Why Librarians Are Defending Your Right to Watch Porn at the Library
The ALA published a report investigating the use of filters and found they were disproportionately blocking out left-leaning views on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. LGBT community websites were often blocked and identified as “sexual” sites.
They also found that low-income individuals are more impacted by filters. If you’re able to afford internet at home and aren’t finding the information you need at school or the library because it’s blocked out, the easy solution is to head home and Google it there. But for those whose only access point to the internet is at school or the public library, filters can choke out their ability to have the same access to information as their peers. Libraries in lower-income communities are also more likely to have filters because they lean on government funding and can’t afford separate labs.
And of course, there’s the slippery slope argument: if we start with pornography, where do we go from there? What’s appropriate in the eyes of one person might be wildly offensive to someone else.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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The ALA published a report investigating the use of filters and found they were disproportionately blocking out left-leaning views on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. LGBT community websites were often blocked and identified as “sexual” sites.
