Big Changes to Internet Policies Site

[Burt, David]

In response to requests by librarians and the increased interest in
public library Internet policies, I've made some big changes to the
policy site (http://www.ci.oswego.or.us/library/poli.htm):

1) The total number of policies is now 116

2) The policies are now organized in 4 ways:
alphabetical by city
by state
by size of population served (under 100K, 100-499K, over 499K)
by date written (1995, 1996, 1997).

3) There are now a total of 10 tables of statistical data.  Summary data
tables are available in both Word 6.0 and HTML, detailed data tables are
available in both Excel 5.0 and HTML:

	Table 1: Summary data for all policies
	Table 2: Summary data for  policies by date(95,96,97)
	Table 3: Summary data for policies by size (sm, med, lg)
	Table 4: Detailed data for all policies
	Table 5: Detailed data for small libraries
	Table 6: Detailed data for medium libraries
	Table 7: Detailed data for large libraries
	Table 8: Detailed data for 1995 policies
	Table 9: Detailed data for 1996 policies
	Table 10: Detailed data for 1997 policies

4) Links to other collections of Internet access policies are now
included.

Some interesting observations:

The total number of libraries which report that they filter is 3.  I
know that several libraries on my site do filter, but don't say it on
their policies.  I only report what libraries *say* they do in their
policies, not what they actually do.

The total number of libraries which have rules against viewing
"inappropriate" or "pornographic" materials continues to increase, and
is now at 19% overall.
This was 8% for policies written in 1995, 25% in 1996, and 25% for
policies written in 1997.

The total number of libraries with age restrictions continues to rise.
Overall, 19% require parental consent, and 8% only allow use when
accompanied by a parent.  A few libraries have *both* of these policies,
usually having "no unaccompanied use" for young children, and "parental
consent" for older children.  Subtracting duplication, the total number
of libraries with age restrictions is 23%.  The combined "age
restrictions" total, less duplication for 1995 policies was 25%, for
1996 19%, and for 1997, a striking 39%.

What seems clear is that public libraries are tightening up restrictions
on Internet access.

David

 ***********************************************************
          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) 635-0392 
          Fax:           (503) 635-4171 
          E-mail:      dburt at ci.oswego.or.us