Boston situation -Reply

[Laura Quilter]

> >>> Millard Johnson <zendog at incolsa.palni.edu> 02/25/97
> 03:47pm >>>
> If a truck pulled up to the back of your library and offered to
> give you tons of books free but some of them were ads,
> some self promotion and fabrications, and others
> pornography, would you take them in?
> Why would we fight for acceptance on the Internet of what we
> would not accept in print?
> -------------------------------------------

> ===================================
> The solution is for librarians to review net resources for the
> same  kind of quality control that they exercise for over print
> material.  If we choose not to accept a professional
> responsibility for selecting net materials, why are we
> surprised when someone imposes some external standard
> on us?

<RANT>

It is my understanding that we weed collections and impose collection
development decisions because we have finite shelf space and finite
resources with which to purchase materials.  We (librarians) do not make
decisions solely on whether we think the item is scientifically accurate,
historically valuable, or any other single criteria of worthiness,
including "is it obscene?" or "will it offend the Christian Coalition?" We
apply these selection, collection development, and weeding criteria to
determine which material we acquire and keep BECAUSE of resource
limitations.  If we had TRULY INFINITE resources to store, catalog, and
organize information, I think we would do it.

The Internet is a network of resources which we do not have to maintain,
and therefore our traditional rationale for applying our "standards" 
(which, as with community decency standards, differ from library to
library) do not really apply.

WE ALREADY DO THIS IN PRINT.  Although we cannot purchase and maintain all
materials now in print, we already make available the opportunity for
patrons to acquire things our libraries cannot provide for them via
InterLibrary Loan, phone books, and directories of bookstores.  This is a
seeming contradiction to the philosophy of providing "only what's quality"
and in fact, reflects our DEEPER ideology, which is: provide information
and the skill-tools to access that information.  If we only provided what
we decided was worthy of keeping, we would only keep our library catalogs
- no indexes for journals to which we don't subscribe, no access to union
catalogs, etc. 

The Internet is a huge, disorganized body of information, and like most of
our libraries of books and journals, contains 90% crap (Sturgeon's law).
(Journals have advertisements in them, too, and many popular magazines
advertise pornography and have ads that themselves constitute
pornography.)  The difference between our libraries of books and our
access to the Internet is this: we don't HAVE to censor our access to the
Internet because of resource constraints.  It is now clear: if we censor
it is because we want to censor, or we do so for political reasons, not
because we have to make decisions based on scarcity of resources. 

I would argue AGAINST Internet censorship for all the reasons that others
have listed: it is impractical; it will result in censorship of political,
health, etc., information; it is immoral; other laws cover aggressive
behavior; and other institutions enforce those laws - but I would also
argue that in the case of the Internet, MORE THAN ANY FORMAT WITH WHICH WE
HAVE DEALT IN THE PAST, censorship violates a basic tenet of
librarianship: provision of access to information. 

Numerous patrons in numerous libraries throughout time have argued that
weeding is censorship.  They're right, of course, and we always tell them: 
we get rid of obsolete material, material we can't store, etc.  But we
don't have to do that with the Internet.  A serious researcher ought to be
able to find her way to obsolete and obscene material; a casual surfer can
be taught to find what they need and the critical thinking tools to
evaluate the quality of the information.  We already have to teach the
critical thinking skills: We're kidding ourselves if we assert that
inclusion in a library is a guarantee of quality.  Collection development
librarians are not the experts in the fields they collect that
practitioners are, and one wouldn't trust a practitioner to overcome their
own biases anyway.  There is no "quality only" library that exists
anywhere.

The Philly Appellate Court (hope I got that one right) correctly
overturned the Communications Decency Act, NOT accepting the arguments of
the Dept of Justice that the Internet was broadcasting pornography to
hapless users.  If a patron is pulling up porn in the library, then that's
an indication that one of your patrons wants porn.  If another patron
pulls up a site on breast health (censored by a commercial service
provider), then by god, they should be allowed to view it.  If a third
patron wants the site of the National Organization for Women
(http://www.now.org/), some netnanny software would want to prevent it. 
Is your library going to actively sponsor this attempt at political
censorship?

If AOL or CompuServe or whatever service most people in your community use
elects to purchase SurfWatch software, which censors health information,
political sites, and any site that pisses them off, where will the people
in your community turn to for that access? Only the public library.  If
the public library does not FIGHT to provide unrestricted access to the
Internet, who will?

</RANT>

<RATIONAL AFTERTHOUGHT>

This is not to say that we shouldn't apply selection criteria in other
situations, for instance, the creation of pathfinders or quick reference
guides.  I think we SHOULD.

</RATIONAL AFTERTHOUGHT>

Laura M. Quilter   /   lauramd at uic.edu
Electronic Services Librarian
University of Illinois at Chicago
http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be 
in your revolution."  -- Emma Goldman