filtering

[Millard Johnson]

The debate on filtering software suffers from: A) loaded
hotbutton issues and words, and B) misunderstanding of the
fundamental issue involved.

Lets assume that we all support the first amendment; that
we would all defend the rights of a porno video store to
exist.  But lets focus on computer games instead of porn.
The same theoretical issue is in question.
Lots of people want computer games but do not have computers
at home.  Should the library provide public access to
computer games?  The fundamental issues are: what is a
library and what constitutes excellence in library service?

The perfect library is not necessarily the library with
every bit of information ever produced.  The perfect library
is one that has what its patrons need, unpolluted by "noise"
information.  A medical library is not better if it includes
fiction - it is worse.  Very few libraries are better if
they include faked research.  It is theoretically possible
that excluding video games is making a library better -
depending on how one defines the population intended to
be served.  That is: it is not NECESSARILY censorship to
to define a library as not in competition with a coffee
shop, or a video arcade or a pornographic video store.  It
is not NECESSARILY censorship to say that those needs, 
however real, are not the needs that this thing we call
a library is intended to serve.

Library professionals have a function.  It is to take the
total mass of information and massage it so the user gets
what he needs and does not get what he does not need.  Part
of this is organization, but part of it is selection.  To
simply "turn on the Internet" is to fail to exercise a
professional responsibility to one's clients.  Wonderful
technology without any professional oversight - at least
no PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIAN oversight.  Deploying filtering
software is a poor, poor substitute for true professional
action, but if librarians will not exercise professional 
responsibility who can criticize the politician for 
doing something - however crude.

I do not worry about porn.  I worry about authenticity, 
quality, bias, reliability.  Every generation is born
ignorant.  Libraries have been the memory of our species.  How
do we know our history?  Because publishers and libraries
have exercised professional responsibility.  We have
collected the best and most accurate from all points of
view.  We have weeded and rejected biased advertising,
scams, personal aggrandizement, etc.  Anyone can publish
on the Internet and everything looks equally authoritative.
How will the next generation know the truth if libraries
are the dumping ground for everything anyone wants to put
on the net?
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Millard F. Johnson zendog at incolsa.palni.edu
"I would rather risk failure than achieve it without risk"
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