Electronic Brown Wrappers

[Jacques Presseault]

Burt, David wrote:
> 
> Jan Heckman wrote,
> >If a reference librarian  could provide the address of a highly
> >controversial goup (NAMBLA,, if that's the right acroynm), but not an
> >ILL document, would/should you?
> 
> Sounds like your confusing providing information about a resource
> with providing the resource itself, two different things.
> 
> >Violence and the acceptance of same as an answer or response to human
> >conditions has caused much more grief than pornography.  Should the
> >(fictional titles) "The History of War", "Serial Killers of the 20th
> >Century",  "The Art of Boxing", etc. and all internet access to same
> >be restricted?  Do the parents who object to sexual material equally
> >object to violent material?
> 
> Your making an ivalid comparison.  What I'm proposing is making
> Internet access more like  a public library collection.

I beg to differ: Internet access is not so much providing ressources
("like  a public library collection.") as providing access to ressources
over which the library has no control. 

The analogy would be providing a public telephone, teaching new users
how to dial up, suggesting good numbers and letting them be.

Personnaly, I would not like to be required to eavesdrop simply because
some of them might decide to use it to access adult or other services.
As long as they conduct their business in a non disruptive manner, the
use they put it to is their choice and their responsibility.

If they engage in disruptive behaviour (again using the phone analogy:
shouting, making prank calls, harassing peoples, inflicting their
preferences on others, ect) or illegal activities (fraud, scam, etc),
then it is legitimate to deny them access.

> 
> >The whole impact of the internet means maybe material not collected in the
> past
> >can now be accessed.
> 
> This is really the whole can of worms, isn't it?  Obviously, we disagree
> on this.
> 
>   ***********************************************************
>           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) 675-2537
>           Fax:           (503) 635-4171
>           E-mail:      dburt at ci.oswego.or.us
> 

-- 
Jacques Presseault		jacques at olsn.on.ca
Ontario Library Service - North (Sudbury)
http://www.library.on.ca/index.html
Tel.:	(705) 675-6433	Fax:	(705) 671-2441