[WEB4LIB] Re: Filtering activist claims libraries ignoring FOI

[James Klock]

>http://www.freedomforum.org/press/1999/4/6burt.asp

Which suggests that the requests were for "records showing 'any patron and
staff complaints about patrons accessing inappropriate material on public
Internet terminals.'"

While the public library in which I am employed did not (to my knowledge)
receive an FOI request, I would like to point out that our very open
Internet Access Policy
<http://www.epl.org/library/internet-access-policy.html>, combined with our
strong measures to prevent ANY patron or staff member from monitoring the
Internet-related activity of any patron make it very unlikely that any such
complaints. 

In short, I believe that our policy of allowing unrestricted access and
ensuring privacy, as implemented, has been effective in preventing patron
and staff complaints, and I wholly advocate similar measures in other
public library's located in communities whose standards also respect
unrestricted access and individual privacy.  I'm happy to share details of
our Internet Access Workstation implementation with any who care to know it.

Thus Spoke Filtering Facts...
>  I asked in my request that names be removed.  No names,
>address, etc., no privacy issue.  End of story.  Are you arguing that if a
>library doesn't like the "sound bites" that might be produced by the release
>of record they should fight it out in court?

Depending on state and local statute, simply removing names may not be
sufficient to indemnify the library from violation of specific statutory or
common law.  Consulting council was very probably a prudent measure.

Also, according to my reading of the FOIA (and as backed up by the ACLU),
the FOIA applies only to Federal government agencies, no to State or local
government agencies.  I don't know about the libraries from which you
requested information, but my employer is a department of the municipal
City of Evanston, Illinois and as such is a local gov agency.

I'm no legal scholar, mind you...

James