Pull the plug -- libraries aren't common carriers

[Martin Cohen]

I think Nick Arnett summarizes the issues well. His recommendations 
accord well with our practice. When we began creating our library Web 
service in mid-1993, we knew we wanted a WWW collection that would, as 
Nick puts it "begin small" and grow in a manner appropriate to the 
community of users we serve (defined in this case as our students and 
faculty). We see our goal as highlighting, organizing, and facilitating 
access to those WWW resources consistent with the mission of the Library 
and the College.

However, I have noted from the usage logs of our server that a large
fraction of users go immediately to global search engines and meta-sites
(e.g. Yahoo) rather than the subject-specific, tailored collections we
have organized. I think this is in part a result of their perception that 
our Web site provides local information (i.e. about the College and the 
Library) while they are interested in entertainment or research or the 
experience of surfing the Web. And in major part because we are relying 
on a commercially produced browser (Netscape) that embodies its own 
agenda, different from ours -- i.e. attracting users to its own 
advertising (Microsoft's Explorer is even more egregious). We accepted 
the "free" software. We pay for it in the subordination of our mission to 
corporation's commercial goals.

The problem is very much as Nick has characterized it. If we make 
available machinery whose configuration we do not control we are in 
danger of reducing ourselves to a common carrier. 

However, the problem is gnarly. The range of sites we would exclude (or 
not select) if we were to configure our Web service as we would configure 
a collection development profile would be far wider than the 
pornography-type sites on which discussion is focussed. Many commercial 
sites might also be excluded. We don't subscribe to Hustler, but neither 
do we subscribe to Cosmopolitan, National Enquirer, Guns & Ammo, or a 
whole range of "supermarket" publications. 

On the other hand, we do subscribe to a large number of publications with
small press runs: specialized academic journals, small press poetry and
fiction books and journals, etc. The WWW equivalent of these are sites
maintained by individuals or small groups of volunteers devoted to
"unprofitable" subjects. Our highlighting of these is based on our mission 
as an educational institution, not on their popularity. 

If library collections are merely a cross section of the publishing 
world, justified by providing a collective purchasing service (through 
tax or tuition dollars), then they have missed their mission. 

Martin J. Cohen                                 mcohen at stmarys-ca.edu
Media Services and Library Systems              voice: (510) 631-4229
Saint Mary's College of California              fax:   (510) 376-6097
Moraga, CA 94575                                ars longa vita brevis

On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, Nick Arnett wrote:

> The library censorship discussion assumes that because a personal computer
> connected to the Internet can retrieve any resource without incremental
> cost, any restriction of that ability constitutes censorship.  This is
> contrary to the value proposition of the library.  Offering unlimited
> Internet access to the public is inappropriate for libraries and devalues
> their role to that of a common carrier, rather than an institution of
> intellectual value that has related technical skills.  I'm going to suggest
> that libraries pull the plug on the Internet until there is a technical
> solution that allows them to apply their intellectual skills, which is their
> primary value to the community.  Librarians who oppose censorship have
> chosen the wrong enemy; they should oppose the implicit view of the
> librarian as mere technician.
> 
> If physical resources (books, videos, etc.) were free, would the patrons be
> allowed to choose which books were obtained?  Is every book donated to a
> library available on a shelf?  Do libraries keep every book forever.  No,
> that would be impractical, because of the remaining the costs of organizing,
> storing and retrieving the resources.  The Internet only addresses storage
> and retrieval technologies for digital resources; it has done little for the
> organizational problem.  More correctly, the Internet creates myriad
> opportunities for organizing resources.
> 
> "Censorship" is the negative view of the primary value libraries offer --
> organization of information resources so that they can be found when wanted,
> and so that people can browse and explore, finding useful and valuable
> resources serendipitiously, instead of completely randomly.  Viewing the
> present problem as censorship devalues librarians to mere enablers of
> storage and retrieval, technicians who know how to efficiently put things
> away and get them back.  Viewed in this narrow-minded way, libraries are
> just common carriers of the Internet.  Censorship by common carriers is
> utterly wrong; for example, telephone companies are free of liability for
> the harm that might be done by information that crosses their wires.  This
> is fundamental to free speech; courts have seen the chilling effect that
> would result otherwise.  But this argument is inappropriate to libraries.
> 
> The question isn't whether or not libraries should provide unlimited access
> to the Internet, it is what should be included in the library's virtual
> collections, in which Internet resources are organized so that they can be
> used effectively by patrons.  Resources that aren't thus organized aren't
> part of the library and there is no justification for the library to provide
> access to them.  The patrons who ask why Hustler isn't available shouldn't
> be told, "It isn't appropriate," they should be told, "We haven't cataloged
> it yet, we're still working on environmental information (or whatever else
> is on the table)."  If the patrons are unhappy with that, let them lobby the
> library funders to change the priorities.
> 
> The library's Internet collection is something that should start small and
> grow; not as a wide-open connection that needs to be pruned, either for
> reasons of organization or morals.
> 
> This implies that until technology supports virtual collections, the plug
> should be pulled on library Internet collections.  Although that might be
> frustrating to those in the community who have no other access, nothing
> would more clearly demonstrate to the public that libraries and librarians
> are more that just technicians.
> 
> Nick Arnett
> 
> ---------------------------------------
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> 
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