Electronic Brown Wrappers in special libraries

[Burt, David]

Chuck "can take a joke" Munson wrote:

> Dave ignores my  arguments about specific case of the filtering of political
>websites and decides to bring up my arguments for access to sexual
information
> on the Net.

I haven't commented on them because so far I haven't found them very
alarming.  All of the examples of blocked political sites of seen were
either a) isolated incidents, b) simple errors, or c)taken out of
context.

> I'm sure that mission statements of public libraries vary, but I think
> they are all dedicated towards serving the information needs of ALL
> community members, be they fundamentalist Christians who hate porn or
> fundamentalist Christians who like Hustler.

But we are not obligate to serve *all* there needs.


>So Dave, if I extend your argument logically, then you are saying also
>that libraries shouldn't serve the prurient needs of romance readers?
> Are you arguing that we pull all Fabio-clad bodice-rippers off the
>shelves? How about Henry Miller or Anais Nin? How about all of those
> SF books with steamy robo-sex themes?

You guys never tire of confusing soft and hard core porn, do you?  It's
a non-argument.


>Duh. Because a public library's mission is to serve the needs of the
>entire community? Maybe I'm really clueless here and public libraries
>have changed their missions so that they have to be approved by the
>mayor? I can understand why a special library doesn't buy books outside of
> its subject area. But isn't a public library supposed to be the
>gateway to ALL subjects?

No.  Some subjects are clearly out-of-bounds.


  ***********************************************************
          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