Category: access

Add this to one of the hidden costs of filtering: additional staff to keep tabs on patrons. Phoenix AZ public library system has a “no pornography” policy and Internet users in the library have no option to have unfiltered access. Note the odd contruction in this sentence “The computers in Phoenix’s libraries now filter all Web sites that are classified as pornographic” Do you really think all porn web sites are filtered? Filtered by whom or what? And how? What about textual pornography? What does “objectionable for minors” mean anyhow? While I’m always happy to see more jobs available for librarians, it’s sad that they need to come this way. As a side note, we found that porn viewing and printing went down when we switched to a self-serve print server that patrons interact with. Formerly, circulation staff had had to hand printed pages directly to patrons and take their money and there was some speculation that this interaction with staff was part of the reason for the problematic porn printing.

Then again, I think maybe I just need to work for this new project. All digitized content of some major libraries — including the Library of Congress — available freely to online users. [riba rambles]

I’m not talking much about copyright in my talk, but I have been boning up on some of the Australian library community’s responses to the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) which passed in May. One of the things that AUSFTA did was “reduce differences” between US and Australian copyright law which, as you can probably guess, means the Australians get to tighten up their laws and bring them more in line with restrictive US laws that favor business uses of intellectual property over community and library uses. To this end, the Australian Libraries’ Copyright Committee released this Statement of Principles [word doc] which says, among other things

I’ve been reading more writing by Australian librarians lately which, of course, I should have been doing all this time. Jennifer Cram writes great stuff, my favorite so far is Ten Questions to Ask About Filtering Software. Sharp questions deserving of serious answers for anyone who is considering filtering.

As an outreach librarian, I try to figure out why people aren’t coming to the library. Some of these reasons are obvious: can’t park, bad hours, building too cold, don’t read…. When I get to answers like “don’t read” my next question is always “why not?” The answers are all over the map, but the one that drives me the craziest — since I work with a lot of seniors — is “can’t find large print titles in anything that interests me”. Now, our library has maybe a thousand large print titles, even some new ones, which is not a bad collection for a library our size. It’s mostly fiction. Non-fiction circulates less, and it’s also harder to get. Our largest request that comes to me is “more computer books in large type” followed by “more poetry” If you’re blind in the US, you can get books on tape delivered to you for free, but you often can’t choose the exact titles [think Netflix] and you don’t get the tactile experience of reading which many people really like. According to the Royal National Institute of the Blind in the UK 96% of all books are not available in large print, audio or braille editions. They have started a Right to Read campaign complete with arresting graphics and sound clip by Michael Palin, to raise people’s awareness of lack of access to reading materials for the blind and otherwise visually impaired. [pscott]