Filters/Cybersitter

[Sheryl Dwinell]

>For me, the issue was never about the information that is available on the
>net.  The issue is the pornography.  Porn is not information... 

What is considered porn? You might consider a book of Jeff Koons erotic
pictures of he and his ex-wife horrible pornography, while the art library
at the University of Wisconsin may consider it an important example of
Koons oeuvre that needs to be included in their collection.  I think you
mentioned that you don't ILL 'questionable' books for your patrons.  It
would be interesting to know how you decide that.  Is a book on the gay
lifestyle considered questionable?  What if one of your students wanted to
ILL photocopies of articles from The Advocate (a gay periodical) do you
turn down this sort of request?  I'm not making a judgement, I'm curious.
It seems as though your library has a certain policy. That's fine.  Hence,
filters may work for you. The discussion is about the universal
applicability of filters.  Each library has to make a decision, but they
should be armed with enough information about how they work and if they
find that the filters are NOT effective, they can present that information
to those in their community who are clammoring for filtering of material
accessed via the Internet. 

One problem with filters is that someone else is making the decision,
unless you can alter the list of banned sites.  Look at Cybersitter. The
president of the company that produces it has a number of people on his
s**tlist, apparently.  So, they can block those sites without the buyer of
their software really knowing what is being blocked and what isn't.  Do you
want someone with their own ax to grind, for whatever reason, having an
impact on what your library has access to?  

I believe that we all have a certain level of responsibility for the
children in our midst and perhaps we need to have separate levels of
Internet access.  Most likely not so much to protect them from some
perceived harm that viewing sexual images may bring, but because there is a
perception in the community that this is bad for them and the library
shouldn't allow them to view this stuff.  Personally, I think abuse,
neglect and poverty are much more serious dangers to our children than the
possibility of the relative few in our country with access to the Net
stumbling across a site that uses the 'f' word or has a picture of a naked
babe with her nasty parts exposed.

Sheryl Dwinell
Cataloger/Database Management Librarian
Memorial Library, Marquette University
P.O. Box 3141
Milwaukee, WI 53201-3141
dwinells at vms.csd.mu.edu
414-288-3542