Library Censorship Policy

Preface: Filters Then and Now

The following article was written a couple years ago, when the questions of whether content filters were legal, constitutional, or even very effective were yet unanswered. Even though I tried very hard to present the point of view of the library staff who insisted this filter was needed, there were still some bad feelings, and even anger because I had correctly quoted them. Which seems a bit puzzling, until the story is reread.

At this time, many of these answers are in: Court Decisions have found filtering Unconstitutional in the present forms, legislatures have tried and so far failed to find a way to do prior censorship, and the means that the filter services use to generate their lists have only a random relationship to the content of any given web site on a list.

To give examples, one filtering service will block most of the math department of a major university, the municipal sites of several cities, assorted commercial sites for electronics hardware, and web sites that discuss the pros and cons of filtering services.

The Article that Caused the Fuss

        The Internet access on computers available to patrons of the Tacoma Public Library is responsible to parents and children in a way that library staffers David Dumkoski and David Biek believe is unique, "Our browsers give the user the option to view the text on a web site where the images have been blocked, so users can view any web site on the internet."
        The browser, named Webfoot, is a computer program designed for viewing web sites by library technical staffer Lare Mischo. If the library used one of the popular commercial browsers such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer the option of viewing a text-only version would be unavailable, unless the browsers were configured to turn off the images on all web sites, regardless of image content.
        The service used to actually operate the filtering is Cyberpatrol, based in Chicago, working according to a list of sites that have been submitted by users and company employees around the country.
        One site that was blocked is the Black Excel web site, which is devoted exclusively to scholarship opportunities for African-Americans, greeting users with a message on the computer screen that there is a policy issue, and offering the option of text-only viewing to allow access to the information.

"That's incredible. You must know that site is a college admission/ scholarship service for African-American students. What's to object to there?" says Webmaster Thomas J.Hubschman, "The photos are of academic scenes on campus. Black students".

Black Excel is a 501(c)3 Not-For-Profit organization founded in 1988 to help young people and their parents navigate the difficult college admission process, and has been consulted by US News & World Report as well as top college-help organizations and experts for input. An email newsletter can be requested by contacting ijblack@cnct.com.
        When asked about this, Dumkoski and Biek agreed that the images on this site are not offensive and that it must have been put on the list by mistake. Biek mentioned, "This is only anecdotal, but there have been very few, perhaps ten complaints to the librarians". Any librarian, whose computer access is not filtered, can look at a web site and decide if it has been flagged by mistake. Then Cyberpatrol is informed so that they can remove it from the prohibited list. Biek continued, "We are going to add a system that allows a user to contact the librarians just in case they don't feel comfortable in going up to the desk about this".
        Another service that has been recently added is the opportunity to download to disk or send by email any text in the library database of magazine articles. "We know this is being used because the fees collected for printing have dropped 50%," says Biek.
        Services that will not be provided are access to online games, chat rooms, or email. "There was one month, April 1997 when these were available. By the time we went online, Internet technology had overtaken us," Biek told. "People waiting were unable to use the machines because as many as a half-dozen users were in the same chat room," sitting at the computers at the main library. People also played games or engaged in frivolous emails to other library users. Now when someone wants to email a resume, they are given a list of commercial providers such as Kinko's or Shakabra, a local espresso and internet cafe.
        On the issue of censorship, Dumkoski said, "We believe it is a local decision. There are other libraries that don't filter. What works for us may not work for them, and what works for them may not work for us".

Addenda:

As a point of fact, I learned later from some other librarians that the inclusion of the Black Excel web site on the "Bad List" had been complained about, both by library patrons and staff, for a period of a couple months.

When someone using the libray computers attempts to view a site on the proscribed list, a warning page pops up, and the user has to click on that page to continue, agreeing to accept any consequences that may arise. The viewer may then look at the text but not the pictures, nor send or receive email for further information, and any JavaScript functions are disabled.

The site in question here was not taken off the filtered list until the day the article was published. However, it is not my intent to show that the library staff is in any way racist. They make it clear that because library patrons are receiving free internet access, they should accept that it is, for them, a view-only internet. The staff quoted in the article asserted that it is a valuable research tool, but that users could not be allowed to post uncontrolled documents on the internet from the library, and that they should accept limitations on what they may view.

by David E. Freeman

dfremail@yahoo.com

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