[Web4lib] questions about CIPA

[Daniel Weltsch]

Hello all. This is my first post on this forum.
 
I am a first semester library school student writing a paper about CIPA and internet filtering. I've done some preliminary  research, and now I'm trying to get a feel for what consensus, if any, there is about how public libraies are dealing with it. A 2002 Florida State University survey I saw recently says only 22.4% of public libraries are receiving discounted e-rate funding for internet service, so I guess for a large majority of public libraries CIPA is a non-issue. I'm having a hard time finding recent statistics.

Does anyone have any statistics, or "war stories," or general impressions to share with me regarding CIPA  or web filters?  I know about the 2002 & 2003 legal battles; I'm more intersted in the day-to-day approaches/problems/solutions, including the issue of ease-of-disabling the filters when full web access is needed. The filtering software products I've noticed mentioned are 8E6 and  a something called Bess from N2H2. Do they work well? Are there others that are preferred?


A report I've seen discusses the mandate that all computers in public libraries , not just the public access computers, must be filtered...is this correct? ...or perhaps this is just a function of the filtering happening at the server or firewall level. I'm still trying to figure out how the logistics of the filters work.

Again, I'm new to the field, and I've got plenty of questions, but would appreciate any sort of feed-back. You can write me off-list at danweltsch at yahoo.com with responses, or post to the forum if you think this is of interest to others.

Thanks very much.




 
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