Library Lawsuit

[Michael Aldrich]

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Bob Cherry wrote:

> At 03:56 PM 6/1/98 -0700, John Riffe wrote:
> >Try and tell that to a patron who is irate because their child can see the
> >"filth and pornography" on the Internet at the library. I doubt very
> >seriously if that parent is going to believe you because hear about
> >all the different filtering software that is available and want their
> >local library to install it.
> 
> Ah, the files and trash didn't just pop up in front of the child.  The
> thing to always keep in mind is that the child had to:
>   1.  Search it out
>   2.  Explicitly download it.
> 
> When did actions of people become other peoples responsibility.  This
> should be addressed as a matter of decipline between the patron and
> their child -- not the libraries.
>
> Bob Cherry
> Internet Network Consultant
> 

And this of course is the $64,000 question. Why should libraries be doing
the jobs of parents? As a parent myself, I sure don't want other people
deciding what's best for my children.

This whole debate brings to mind a sad article I read in the New Orleans
Times-Picayune in March of 1997. A women who was very pro-filtering in
libraries said that she even had to lock her home computer when she was
away so her teenage son couldn't go online and get pornography. If she
can't control or trust her own son in their own home, what right does she
have to expect that a public institution would be able to? Technology
cannot replace parenting, and that seems to me to be what the pro-filter
group is saying: I don't trust my children, so please soothe my conscience
by not allowing them the freedom to choose. Of course, they are also
telling everybody else what THEIR children can or cannot do, and that is
highly offensive and wrong.

Michael Aldrich
Government Documents Librarian
State University of West Georgia