Filtering "education"

[Sheryl Dwinell]

Hey guys, have you not noticed Karen Schneider's postings about the TIFAP
project?  I'm one of a group of librarians from all types of libraries who
are actively engaged in testing these filters.  Karen's going to publish a
book this summer, which I suspect will contain a wealth of information for
librarians who will find themselves faced with filtering decisions.  It's
absolutely necessary that librarians, and our patrons, know exactly what
these products do and how they work.  So, if you have an interest check out
her website http://www.bluehighways.com/tifap/

It's been a real eye-opening experience.  I've been testing CYBERSitter,
which in its current state is totally inappropriate in a library setting,
but I'm holding off judgement until I receive a review copy of CS97, to be
emailed to me this week. 

Something which I haven't seen mentioned in all this is users expectations
of the Net.  Don't you think that users see the Net as something very
unlike a physical library.  They (we) expect there to be limitations on
what can be held inside the physical confines of a library, that there are
selection policies, etc. etc.  But, I think most people see the Net as sort
of the wide open spaces of information. Believing that anything and
everything can be found there (whether this is true or not).  When I talk
to 'netizens', I feeling I get is that they see it as an entirely new
environment, something which can't be easily controlled, legislated, or
restricted.  There's this perception by many that the Web is one place in
society where freedom of thought, expression, and information is absolute.
Even if we apply filters as a 'selection' tool, and manage to filter out
the nasty hardcore stuff, we'll still get a million personal home pages,
with an infinite number of views and ideas expressed that we'll have no
control over, including lots of stuff we'd never 'select' for our
libraries.  So, I don't buy the selection analogy.  Let's just be honest
about our intentions here, we want to protect children from something that
Society (the collective body where the majority opinion rules the day) has
determined is bad for them to view.
 
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