sectioning off

for assignment 2 i cited the case of sund v. city of wichita falls from our i.f. manual, which raised a lot of additional questions for me. in it, the court struck down a city council resolution allowing books, mainly “daddy’s roommate” and “heather has two mommies,” to be moved from the children’s section to the adult section. the court found that it would create a burden for people browsing the children’s section even though the books could still be located through the catalog and were not restricted. so are cataloging decisions just as much about ethics as designing an efficient retrieval system? if i mistakenly label richard brautigan’s “trout fishing in america” as non-fiction in a marc record, could the library be sued for creating a barrier to access even though there was no intention to do so? of course, if the mistake was found it would surely be corrected and there would be no need for a suit. but what about a library that invests little money in hiring a knowledgeable staff? if the library were poorly managed and the materials located in a haphazard manner, could it then be sued then for repeatedly limiting access?

also, i wonder how many librarians and bookstore owners truly think through their decisions when designing and labeling the different subject sections. at times it almost looks like segregation, with so many authors divided by race and sexuality. when i was younger, living in the south and in the closet, i was nervous as hell whenever i stood in the gay and lesbian area. it made me paranoid and certain that everyone around me was staring and judging. why shouldn’t all literature just be labeled as fiction and collocated? is there a reason why african-american and asian authors need separate shelves? i always felt that i was being singled out when browsing, and that the books were either consciously or subconsciously placed there to create a subtle level of intimidation. but it completely depends on the context. when jeanette winterson is in a separate section in a seattle library, it feels more like a positive acknowledgment of diversity. i think it's hard to predict the reactions of patrons and whether they'll view the physical separation as easier access or as a barrier, and is best left together.

net nanny bought out by (potentially) biased company

i recently read a post on librarylaw blog that raised an issue concerning internet filters that i hadn’t considered before. net nanny, which some libraries use, was bought out by contentwatch in february. apparently there are links on the contentwatch website which eventually lead to quotes from religious figures and the christian broadcasting network.

“ContentWatch also maintains a list of articles about pornography and child safety under the heading “LearningCenter.” Their list on pornography includes articles such as “Internet Porn Is a Drug and Pornographers Are Drug Dealers” and “It’s Not About the First Amendment,” both by Mark Kastleman (who has published a book called “The Drug of the New Millennium: The Science of How Internet Pornography Radically Alters the Human Brain and Body,” published by Granite Publishers, which is affiliated with the Latter Day Saints).”

if contentwatch is religiously-biased and not concerned with the first amendment, i wonder if they would be brazen enough to make any obvious changes to the number of sites that are blocked. surely they know librarians are just waiting to pounce on new evidence against the very existence of filters. at this point we can only hope they are that oblivious so the ala can raise new legal challenges to cipa.

the opinions of ala's president-elect on blogs and google will blow your mind

i think the article speaks for itself: revenge of the blog people!

are patrons aware of their rights, and do you trust your librarian?

before deciding to become a librarian (when i was following an english lit track), i was aware of just a few intellectual freedom issues, such as the patriot act’s impact on library records and privacy. i’m revealing my ignorance here, but after beginning the u.w. ischool program, i learned for the first time that you could actually view pornography in a library. i realized that i had never even considered the possibility before. probably most people’s ideas of what is acceptable behavior within libraries are shaped by their first experiences in primary school. you get so used to the faculty limiting almost all of your actions (keeping quiet, sitting still, handling books properly) that it is easy to form a conception of libraries as highly regulated. you simply assume that only “proper” behavior is allowed, with “proper” being limited to privately reading controversial material and not displaying it for others to see.

this naturally leads me to wonder how much of the public knows about all of their rights within libraries. when searching an online catalog, how many people bother to browse the policy section to learn whether it is possible to have filters removed? i have never paid enough attention to notice how many clearly display this information within their buildings, though i will now.

i’m also curious if patrons in tightly-knit communities face more societal barriers to full usage of public resources, whether digital or in print. in my hometown, everyone who worked in the public and school libraries were either parents of friends or well-known to my family. the librarians mostly worked part-time, were only trained to perform general day-to-day functions, and several were notorious gossips. so even if i knew i had the right to view potential objectionable material, i wouldn’t. it would take less than half a day before my parents found out, based on past experience with books. if i were to go back as an adult, i still doubt i would do any research on feminism and sexual imagery with my old sunday school teacher behind the counter just a few feet away.

suing a library for distributing personal records without receiving a warrant may be seen as heroic. but alleging malpractice in an open court after a librarian told all of your friends about your past searches for s.t.d. information would certainly cause more embarrassment. a small library may be able to purchase privacy screens to bypass bad professional behavior, but it’s doubtful that it could afford automatic check-out stations to avoid the old-fashioned embarrassment of handing over a book with sex in the title. this raises the question of whether absolute privacy should be valued over personal service. proper training is clearly important in any library, but it is unfortunately much easier to imagine small libraries making a one-time payment towards technology than continual educational courses or professional-level salaries. of course i don’t mean to imply that the majority of librarians in small communities are not well-educated or act unethically, but i do think this issue deserves more attention. we are more likely to face either overt or subvert judgment - or the revealing of our reading habits in casual conversation - from a librarian than a subpoena for records from the federal government. and it is this “chilling effect” that almost everyone is aware of, yet seems to receive little attention in the literature.