More on Web censorship in libraries

[Leah Krevit]

At 09:25 AM 3/17/97 -0800, Nick Arnett wrote:

>The San Jose Mercury News had a roundtable discussion on this topic
>("Families, Libraries and the Internet) in the Sunday Perspectives section.

>One of the more interesting bits in the discussion printed in the paper was
>that an assistant county counsel (and parent), Ann Ravel, seemed to be
>saying that there is absolutely no question that it would be
>unconstitutional for U.S. public libraries to censor based on content.
>
>Ravel: "The role of the schools is to protect children; they're in loco
>parentis.  Public libraries are the open marketplace of ideas."

And school libraries (HE, graduate, medical, whatever...) would
fall where???

This issue does not arise in my particular environment (yet!), but
it seems critical that we make clear exactly what we will or will
not do about it...a well-defined policy goes a long way to keeping
people both informed and prepared.






Leah Krevit, MLIS
Director, Information Resources
Dental Branch
University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center
P. O. Box 20068
Houston TX 77225-0068
713.500.4095/713.500.4100 fax
lkrevit at bite.db.uth.tmc.edu