Filters/Cybersitter

[Steve Hooley!]

        Matter of fact, Henderson Library has a Playboy subscription,
donated each year by a staff member reputed to have a truly huge collection
of porno arcana going back to the last century. The mag is held at the
reserve desk and given out upon request. Our benefactor's collection is
clearly both a fascinating and historical collection of reference and
research materials as well as, ahem, a bunch of dirty books and movies.
Acquisitions lives in fear that he will someday donate it to us upon
retirement.....


At 05:28 PM 4/25/97 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Subject: Re: Filters/Cybersitter
>Author:  Ronnie Morgan <rmorgan at Harding.edu> at Internet
>Date:    4/25/97 11:06 AM
>
>
>>Librarians are trained to evaluate information sources and collections. 
>>Whose training can we trust to evaluate someone else's reasons for 
>>seeking?
>     
>For me, the issue was never about the information that is available on the 
>net.  The issue is the pornography.  Porn is not information... 
>     
>     
>     This is an understandable viewpoint from one who works at a Christian 
>     university, but it isn't applicable to a public library which is 
>     supposed to serve a plurality of interests. Porn, if we are talking 
>     about visual erotica, is clearly visual information. Porn isn't all 
>     pictures, but many find it to be "useful." 
>     
>     Now public libraries shot themselves in the foot with the general 
>     decision made years ago that porn wouldn't be collected for 
>     "collection development reasons." Come on, if public libraries can 
>     afford 30 copies of Oprah's Book of the Month (tm), they can certainly 
>     afford a subscription to a few porn mags (other than that 50s-style 
>     soft stuff like Playboy and Penthouse). Now if the libraries have a 
>     FEW porn mags, but not ALL of them, they can make this collection 
>     development argument honestly.
>     
>     Some argue that porn shouldn't be allowed in libraries because it 
>     fails to meet "community standards." This is bogus, because porn is a 
>     billion-dollar-a-year industry. Lots of people in our "communities" 
>     are clearly buying this stuff. Let's not blind ourselves to this fact. 
>     Maybe we have been "underserving" our patrons for years. ;-)
>     
>     The arguments about allowing censorware in our libraries assume that 
>     we all agree that porn on the Internet is "bad." This is a value 
>     judgment, that not everyone shares, especially the millions of people 
>     who are making the online adult content providers a "hot" business. I 
>     think it is also unfair to make the majoritarian argument that "most" 
>     of the people in your community (always a vague thing) believe that 
>     people shouldn't access porn at libraries, therefore CyberSitter must 
>     be installed "to protect us." The majority does not rule, no matter 
>     how many times we repeat that mantra.
>     
>     I've written in this forum about how political and controversial 
>     information will be censored by this software. I'm also willing to 
>     defend access to porn on library computers.
>     
>     I think librarians should get out of the role of information barriers 
>     and instead concentrate on doing what we do best, helping people find 
>     the information they need.
>     
>     Otherwise, if we put censorware on our Internet terminals, maybe we 
>     should start thinking of weeding, no, burning the romance section. Are 
>     romance novels "information?"
>     
>     Stay tuned.
>     
>     Chuck Munson
>
>

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|   Stephen S. Hooley         |  Statesboro Ga
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