parental permission for juvenile use of Internet (& authentication)

[James Cayz]

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Lee, Hovey wrote:
>Hi,
>If your public library requires parental permission for juvenile use of
>Internet, we'd like to hear from you.
[. . .]
>Our question is whether seeking parental permission would actually help
>to alleviate the burden on our library staff and make the parents more
>aware of their children's use of Internet in the library. At present, we
>are hoping not to use any filtering programs to limit access.
AND
From: Isabel  Danforth <danforth at tiac.net>
>We and other libraries in this area will have Netscape available from the
>same PC's that run our OPAC.  How do you monitor who is using those
>terminals?  Does staff stand around and card everyone?


Hi All,

	The answers to the above for the public libraries in the State of
Delaware is "yes" (qualified) and "automatically". 

	Each system has some form of parental control, and explain /
implement it differently.  It varies from the parent having to ask to turn
off access up to having to check a yes or no box on the form.  In some
systems, the default is "provide access", in other systems, there is no
default (the parent must chose & sign).  Implementation is a local issue.

	In the event of a block being requested, the juvenile's patron
record is indicated as such, and then an state-wide automatic barcode
authentication process recognizes this, and disallows access from any
terminal, dialup, PC. And yes, that means if the person is blocked in one
library system, they are blocked no matter what library they go into
(given that the subsequent libraries all use the original system's
barcode, which is quickly catching on).

	Right now, this is only available using lynx, but I am actively
working on a GUI implementation of this same authentication schema.

	As to the political ramifications.... I tend not to speak of
those, since I don't actually work in "the trenches", I'm just the
webmaster and programmer of all this.  However, a reduction of liability
upon the libraries and back onto the parents is _exactly_ the reason I did
all this.  Whether or not it has worked, I can't say.  I can say we've had
a very low amount of abuse and no major blow-ups in 4 years, but then
again, GUIs haven't rolled out yet, either.  I hope that a transition from
lynx to GUI will "ease in", and people won't see the steps as they do when
you go from nothing to a GUI overnight.

	I hope this helps.

	James Cayz

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