Hustler Magazine Challenge, Week 2

[DEIRDRE F. WOODWARD]

The following is a long statement about David Burt's challenge which ultimately
ends with the conclusion that his challenge is not only wrong, it is
potentially damaging to libraries everywhere, and Burt has done his profession
and the filtering debate a grave disservice by offering the challenge.

I've been following Burt's comments for months, and have seen his Internet 
persona develop from a mean-spirited devil's advocate into the current
version--a firmly entrenched anti-pornography filterer.  As far as I can tell,
he didn't start there, he ended up there after waging many senseless battles 
with anyone who would respond to him.  After watching him debate, retract,
reappear on the other side, deride, attack, and admit that he argues for the
sake of arguing, I can't truly believe that his stake in the filtering debate
is anything but another gesture for attention.

Why do I care?  Because Burt is now being quoted by the media, and is offering 
an inflammatory challenge which in it's sexual nature is prime meat for
newsstands.  Moveover, his challenge does serious damage to the intellectual
debate of filtering in libraries.  If no one accepts this challenge, Burt will 
throw this up into the face of anyone who advocates an anti-filtering stance.  
If someone does accept this challenge, they face a media blitz which has the 
potential to ruin their career.  

What I feel begs to be pointed out in Burt's challenge is that the filtering 
debate is about censorship, not selection.  While the two are obviously close 
bedfellows, censorship smacks of dictatorship while selection is a tool of 
democracy.  Certainly for the most part it reduces down to terminology but as
should be common knowledge by now, language is the entity which determines our
world,  If we think in terms of censorship, we are thinking in terms of
control and limit.  If we think in terms of selection we are thinking in terms
of democratic allocation and the most access for the most people.

So what is filtering?  Censorship or selection?  Well, software which actively
represses Internet sites is clearly a censor.  Libraries who chose that type of
software are offering access to a technology--the Internet--while controling
and limiting patron's ability to use that technology.
  
On the other hand, software which allows librarians to plug in addresses to 
certain sites while not allowing free access to the Internet is clearly 
selection.  Libraries who chose that type of software are offering access to
selected information from the Internet, but not access to the Internet itself.  
                                                                 
A comparable analogy would be the Hot Picks catalog.  Censorship would be
offering access to the Hot Picks catalog but saying this book and that book are
off limits.  Selection is saying we are going to buy these 10 books from Hot 
Picks, and if you want a different book, we'll Interlibrary Loan it to you.

A nuance exists between censorship and selection, a subtle yet important 
difference which allows democracy to stay one step ahead of dictatorship.  
David Burt's challenge fails utterly to recognize this difference.  His 
challenge acts on the supposition that libraries would purchase Hustler if 
they had the money to cover the subscription and processing costs.  But the 
filtering debate is not about whether or not we want Hustler in our
libraries.  The filtering debate is whether or not libraries want to support 
a policy which actively limits patron access to available information.

In offering this challenge, Burt has muddled the issues by conflating
Hustler magazine with democratic action. If he truly wants to prove his point
then he ought to offer libraries *all* the money in the world to purchase *all*
the information in the world, and only then if they refuse to purchase Hustler
will they be active censors.

Deirdre