Quick Thought

Since I've been taking this class, I've been giving more consideration to the policies that are in place where I work. My library system decided that we are going to convert to self pick-up of holds, because patrons like to be self-sufficient and it will free up staff time to do other (as yet unspecified) tasks.

Everyone is abuzz at this news, because self pick-up of holds has implications for patron privacy - how do we prevent patrons from browsing the holds shelves, looking at the private materials their neighbors have ordered? There hasn't really been any dialogue about this, or how privacy is going to be protected.

It's going to be a hard transition, I think, if we assign patrons a code or other way to identify their own holds. I envision a lot of confusion. But using patron names and attaching those names to publicly viewable materials would be a mistake - what if Patron A sees that Patron B, who she knows, has books waiting on homosexuality, or witchcraft, or divorce?

I looked for a little information about this online and found this advice from the ALA's privacy toolkit:

Avoid library practices and procedures that place information on public view
(e.g., using postcards for overdue notices or requested materials; using patron
names to identify self-pickup holds; placing staff terminals so the screens
can be read by the public; using sign-in sheets to use computers or other
devices; and providing titles of reserve requests or interlibrary loans over the
telephone to users' family members or answering machines).

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More on Liability

Thanks to Catherine, I now have a better idea of what protections librarians have against being arrested or fined for potentially exposing kids or other people to images, sounds, or words they find offensive. I find it reassuring that libraries are regarded as public forums and are exempted from the harmful to minors law.
There was another pretty egregious case that got some press recently in which a substitute teacher was sentenced to jail time because children viewed porn pop-ups that kept coming up on a classroom computer. From this Washington Post account:

A 40-year-old former substitute teacher from Connecticut is facing prison time following her conviction for endangering students by exposing them to pornographic material displayed on a classroom computer... The defense claimed the graphic images were pop-up ads generated by spyware already present on the computer prior to the teacher's arrival.

A New York Times article provides more details about the case - the substitute teacher didn't know anything about computers, the school was running outdated machines with inadequate protections, and the substitute was uneducated about technology to the point that she did not know how to stop the ads from popping up or how to safely turn off the computer.

At least libraries and librarians will probably not face that particular challenge.

Special Rules for Broadcast Mediums

I don't have our textbook in front of me, and I'm pretty sure that's where I was reading about this, but this week I have been thinking about the difference in regulations and rules regarding the Internet as opposed to television and radio. The FCC standards for broadcast television and radio are so strict, especially after the Janet Jackson super bowl incident and subsequent crackdown.

My husband does a radio show on a community radio station where he plays music (and, by station rules, 80% of what he plays has to be on independent music labels) and he was trained about the 7 words you can't say on the air, although he can play songs containing profanities after eleven o'clock at night. The CDs he chooses are supposed to be previewed for swear words, but this isn't always complete or accurate. There is a procedure for if he accidentally plays something with a swear word in it: he has to immediately stop the CD and log the incident.

What really scares me is that he and other radio DJs are considered to be personally liable for what they play on the air - if the FCC went after him for playing a song with 'fuck' in the lyrics, not only could the radio station be fined, but he could be fined as well. I wonder if there is something similar that could happen with CIPA - could an individual librarian be held responsible for an incident where a child saw something inappropriate on the Internet? Could a librarian potentially be arrested for something like that, if a kid saw some porn on a computer at the library?

The challenge I wrote about in my paper

The challenge I wrote about took place in Arkansas in 2005. A woman challenged three books at a school library: It's Perfectly Normal was one of them. After finding some initial articles through ProQuest, I used Google to search for further information and found some websites put up by the group making the challenge:

This is an example of one of them: Thirty-five shocking pornographic books in Fayetteville School Library!

They excerpted passages they found objectionable and posted them on the Internet.

I was surprised how many of the other websites I found in support of removing these books were simply reposts of a single editorial article (of uncertain origin) - the groups or individuals weren't coming up with their own material to support banning these books; they were just reposting and spreading something already written. I guess this is typical of email and blogging in general- forwarding items to others can make it easier to spread your point of view. But it also breeds mistakes and spreads inaccuracies and specious thinking.

The main reflection I find myself making about my paper and topic is my own personal lack of sympathy for parents. I don't have any kids, so I don't spend a lot of time contemplating what I would or would not want those kids to read. I don't identify with any sort of outrage about books being inappropriate for age groups. So it makes it a challenge for me to be sympathetic.

Response to Scenarios

Scenario Five: Chuck Palahniuk’s newest book, Haunted.

This book is clearly not Palahnuik's best. Critics weren't kind. Everyone seemed appalled at the violence within the work. While admitting that Palahnuik has admirers, both reviews seem to decry the work as pointlessly, pruriently violent. However, both reviews also mention passages of beauty, short stories within the longer novel that transcend the rest of the book, or darkly funny passages that showcase the author's talent.

Based on the author's reputation as well as the fact that both critical reviews reveal that the book has worthwhile passages and that the author is attempting to illustrate a larger point about society, I would argue that this work will not meet the definition of obscenity. In this case, the library made the right decision to purchase the book.

Response to Scenarios

Scenario Six: Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About:

So, this book contains bad, inaccurate personal health information. Yet, on the other hand, it is staggeringly popular. What is the responsibility of a public library? Should this book be removed from the collection?

From your patron: “How could the library make
available so dangerous a book as this to the community? It is irresponsible to
allow for such inaccurate information to exist on the shelf unlabeled as
such."

The library doesn't evaluate the information contained within books - we can't read all of the books we buy, for instance, although we strive to maintain a balanced collection of material. We purchase items based on several criteria, including customer demand and attention the book has received from critics/media as well as accuracy and authority. Because this book is a bestseller and highly in demand at this point in time, it is appropriate for the library to purchase copies of it.

If there comes a time five or so years from now when this book is no longer popular, then our weeding guidelines will help to determine that it should be replaced by something more current and accurate. Publicity derived from the book's inaccuracies will help make that determination. In the meantime, a possible idea the library could adopt is a standard sign or form stating that the library is not responsible for the use of health information contained within its materials and that it is not responsible for the accuracy of all the information contained within the collection. I don't know if this is too flippant or informal a response, but it works for me

Culture of the workplace

I've been thinking this week about a question I have about intellectual freedom: how is it applied in day-to-day decisions made by librarians, managers, and staff working with the public? Setting aside the formal challenges to materials, or cases like the NCRL in eastern Washington, how do daily decisions contribute to the goals laid out by a library?

My library system's collection development policy has this as a goal:

Promotes and defends the principles of intellectual freedom and citizens' access to information, and provides resources that represent a diversity of views and opinions in support of this freedom.

What does this mean to the people I work with? How are we trained to think about this in the context of performing job duties? Workplaces are composed of individuals with differing views, and I suppose my thought comes down to this: unless promoting and defending access to materials and the importance of intellectual freedom is emphasized in the culture of the workplace, a lot of small decisions can be made that slide under the radar, aren't necessarily noticed by anyone, but end up eroding freedom and access.

To end, another example from my work:

Melvin Burgess is a young adult author who published a controversial novel called Doing It in 2004 in which (from the School Library Journal review,) "three teenage boys enjoy talking about, thinking about, and joking about sex." My library chose to catalog this book as adult fiction, despite the fact that the author writes for and about young adults. And, further, the record for this item in my library's catalog has as subjects for this work - sex - juvenile fiction, relationships - juvenile fiction, etc. And in the end, for me, this was a terrible decision by my library, because it hinders young adult access to this title by shelving it in a different section of the library. Despite the fact that we have as our goal the defense of intellectual freedom and individual access, a poor decision was allowed that restricts access by redefining a work as adult that was intended for teenagers. In all likelihood, a single person was allowed to make this book an adult work, and it wasn't really noticed, or it was noticed by youth librarians but they didn't really have the time, momentum, or institutional clout to challenge the decision.