After the Phoenix city council passed a resolution to have all public library internet terminals filtered, the ACLU has filed a challenge.
“The (U.S.) Supreme Court ruling reaffirmed that porn is protected speech under the First Amendment, but it didn’t rule that city libraries must provide access to porn,” [Phoenix Mayor Phil] Gordon said. “You don’t see pornographic books and magazines on library shelves. We’re confident we’ll win any court challenge to the new policy. It’s the right thing to do and our attorneys agree, so we’ll prevail in court.”
More here from Townhall.com.
Professional Responsibility Revisted
Now the Phoenix case becomes an ACLU issue. What next? The issue is not whether porn is protected by the Constitution or not. The question we as librarians should be asking is how this got here in the first place. Branch librarians should use greater discretion within a professional context. It seems a “no-brainer” that public access to porn with tax dollars is one issue and consideration for society is another. Does the ACLU mean that libraries should now have a porn section available because of free speech? Of course not. The access to information is one of the most important rights we as Americans have. Many countries do not have such access. Does that mean that materials that many find offensive, some find promoting deviant behavior, others link such materials to anti-social behavior should be available to all as well? Of course not. Porn is one of the most demeaning expressions of art towards women and their well-being. Even that is not the real issue. The real issue is that the branch librarians in Phoenix are practicing agenda making at the cost of professional discretion. If our professionals would use good judgement, while respecting society and Constitutional rights then the Phoenix city council would not have gotten involved and there would be no law suits and this issue would be handled professionally. It behooves professional organizations to make policies that take into account bibliographic needs, the public that is being served, and the U.S. Constitution. Lets stop agenda promoting and start professional standards that serve the entire public not some of the public.
Blame the Librarian!
Of course, let’s all blame the librarian first. The librarian should be monitoring what the patron is reading- everyone knows that. When someone is looking at smut on the Internet because the librarian is busy answering reference questions, training another staff member, checking out books, giving directions or even claening the bathroom, then we all know they are not doing their job of keeping people away from porn.
Besides, it is not just smut. The censorship call is three sided- sex is only one side. The other two are religion and politics. Good filters keep out all of these, not just porn, and can have some funny results.
Filters also don’t keep out smut, either. Our local high school has students from many different countries. The filters keep out smut sites that use englsih and spanish terms. But simply put in the Russian or Chinese terms for portions of the human body, and the filters won’t keep out some really strange sites that the librarian, if they are professional, is supposed to keep you from watching.
The real answer against unfiltered library Internet is simply to remove the computers. However, that is not politically palative, so the librarians are blamed instead. Its more fun that way. Blame the librarian first!
Re:Blame the Librarian!
“The Phoenix City Council recently voted unanimously to immediately block all pornography from the public library’s web terminals. The policy, the toughest yet in any major American city, comes in response to last month’s arrest of a convicted child molester who admitted he had been downloading child pornography at the library.”
Its not like the City is overreacting.
Re:Blame the Librarian!
I was not blaming the individual librarian. I realize the “roller skate” existence. My contention is that the profession has no standard for dealing with such situations. At any rate the individual librarian is not and should not be oblivious to what is going on around her/him. Filtering is the best we can do under the situation. I am not saying the librarian should be a policeman, however, anyone in public service should be aware of what is going on. If someone came in with a pistol would you also say it is not the job of the librarian. Our profession needs to set standards to guide these situation and not engage in agenda driven opinions.
It hangs on the “clickthrough feature”
The ACLU will zero in on the filters capacity to “overblock”. That will be their case. If the software Phonix is using has a clickthrough feature, then there is “no case”.
If it does not then ACLU WILL preail.