Boston situation -Reply

[Millard Johnson]

See comments below:
See comments below:

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From:  Dan Lester[SMTP:DLESTER at bsu.idbsu.edu]
Sent:  Tuesday, February 25, 1997 8:24 PM
To:  zendog at incolsa.palni.edu; web4lib at library.berkeley.edu
Subject:  RE: Boston situation -Reply

>>> 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?
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Point taken, but point is only partially relevant.  

First,  it is impossible for an individual or committee to review
all the internet sites.  There are several thousand being
added per DAY, to say nothing of innumerable pages being
added to existing sites.  
***********
True.  But it is also for any library to catalog all of the books.
We do it, however, because we think it must be done.
Cyber hound and OCLC's NetFirst are nothing more than
collections of quality Internet sites.  OCLC has offered to work
with libraries to pool our talent to put sites in NetFirst.  The way
we pool our talent to catalog books.  Why not take them up 
on it?  Better yet. Lets grant a trademarked symbol to sites
that meet some standards of quality, reliability and accuracy
set by our profession.  Then we put a positive filter on our
access - we select rather than censor.  If it is not easy, so
what.  That's why we get the big bucks.

This is clearly doable, and I would argue, our responsibility.
  MJ