the opinion of a cross-section of the community. This could be conducted by a community survey. Public libraries are funded by the people and, therefore, the community should have a voice, but too often (and we've all seen it in a variety of ways) the person who is outraged or threatens a lawsuit is the one who ultimately decides.
I disagree that any community should have a say in whether or not to decide on this topic. Even though libraries are generally funded by the community, censorship is a legal matter. This is no doubt a subject that will continue to be sensitive, but I personally believe that any censoring must be done by the parent and not by the library.
(As a parent I realize that children are going to get information that we would rather they not have no matter what, and we just need to deal with it as it happens instead of hoping to cut off resources from any direction we can, although I understand the feeling of wanting to!)
I agree with Heather in that, in principle, the public shouldn't decide the issue. We all know how public opinion can change with the wind. However, we also all know that in practice libraries don't operate in a vacuum. So the pressures of public scrutiny, the threatened loss of funding (local and/or funding), the fear of lawsuits, the genuine desire to do no harm, and a myriad of other forces come in to play to shape policy. Policy is what it is. It's what we as an institution can live with in this community. Aligning policy with principle can be a tricky endeavor, never more so than on this issue.
Chippewa River District Library has recently installed filtering software on its computers, but they have it set up that if you are over 18, they will turn it off for you, but only if you're using computers in certain areas, and they have to have privacy screens on them. You can read about it here: http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2009/04/16/life/srv0000005129549.txt
But like Mike said, a lot of it depends on the community itself, and prior to this, a man had been using a library computer to download internet porn: http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2009/04/14/news/doc49e39b1b34a9a785347699.txt
And while this filtering may give some peace of mind, I don't think it would have stopped him...
“Social evolution won’t catch up with technological evolution any time soon, (Gary Deane, 2004) and for now the libraries should consider what would serve better for their patrons’ interest.”
This is true! But what is frustrating is that in an attempt to ‘protect’ youth we make it difficult to learn. The filters in the school libraries and classrooms in my district prevent us from using sites like www.youtube.com I can completely understand why this site is banned; it clearly has inappropriate things posted. However there are also things available of an educational nature you simply cannot find anywhere else.
Example: I am currently hatching button quail eggs in my classroom. There are no commercially available video’s to show my students. Check out this link… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-4O2jbqSDA this film is actually from a library! There are a whole bunch of other clips I can show my students. All I have to do is download them to my home computer and burn a disc. But that requires a computer, internet connection and ability to burn a DVD at home. It also means you cannot look something up that answers a student’s question on the spur of the moment.
Michigan's schizophrenic approach to the CIPA is less than philosophically sound, but it is pragmatic. Honestly, this is one where I let the rules be the rules, as director, and am glad I don't make these decisions. We filter our internet at the absolute minimum allowed and still get state aid, and in three years I've never had anyone either assert their constitutional right to pornography, nor complain that I'm not filtering enough. I know that I'm lucky... other libraries have problems. Usually when I attend training on CIPA, they make it clear that librarians should treat offensive material as sexual harassment, so as not to create a 1st amendment violation. I suppose it works... sexual harassment can handle lots more shades of context than censorship issues, allowing a ruling to have a fairly limited blast-radius when it comes to 1st amendment rights.
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