Cyber Patrol & Disinformation: was Re: Filtering "edu

[Burt, David]

 ----------
From: Burt, David
To: CMUNSON at aaas.org
Subject: RE: Re[2]: Cyber Patrol & Disinformation: was Re: Filtering
"edu
Date: Wednesday, June 11, 1997 1:34PM

Chuck "Blocked by CyberPatrol" Munson wrote:

    > Sure, a library may not "choose" to block that category, but what
if
     >someone does the "choosing" for them? Take the recent case of
Boston,
     >where the mayor decreed that CyberPatrol be installed in the
public
     >libraries. I'm curious as to how the librarians reacted to that
     >mandate. Did the mayor stipulate which filters were to be
"enabled?"
     >Did the librarians enable all of the filters, just to be safe?

     I remember seeing a post, maybe it wasn't on this list, from
someone about how Boston decides which categories to block.  I recall
that they have some  committee. I remember reading that when Austin
first installed CyberPatrol, they accidently put all the categories on,
and got a passel of complaints from patrons.  They then, I believe,
switched to only the smut categories, but they still have to do some
unblocking.  See the article "To filter or not to filter" in this
month's American Libraries.

I didn't approve of the Boston situation, not because of the filtering
but because the mayor imposed it.  Government agencies should not be
deciding what gets blocked, library administrators should.  At least
there's *something* we agree on!

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