contagious diseases and the library

here an interesting blog that i ran across today. it's basically a few emails from librarians questioning the legal and social ramifications of asking patrons with communicable diseases/illnesses like chickenpox and tuberculosis to leave the premises. probably some patrons are just interested in entertaining material while they are out of work or school, while others are in need of vital health information. virtual reference would be perfect in the latter situation, as long as the sick person had internet access at home. unlike so many other americans, i do have health insurance, but have yet to find a primary care physician since moving to seattle. it turned out to be an extremely frustrating experience this past week to find a clinic that could take me on short notice to simply look at an ear infection. i can't imagine what it must be like to have no health insurance and no access to health information. a patron could be experiencing painful symptoms and want to look up reference information for possible causes before deciding whether the extremely expensive emergency room bill would be worth it. would we then just kick them out of the library? or would we risk the health of others to help this one person? of course we could quickly give ill patrons listings for low-cost community health services, but those services are often only open during weekday business hours. by kicking such patrons out of the library, they might not seek more assistance until it is too late.

washington legislature passes anti-real id bill

this post is coming a bit late, as the washington state legislature passed the bill early last month. i didn't know that states were opposing the federal real id act of 2005 until i browsed the aclu website today. as far as i understand the act, it doesn't create a national identification system so much as force states to meet certain requirements that might as well turn state driver licenses, id cards and their databases into national ones. the ala has joined the anti-national id campaign, and some of the details are here. a few of the reasons the ala gives for opposing it are higher risk of identity theft and security risks due to its machine readable content. the ala gives a pretty scary image of the shared database:

"Under the REAL ID Act, states and federal government would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, and more, including detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, and Social Security Number for more than 240 million individuals, with no requirements or controls on how this database might be used."

while some of the content can already be found through public records, having so much information in one place can only cause problems for the privacy of individuals. but it is heartening that states are beginning to take a stand against the act.

viruses, spyware and filters

i'm sure most people in our class have already read this story on google finding that 1 in 10 websites contain malicious code/viruses/spyware. according to the article, much of it is not written by the site authors, but by third-parties that distribute banner ads, traffic counters, etc. to a variety of domains. but we all know that the chances of getting viruses are greatly increased when visiting porn sites or those enabling illegal downloads. one of the questions that has been raised previously in the class is whether it is worthwhile to acquire library material that we know will just be stolen. on another practical note, at what point do you decide to keep allowing access to sites that continually stay one step ahead of anti-virus software programs? is there a point where the right to receive information is trumped by the need to protect patrons from identity theft, or corruption of personal files/papers? you could argue that users take their own risks when visiting these sites. But it seems unfair if the next patron to use the computer only wants to visit cnn.com, then unknowingly e-mails the virus along with a news story to read later, and ends up infecting her home computer. this is all hypothetical - i have no idea how often this actually affects library i.t. departments. i assume that most libraries do not take responsibility for malicious codes that users download, and are not liable for it. but i'm still curious how many are affected by this.

thoughts on this week's lecture

i really enjoyed all of the lectures for this week, especially the interview with david levithan. i was particularly struck by cindy dobrez's comment about a teacher who could not display presentations that were linked to blocked sites despite the educational purpose. teachers don't have the authority to bypass filters? i'm sure this varies throughout school districts, but after some searching i found several personal accounts verifying this. There was even one website where a student wrote about how he used technology to help teachers get to needed information.

of course local news programs constantly report on instances of improper relationships between faculty/administrators and students. pornography is inevitably found on the fired teacher's school computer, and the school board probably fears that access to such material might fuel lawsuits for somehow encouraging unprofessional behavior. this really ties into the lecture about how the media can exclude all but the most salicious details, in reviews of controversial material and in stories on school scandals. how much porn would be found on the hard drive of the anatomy or sex education teachers' computers? its mere existence doesn't prove any link to bad conduct. of course the multitude of porn sites and pop-ups are extremely annoying when you're trying to search for legitimate information (i won't even go into my results when looking for pictures of nurses for a presentation in lis 510). but, as we have discussed before in the class, when you attempt to block one segment of material, you block other unintended ones as well.

I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of trust given to those who are responsible for educating the youth, but still...