HOTSEAT Filtering Interview
cadieux@librarybook.com
Sun, 26 Oct 1997 15:01:35 -0500
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 15:01:35 -0500
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19971026150616.007a4500@librarybook.com>
From: cadieux@librarybook.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <conntech>
Subject: HOTSEAT Filtering Interview
This HotSeat Interview was broadcast over the Internet on Oct. 22.
The extract below is provided just to give a flavor for the interview.
The full text prints out at 11 pages.
The full text is at:
http://www.hotwired.com/synapse/hotseat/97/42/transcript2a.html
You can listen to the 31 minute-RealAudio interview at:
http://www.hotwired.com/packet/hotseat/
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Taking the "Dick" Out of Moby Dick
with host John McChesney
Is filtering software the answer for keeping "inappropriate" material out
of libraries. Welcome to the HotSeat. I'm John McChesney, your host for
the program. Each week the HotSeat brings you the people who are changing
the way we live, work, and play in these digital times.
Three guests talk about the changing role of librarians. Ann Symons is the
incoming president of the American Library Association. Karen Schneider
led the Internet Filtering Assessment Project, and has an upcoming book, A
Practical Guide to Internet Filters. Karen Coyle, the Western regional
director of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.
Our topic this week: Filtering software and the role of librarians.
McChesney: I wonder if, if I were 13 and I went into a public library.
Let's say Austin. I don't know what happened in Austin, but you may want to
detail that for us. But let's say I went in there and I wanted to get a
variety of pornographic material, whatever they had there. Would the
library in any way stand in my way? I'm talking about hard copy here,
physical stuff made of atoms, magazines and so on. Would there be any
attempt to keep me away from it, to interfere with me?
Symons: I would say from my point of view there shouldn't be, and if the
library didn't own this material and you as a 13-year-old asked for an
interlibrary loan, that should be granted to you just as it would be to an
adult patron. I think that the important part here is that what kids read
is between them and their parents, and that our line is that parents and
only parents have the right and responsibility to restrict their own
children's access. And only their own children.
[major snipping]
McChesney: I just had a nerdy question. I could just imagine someday a
product, or a number of products, where a kid comes into the library and
he's got a card that his parents have given him, and said this is what you
get - it's a smart card, or a floppy disk or something - "This is what you
get to look at on the Internet. Give it to the librarian."
Schneider: Actually, that's kind of already there.
McChesney: Is it?
Symons: Yeah, the metropolitan library system in Oklahoma has a system
where you can go in and type in 50 books you don't want your kid to read.
McChesney: Ah-ha.
Schneider: Well, also some of the filtering technologies already support
bar codes and support user IDs and support patron levels. Once again you
have the problem of, these are the sites selected by filter companies. You
have the question of who is going to do the not-insignificant labor of
selecting this information. And how will we select it.
Symons: And if you listen to Cyber Patrol, if you listen to one of their
presentations, they'll tell you that it's often housewives and college
students that are sitting there making these decisions that they won't tell
you what's on their list.
Schneider: None of the companies employ librarians. None of them.
Copyright 1994-97 Wired Digital Inc.