Here\’s an interesting editorial from The Concord Monitor that comes out against filtering, saying that librarians should keep the control and not give it to \”computer-filtering software is as dumb as a post\”.
\”As for pornography, library selection committees generally considered whether there was literary or social value to a particular publication. But the fact was that no library could put every book or every video or every magazine in its stacks, so judgments had to be made.
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Here\’s an interesting editorial from The Concord Monitor that comes out against filtering, saying that librarians should keep the control and not give it to \”computer-filtering software is as dumb as a post\”.
\”As for pornography, library selection committees generally considered whether there was literary or social value to a particular publication. But the fact was that no library could put every book or every video or every magazine in its stacks, so judgments had to be made.
\”The first is the fact that computer-filtering software is as dumb as a post. In recent years, various screening programs have blocked access to Web sites offering information about breast cancer, to Web sites run by various groups with controversial opinions, even to the congressional Web site containing the independent counsel\’s report on President Clinton. A Washington law firm involved in the Nashua lawsuit says that library\’s program blocks a religious article about Jesus because it confuses the title – \”The Helpless Babe\” – with pornography. (Early Sonny and Cher music is probably also out of bounds.)
A New York Times article on the current wave of reality TV shows was also blocked, because its headline referred to \”television\’s new voyeurism.\”
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