A Wired.com Blog points out Popline has quietly begun to block searches on the word “abortion,” concealing nearly 25,000 search results.
A librarian at the University of California at San Francisco noticed the new censorship on Monday, while carrying out a routine research request on behalf of academics and researchers at the university. The search term had functioned properly as of January.
“We recently made all abortion terms stop words,” Dickson wrote in a note to Gloria Won, the UCSF medical center librarian making the inquiry. “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”
At some point in the past 6 hours they stopped blocking.
Odd
I think that is very odd. Medlineplus.gov did not do that. Medline certainly does not do that.
While I am opposed to abortion, hiding the term will not make it go away anymore than hiding the term Jose Cuervo will keep me away from the margaritas.
One would think that open, honest, factual information would be preferred rather than sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting ‘I can’t hear you” over and over.
If you fill in the well, everyone goes thirsty
IMO, the money quote was made by Melissa Just, near the end of the article (emphasis) mine:
In an age where many libraries are abandoning print and print archives at a headlong pace, we’re being left vulnerable to those who control the search engines and the electronic journal archives. Those with that control will be able to “re-write” history or control access to information in line with their ideologies or bottom lines.
Let’s have LOCKSS and OAC … faster please!