Filters and collection development

[Robert Leo Joyal]

On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, Burt, David wrote:

> If a children's dept. provides a broadcast of "Sesame
> Street", we don't say that we have now "selected" television, and must
> now let the kiddies watch "The Flintstones" as well, least we become one
> of the evil censors.
> 

Comparing the Internet and TV is really, to use a trite expression, like 
comparing apples and oranges. TV is a one-way medium, more analagous to 
print than it is to the Internet. 

> Point 2) Is filtering selection?
> No.  It's closest to non-selection.  How can you seriously argue that
> choosing to not offer access to a resource which does not exist in your
> library is censorship?  If filtering is censorship,  then so is
> non-selection.

When a librarian selects books and other printed matter for their 
collection, they are engaging in "collection development". The idea is to 
gather resources for your collection that are useful, appropriate, 
informative, authoritative, etc. Librarians try to represent the depth 
and breadth of knowledge and opinion in a given subject area by choosing 
material that balances their collection, representing various sides of 
issues etc, etc... need I go on. (yada yada yada). The point I'm trying 
to make is that a librarian builds a collection by ADDING resources to 
it, not by removing or filtering resources from it.

When a library chooses to make the Internet available, one might say, 
logically, that the entire Internet has been selected for inclusion in 
that library's collection. When the library blocks or filters that 
access, it is in fact selecting, or rather, removing resources from its 
collection. Also, if a library is using Cyber Patrol or some 
such commercial software, it is allowing that software company to impose 
its selection criteria, and all the ulterior motives that may come with 
it, on the library's patrons. 

> 
> Point 3) The "economic" argument.
> The opportunity cost of one person looking at porno is that
> someone else can't do their homework, or look up a sports statistic.
> What you need to think about is what's an appropriate use of scarce
> resources.

What if the person looking at porno on the internet is doing so for 
legitimate research? This is not at all improbable. Pornography is as 
much an unfortunate aspect of our society as professional sports are. We 
can call pornography "inappropriate" until the cows come home, but we 
won't make it go away. And as long as its here, there's a chance that a 
Women's Studies major may do a paper on it someday. What better place to 
research it than the Internet (aside from Times Square, of course). 

 
> You also don't address the issue of appropriateness.  Economics isn't
> the only reason we don't collect everything in our libraries.  Public
> libraries don't carry Hustler or Deep Throat.  This isn't because of
> economics, it's because it isn't considered appropriate.

Please define the word "appropriate".

Robert Joyal
bf683 at freenet.buffalo.edu
> 
> Keep 'em coming,
> 
> David
> 
> 
>   ***********************************************************
>           David Burt, Information Technology Librarian 
>           The Lake Oswego Public Library 
>           706 Fourth Street, Lake Oswego, OR 97034
>           URL:          http://www.ci.oswego.or.us/library/library.htm
>           Phone:     (503) 635-0392 
>           Fax:           (503) 635-4171 
>           E-mail:      dburt at ci.oswego.or.us
>                  
>