LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

For those of you spending your workdays posting videos of the cat to YouTube or trading messages with friends on Facebook, you’d better start cultivating another pastime.

Web filtering software is moving to the cloud — that all-knowing, pervasive, sometimes unreliable cluster of computers in the digital ether — and it’s going to watch your every move online and tattle to your boss.

Zscaler, a Santa Clara start-up created by serial security entrepreneur Jay Chaudhry, is publicly unveiling itself Monday. Over the last decade, Mr. Chaudhry has founded such companies as AirDefense (sold to Motorola), CipherTrust (sold to Secure Computing), SecureIt (sold to VeriSign) and CoreHarbor (sold to USinterworking.) That makes him kind of like the Brett Favre of security entrepreneurs –- he keeps coming back.

Zscaler’s idea is to relieve companies of the tiresome and costly burden of managing Web filtering and security on their own servers. Instead, the cloud-based service, which is rented to companies by the month, acts like a Web proxy, intercepting all incoming and outbound HTTP traffic from employees and scrubbing it for malware and online activity that violates company policy.

Full story in the NYT

Tina Gasperson reviews Glubble, a free proprietary Firefox add-on from Glaxstar that limits the activity your child can perform online by blocking access to Web sites and filtering Google search results. For parents, a tool like Glubble can seem like the perfect answer to the problem of protecting kids from the unsavory elements of the Internet. But as she discovered through her use of Glubble, the questions surrounding the idea of Internet filtering don't come with easy answers.

The Safelibraries Guy gleefully sent over a more colorful headline for This News from Ohio, where Lakewood Public Library Director Kenneth Warren wants you to know there's nothing private about the 60 public access computers at the main branch. Every 15 minutes, a staff member takes a stroll around the center to make sure library patrons are not looking at pornography, engaging in illegal gambling or visiting other questionable Web sites.

Now the library, which recently opened a new technology center, might expand its monitoring policy by using free software, called virtual network computing, that allows librarians to remotely monitor what a patron is viewing on a computer screen.

This Editorial in The Oakland Press says there's sound, logical reason for the ordinance in Royal Oak, MI, is wandering into some new territory. It could be one of the first cities in Michigan to pass an ordinance forcing the library board to install filters, according to the Michigan Municipal League. Other libraries leave only one terminal unfiltered as a matter of policy.

This editorial wouldn't normally be very interesting, but I'm behind a filter (not sure which) that does some sort of keyword filtering (not sure how) that automatically stops loading pages with bad words. It cuts this editorial off midsentence somewhere near the middle (end?) of the page. That "sound, logical reason" The Oakland Press says will save our children won't allow me to read this editorial. Should I assume this editorial has some kind of "obscene material" they say is blocked by those filters?

Once upon a time, librarians risked controversy only when they decided to slip books like "The Catcher in the Rye" onto the shelf.

The recent flap over alleged child pornography at the Lindsay branch of the Tulare County Library illustrates how dramatically the challenges for public libraries have changed, experts say.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution Reports Gwinnett County library workers will be able to capture browsing histories from library computers and call police on suspected child pornography viewers under an Internet safety policy approved Monday. The responses include counseling users on appropriate Internet usage for less serious situations, ordering users to stop viewing obscene materials, or calling police and capturing the computer's browsing history as possible evidence in the case of child pornography.

"A lot of the pornographers, child predators and now the gangs are going to the library because they know they won't be tracked,"

A Post Over @ Slashdot points the way to a Story on a new law in Utah. Internet service providers could earn a state-approved "G-rating" for filtering content and insuring that users could not access pornography under provisions in a bill heard by a House committee on Monday.
HB407, sponsored by Rep. Michael Morley, R-Spanish Fork, would require the Utah Division of Consumer Protection to create a designation for providers who prevent access to "prohibited" material. After attaining the "seal of approval," providers would be subject for fines up to $10,000 for violating requirements.

The Dallas News Reports A committee of Dallas City Council members unanimously recommended Tuesday that city libraries install Internet monitoring software on its publicly accessible computers – but not more restrictive filters that actively block Web content, such as pornography.

Big developments in the ongoing library filtering case Bradburn v. North Central Library. On Monday, both the library and the ACLU motioned for summary judgments. The motions are on my Bradburn page here. The ACLU and the library’s motion, along with statements of fact and memorandums in support can all be found here. There are a bunch of declarations to work through that I’ll post later. The most interesting of which is Dr. Paul Resnik, a library science professor who has published several pieces of research on filtering (see my research page here, specifically the Kaiser Foundation study he authored and his research paper on filtering testing). Resnick found that out of 60,000 actual pages accessed by library patrons, only 20 were incorrectly blocked – sounds like almost the definition of “de minimus” to me. I’ll add Resnick’s new work to my filtering tests page later.

San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant is concerned with children viewing "second-hand porn" while visiting San Jose's public libraries, which includes the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

"Children can get porn anywhere. If they don't see it at the library, kids will see it in other places," said Sarah Jasso, a psychology major.