The Boston Globe ran This Story that looks at the filtering issue and CIPA.
The directors of the 35 public libraries in the Minuteman Library Network, which ranges from Watertown to Stow, voted on July 16 to forgo $19,346 for Internet services, according to Carol Caro, executive director of the organization. The vote reaffirmed a stance Minuteman took about a year ago, although the network continued to receive funding until the Supreme Court ruled.
”I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” said Lamar Phillips, 31, a Roxbury construction worker. ”I wouldn’t want it to exclude anything other than pornography. But if you’re not able to look at it at a video store and rent it [as a child], you shouldn’t be able to get it at the library.”
Unreasonable time, place or manner restrictions
Sorry, pal, but your viewpoint goes way over the line. The perp was busted and banned from the facilities. That is perfectly reasonable. Saying no one is allowed unfettered surfing rights because of such infrequent incidents is entirely irrational. Unfortunately, raving fools with an axe to grind blow such isolated incidents way out of proportion and tout them as a wave of immorality. Someone should do the math sometime. In any given year, figure out how many adult surfers avail themselves of public library computers to surf the net, how many view porn, and how many view porn indiscreetly. I have no doubt that the percentage of those who are indiscreet is vanishingly small.
Re:Unreasonable time, place or manner restrictions
I fully agree. It’s been my experience that those who view porn at the library are doing so to get some kind of reaction. Many times we’ve had printouts up at the front desk of sexual images and the like and they’re rarely picked up. I think many folks who come here and view T&A are trying to get a rise out of the librarians.
In Reference, we have some outstanding librarians who, in their own way, look the stereotype except that none of them wear their hair in buns. 🙂 They’ve been called over to the computers to deal with Javascripting problems on pages and they’re greeted by an impish grin when it turns out the patron was looking at hotslutsrus.com or something like that. They want to see what’s going to happen and I’m pleased to report that they’re pretty disappointed when nothing happens and they fail to get even the faintest glimmer of a reaction out of us.
Like you, I’d love to see some real numbers, some honest to goddess data on this because, to my knowledge, I never have. I’ve never even heard of a serious study to collect information on how many people surf for porn at the library, how many of them do so discreetly, and how many people never bother. If there is such info, could someone point me a way to it?
we can trade anecdotes forever
and I had an recent incident in the large academic library I work in, where a female student informed me of someone viewing porn. The porn seeker was in a remote part of the reference room and obviously trying to be discreet. So, what does my anecdote prove? What does your anecdote prove? Let’s have some statistics, instead of all this inane politically correct shouting about how librarians are the final defense against the imminent collapse of American democracy. Gimme a break. You can sign me,
politically incorrect and proud of it!
Re:Unreasonable time, place or manner restrictions
“Raving fools with an axe to grind”? This is Vulcan rationality? The construction worker quoted had no axe to grind. His is an example of the reasoning that follows the line “the mission of the public library does not extend to the provision of pornography.” This may be arguable, but it’s not unreasonable.
On the other hand, maybe we should consider taking the next logical step in the application of Vulcan rationality and have our local libraries hang the banner “View porn discreetly @ your library.” And then go to the city council and ask for continued tax support.
Is that a testing instrument………….
2# You enjoy embarassing librarians when you ask for technical assistance while viewing pornagraphy.
__Mostly Disagree __Nuetral __Mostly Agree
Re:Unreasonable time, place or manner restrictions
Ah, but you quote me out of context. It is a sample of Vulcan rationality from a hyperactive ferret.
I didn’t say he did; I was identifying a vague and ill-defined group commonly referred to as “they”.
That, my fine, filthy-minded friend, sounds an excellent idea. And kindly keep in mind that the snivelling twerps who will run to the city council bitching about “their” tax dollars paying for porn are the kind of raving fools who grind axes. For one thing, they invariably come across to me as someone labouring under the impression that he is the only person who pays taxes and totally ignores the conscriptive contributions made by those of us who are less the hypersensitive reactionary. Secondly, they are commonly the kind of people who go out of their way to find “porn”, and frequently find it everywhere. Catcher in the Rye; Lord of the Flies; Where’s Waldo.
Re:Unreasonable time, place or manner restrictions
I’ve never even heard of a serious study to collect information on how many people surf for porn at the library, how many of them do so discreetly, and how many people never bother. If there is such info, could someone point me a way to it?
The only hard data I’m aware of comes from a general Canadian study of what’s being looked at on public library terminals, published in 2002.r t.pdf [PDF format only].
See http://ln-rb.ic.gc.ca/e/connect/AnnCurryFinalRepo
Some excerpts:
Methodology:
Transaction logs from public access Internet terminals at five medium-to-large public libraries in different Canadian cities were downloaded. These logs contained all of the URLs accessed for a one-week period from each library.
The resulting dataset was sampled by selecting a URL every five minutes. Each of these URLS were visited by one of the research team, and the site was classified according to a genre and subject scheme developed by the researchers.
Pertinent Results:
“The subject of sex was broken down into three smaller classifications: soft-core sex, hard-core sex, and sex-information and products… A total of 246 of the 19,607 hits for all five cities were classified within one of the three ‘sex’ categories, comprising 1.25% of the total logs.“
“[L]ibrary users using e-mail or sexually oriented sites generate three to five times more URLs per minute in the logs than users accessing all other types of sites. This leads to the mistaken conclusion that the terminals are being used far more extensively for these activities than is really the case. Sampling by time gives a much more accurate picture of what the terminals are being used for.”