LISNews: Librarian News

Sounds Like They had fun at the Vancouver, Washington, Community Library on Monday Night where a crowd of about 35 passionate and outspoken people talked about freedom of speech, religion and individual standards of decency. At Fort Vancouver Regional libraries, those 17 and older can use a few unfiltered Internet terminals. That means folks could Google anything they want, including porn, critics say.

"Pornography makes it unsafe," said Andrew Campbell of Washougal, who said he has seen "objectionable material" in library printers. He called for an army of retired volunteers to monitor Internet access. "Please consider contacting the elderly," he said. "They have a lot of time on their hands. Their families often abandon them in homes and they'd like to help." He invoked Jesus as he stated his opposition, "I call upon the Christians in our community," he said.

Seth Finkelstein writes "Michael Froomkin has an account of
frustration
with Miami-Dade public library censorware:
"The branch librarians are sympathetic, especially about the blocked
sites, but they don't control the filter list or the wireless port
blocking policies. ... All that computer stuff is handled by some
distant, faceless, unresponsive central administration. So my requests
for changes to the policy, so far, go unheeded, including written
requests a week ago to unblock a site, and open port 22.""

Seth Finkelstein writes "The OpenNet Initiative has released a report about censorware in Tunisia.
According to the press release: "In what has become a familiar pattern, once again our research
finds a U.S.-based company, Secure Computing, providing services to a repressive regime.""

Anonymous Patron writes "So back in July, Yvonne LeFever was with her children at the Norwood Public Library for a program called "Science in the Summer" and after it was over, one of the kids decided to log on to the computer in the children’s section. LeFever just happened to be there when the 14-year-old attempting to access a music video suddenly found herself face to face with a lesbian porn video that some clever boy, girl or adult had managed to download and leave for some unsuspecting child to view."