ALIA has released the results of its Internet Filtering in Public Libraries 2007 survey, its 3rd such study since 2002. They had 104 responses from Australian public library services, which is nearly 20% of the 548 services nationwide. This has become of greater interest of late with the Federal Government announcing the forthcoming availability of free filters for all Australian families who want them and pushing for public libraries (and forcing the National Library) to use them also.
The survey report, media release and case studies are all available from the ALIA website, as is ALIA’s statement on online content regulation, links to Net Alert and their reports of filtering, children and families and the Internet. Results from the 2002 and 2005 surveys are also available.
In summary, the survey found that:
- 39% of responding libraries use filtering software on some or all of their public PCs - up from 31% in 2005
- response to filtering was mostly negative
- filtering concerns were mainly on unreliability and inaccuracy of the software used
- education of the public on safe internet use was the preferred option, rather than filtering
- 40% of responding libraries received Internet access through council networks which has implications for how these filters would have to work
- 70% of those using filtering had it installed at the server level
Much more information is shared in the survey report, media release and case studies which are worth reading if you haven’t done so already. My library has no plans to install filtering software and has had few problems with inappropriate content being accessed. We have policies and procedures in place that have effectively dealth with these situations in the past. However, on the otherhand I have heard firsthand reports from US libraries that have filters in place because of their funding requirements, who have had little or no difficulties with their filtering practices.
What is your view on this issue? Should we librarians be installing filtering on some or all of our public PCs OR should we be doing more to educate our users about safe internet access and if so, how do we do that? We would love to see your comments here on this interesting issue.
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June 8, 2007 at 20:08
Yes, librarians should be doing more to educate users about safe internet access.
However, I don’t think that public libraries are in a position to do this at the moment. Public libraries just don’t have the branding of being leaders in the usability of online information, even if they should be.
For starters, the average person who has come in off the street to use the internet is going to ask for advise on evaluating online media and using websites safely.
Not long ago, one of the local public libraries hosted a NetAlert session for parents. The turnout was extremely poor, despite wide publicity.
I’ve found that the only way of educating users on safe internet use is by embedding it into information literacy courses for users (ie. “Learn to set up a blog”), and even then you’re only really reaching the people who take an interest and participate.
One system that I have seen, which seems to cover all bases, is a system that doesn’t block sites, but does however alert the user with a “This page that you’re accessing may contain offensive material”. Of course, this message pops up in inappropriate places (ie. doing a search on wikipedia), but it does act in the filtering role without actively censoring material (even if it is a little irritating).
June 12, 2007 at 14:18
Isn’t safe practice on the internet something that schools should be doing, rather than public libraries? Public libraries will always miss some people. Of course, schools could tap into the expertise of local librarians to present such information.
As for filtering, I work in an academic library that blocks all the obvious stuff (which can cause issues for research into $exual health), as well as YouTube - I find the YouTube thing very irritating but apparently it’s a bandwidth issue.