Slashdot Mirror
Librarian Suspended over Patrons' Web Access
bsw149 writes "The head librarian of the Valparaiso Community Library in Florida was suspended
after investigators found that users had viewed adult content on public computers.
While the library has a policy against viewing adult material on library
computers, the librarian is facing possible dismissal. Is the best enforcement policy to
hold librarians personally responsible for the materials patrons' access?"
How is it the librarian's fault? They're not looking over the people's shoulder's all the time, and they could just hide the content when the librarian walks over.
Is it in their job description to monitor what users access? When they signed their job contract or whatever, did it clearly outline this? Cause if not, they librarians should not be dismissed.
By analogy, perhaps it would be best to fire any cop who doesn't manage to stop all crime on his shift?
TFA doesn't go into what actually happened, only that someone watched porn and from that the librarian is being dismissed since she "had not done enough to prevent the incident".
First off, it's an "incident" not "incident s ", so it probably only happened once, and if the history just showed one site, I can think of a thousand ways that could have accidentally happened.
We're missing some kind of important details here.
No, this is stupid. Librarians don't spend years in school earning higher degrees in library science to become nannies. The world has enough problems, why must they keep inventing new ones?
what the hell does a suspension of a librarian have to do with my rights or anybody else's?
The fact is that the librarian's superiors didn't think she was doing enough to stop people from browing for porn, and they took action.
I also like how the slashdot summary noted it was "adult matierlal" when it was in fact kiddy porn, which is not legal at all.
This story is not very interesting or relevant to most people. But it at least it provides a forum for the Chicken Littles to scream about the death of Free Speech, Big Brother, yadda yadda yadda, the sky is falling crowd.
If someone reports the user to the librarian, the librarian walks over, what power do they have? The person will most likely close the window when they see the librarian. Is the librarian allowed to ask the person to leave or ask person to stop using the computer? Is there a standard policy for what to do, and the librarian isn't following it or does the person just make it up when they catch somebody?
Here's what they should do: ban all devices and texts that display inappropriate information. Who wants to live in a world in which people can see sex, violence or evolution?
Once we get rid of all those books and magazines and that interweb thingie, we can get back to the important stuff. I think it's time we put an end to all of this inappropriate behavior by setting an example. Let's put the librarian to death and be done with it. She's obviously a witch.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
The real question is what is a public library funded with public dollars doing by being in the business of censorship. Adult-oriented material should be freely accessible from publicly-funded. In some cases, libraries should implement measures to ensure that non-adults are not exposed to adult-oriented material but, then again, there are no limitations on what books one may check out from a public library, regardless of age.
blog
Maybe they'll send her to their "faith based" prison to repent.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Typical Slashdot. Not just anybody viewing porn but:
"The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library was suspended without pay in early August after city officials found that a registered sex offender had used library computers to access pornographic websites."
Since I don't know what really happened I won't dispute whether the librarian is at fault. I'll just note that filters really don't work well and for libraries it's either the choice of internet or no internet. Nothing much in between.
If internet access is so much of an issue, perhaps the computers should be put in a seperate room where you have to be over 16 or 18 to enter and use or have your parents sign a permission slip.
Personally I think it's all that streak of classic American puritanicism anyway, TV shows violence with people's heads and other body parts blown off every night of the week, or have realistic grotesque autopsies on CIS-like shows, or real grotesque surguries/diseases/etcetera on the scientific channels, or animals mating on any NationalGeographic or discovery channel yet a kid can't handle a glimpse of people doing the same?
If the sex offender viewed that stuff, put responsibility where it belongs and haul his ass to jail if he violated parole or whatever.
Here's the lovely Catch-22 that's been set up for this librarian:
Librarians are not allowed by federal law to restrict what people view on the Internet.
Now, the librarians can be suspended/fired for NOT restricting what people view on the Internet.
What the hell is she supposed to do? Punt?
I have no tag line
You refer to the librarian as he. His name is Sue Martin.
Yes, that's a great policy. This way you motivate librarians to spy on patrons. They then become your agents, your pair of eyes in each library.
The library policy did say that they would monitor access. But constant monitoring is impossible. There are issues with monitoring in general: you don't want to invade patrons' privacy and you don't want to restrict adults' rights. But as everyone here should know, filtering is an ineffective solution. Filtering is also required for federal funding. Rock and hard place.
Have you ever tried to police activities by performing walk-throughs? It's damn near impossible, especially when the perpetrator carries no respect for the authorities. I helped oversee a 24 station computer lab for a local middle school, and no matter HOW diligent the lab monitor, each and every computer, without exception, at some point had to be reloaded because a kid or group of kids wound up installing some software which broke it, or downloaded music, or some violation of the usage policy. Even revoking privileges didn't help the situation.
If your duties are, by definition, limited and near impossible, you are doomed to defy those duties.
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you allow full access, the users tend to run amok. If you prevent full access, then it's a challenge and those who circumvent the prevention are lauded as creative and gifted.
And yes, I'm totally kidding...don't mod me down for being sarcastic. Of course, now I might be modded down for pointing out my sarcasm, thereby negating the humor. Crap.
The librarian is facing dismissal, and possible criminal charges for the actions of another. So if the system this, why could we not punish you for someone else's crimes?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
No, i think you are the one that is freaking out.
The issue is that a person is getting fired for what appears to be out of their control. For a what seems to be a single incident.
This has nothing to do with freespeech/etc. Its about the transposing of fault to innocent people.
The person doing the viewing is at fault and should be punished, not the person running the building.
The only thing it should do for the librarian is serve as a wakeup call that their blocking procedure isn't adequate.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Here's the lovely Catch-22 that's been set up for this librarian: Librarians are not allowed by federal law to restrict what people view on the Internet. Now, the librarians can be suspended/fired for NOT restricting what people view on the Internet. What the hell is she supposed to do?
She supposed to do what every other good fanatical amerikan is supposed to do, and just 'shut-up' and make believe that she is guilty-- on BOTH aspects of 'The Law'.
This 'catch 22' is now the norm, with 'the governement' attempting to convince us all how 'bad we are' and how we 'need-them-so-much' to keep us safe from 'ourselves'.
The governments philosophy is clear; make us 'feel' so confused and guilty-- in EVERYTHING that we do (and don't do), that we all feel constantly confused and unsure about what 'the-right-thing-IS-to-do'.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
The fallout of government censorship comes from the government censoring. The increased in public libraries is one of the more positive changes that has occurred with respect to access to information, government or otherwise. While it is true that if the libraries did not receive public money the government would not be in the same position to affect library policy (and censor), there is far less ability for the public to affect private information policy.
People read stories like this, and then wonder why so many people are so hostile to the idea of municipal broadband servies.
I will take my Internet service without Big Brother government watching, thanks.
I know an ex-head-librarian.
Let me tell you, if they have time to sit around and monitor users internet access all day, they are not doing their job.
You have a lot of responsibilities at that job, and one wrong step and everyone's clamoring for your resignation.
Consequently, she refused to use filtering software. Mainly because it was easy to get around and way too restrictive. Monitoring the internet usage should be done by the assistant librarians, but the head librarian is more worried about other stuff, like you know, making sure the library stays open.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Let's pull the zoom lens back out to a statewide standpoint. Florida in general has been beset by one major sex related crime after another. Their CPS is a dog's lunch and is currently paralyzed by the scandals surrounding it.
The bottom line is that when something remotely sex related is found on a public access terminal in Florida, there is a kneejerk reaction to find a scapegoat and lynch that person as quick as possible.
If this were anywhere else in the nation, there would have been a Gaelic shrug and beefier security procedures put into place, no one getting crucified over it.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Sounds like local politicing and a witch hunt.
A ID=/20050813/LOCAL/208130332&SearchID=732171503810 16
How much funding does the library get?
It's nice for the local politicians to say they want their library to have nice new computers for their constituents to use, but back out when budget time comes and they might give the library enough for the hardware, but not a cent more for upkeep, firewalls and/or filters and/or staff for the computer area.
How long was the content viewed for? Was it something caught by a librarian or other staff or was it noticed during a review of the Internet access logs? If it was caught during one of the "walkthroughs" then the staff did all they could. I work in a college computer lab, and the legal porn is protected free speech, but games are not allowed. It's very easy for someone to sit at the computer in the far corner to see the lab staff coming and close the window, a browers window is a browser window, just as easy to hide/close if it's porn or yahoo games.
I'm sure the city knows more about who's a registered offender more than the library and should have informed the library and possibly had their computer or library access monitored, limited or revoked.
Before they try to fire a city worker, librarians are where I am, they had better make sure they had the necessary tools and funding to have been able to do something about it, not one of the "well, if you had 'this thing' it may have been prevented, but we took that line out of their budget"
there isn't much easily findable info on this to do anything other than guess. Here's the mentioned "Gainesville Sun" article:
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
Totalitarian control in the U.S. can't take place without turning the populace into its own jailers, a'la the GDR. DHS has had Yvgeny Primakov and Markus Wolf as consultants for creating "internal security measures."
Ten years from now, one-third of you will be reporting on the rest, just to keep your rare and valued job in the cafeteria. - That BTW, is the agenda behind ruining the dollar and the U.S> job markets: scarce jobs and government payrolls == social control.
Of the new jobs [created], 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.Here is the breakdown of the major categories:
30,000 food servers and bar tenders;
28,000 health care and social assistance:
12,000 real estate;
6,000 credit intermediation;
8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;
50,000 retail trade; and
8,000 wholesale trade.
(There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans immigrants.)
Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart's goods are made in China.
Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the US graduates each year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library was suspended without pay in early August after city officials found that a registered sex offender had used library computers to access pornographic websites.
City Commissioner Robert Billingsley said in the August 12 Gainesville Sun that he would ask the commission to fire VCL Director Sue Martin, but he declined to explain why he thought she had not done enough to prevent the incident, which occurred July 25. Police charged Michael Bushee, 25, with possession of child pornography several days later. Billingsley said police also told him that three male minors had used the VCL computers to look at sites with adult content.
The Sun quoted a letter Martin had written to Billingsley in which she explained, "We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
City Attorney Doug Wyckoff said Martin would receive a hearing within 60 days.
Posted August 12, 2005.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I know you're being sarcastic. But I'd like to chime in my own obvious answer: don't let people out of prison/jail that you want to punish. Letting people out of prison "early" while placing any sort of restriction on them is paramount to turning the whole state/country into a prison. The fact that the librarian is being punished over this seems very clearly Florida's way of saying that the prison guards (police) aren't too happy with her conduct.
If Florida really wants sex offenders to be punished for the rest of their life, they better be prepared to adequately shelter them in prison for the rest of their life. If every felony meant life imprisonment (think of all the ex-felons who can't vote), I think Florida would be a quite different state.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
In Canada (or at least Alberta), libraries are not allowed (by law) to install filters of any kind, because doing so violates their charter (open access to public information.)
There are several rural schools that share network access with public libraries, and this is one of the things that we have to work around (computers belonging to the school must be filtered, but computers belonging to the library must not be.)
I find it amazing that libraries in the US are not only allowed to censor information, but that they are *expected* to.
Libraries are for grown-ups, too. Adult images aren't illegal. Libraries aren't day-care centers, although I think that's what some people expect them to be. If I am forbidden to look at boobies on the internet at my local library, will I soon be forbidden from looking at boobies on African tribeswomen in the National Geographic on the shelf behind the computer? Or at the boobies in a book on art? Or read a description of boobies in a poetry book? There's a whole bunch of adult situations in that there bible these assholes are always thumping. Maybe we should censor that, too.
In a million years, when the alien archeologists are picking through the remains of our society, they're going to have a hard time figuring out how we reproduced. "Well Xzgralfap, they documented the reproductive practices of every other species on the planet and labeled it 'biology'. But they're own reproductive practices were labeled 'pornography' and forbidden to be documented and studied by the ignorant."
I'm tired of it. Mary Carey for President, 2008. Her and Bill Clinton are the only two pro-pornography candidates I can think of. Don't forget to order your save the court kit, today!
And, they had what I consider to be one of the most sensible policies for monitoring children I've ever seen: for children under 13, a parent or other guardian *must* be present for the kid to be allowed to use the computers.
The rationale was, well, rational: as a parent, you know what you consider to be inappropriate for your child, so it's up to the parent to make the judgment call.
I haven't been back to Sioux City in quite some time, and I certainly haven't been in the library, so I'm not sure if they've changed their policies. What I really liked about their policies is that they accounted for the unspoken question of appropriateness: appropriate for whom? The courts are never going to be able to decide what little Johnny's parents think is appropriate for him, so let/force them to decide. That's why I think it's crazy that librarians are expected to parent other people's children for them while they're at the library.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
Instead of firing innocent librarian(maybe she's a hott chica who just turns on all the visitors giving them reason to go looking for porn) they should investigate why people go on net lookin' for dirty stuff instead of going out dating and getting laid. Where are the good old 70's???? I'm not from the 70's BTW(it's later) ;-)
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
There is no "best enforcement policy" for irrational laws, rules and in general attempting to dictate to adults what they may do with access to the Web. That the access happens to be in a library paid for by taxes should not mean that Congress critters or whatever set of Mrs. Grundy types who scream the loudest get to monitor or restrict content accessed.
"If anyone should be fired "
And that's the point. No one should be fired over this incident. The librarian is there to assist patrons in study and scholarship, not to be a net nanny that makes sure nobody is downloading porn.
This is an unfortunate incident that a politician is trying to make a name from. If anyone should be fired its the commisioner who is now on a witch hunt.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Where did the article say that child porn was being viewed on the library terminals? If it had been, you can be sure that they'd have trumpeted it.
Instead, it appears that the 'registered sex offender' (Since when do they have to carry signs so everyone can see who they are at all times? Since when do they have to inform librarians of their status just to browse for books or on the 'net?) was found with CP in his own possession, and plain ol' vanilla porn was viewed on the library terminal.
I love the way child porn is thrown into the article to make it seem tied in to the incident, but the two appear to be completely seperate cases. The perp was charged with posession of CP, so must have had it on their own computer or in hardcopy.
This is terrible. The librarian did nothing wrong. Hell, the 'offender' did nothing wrong as far as I know, not at the library itself - MY public library has actual SEX MANUALS on the shelves, in hardcopy! (The Joy of Sex and several others) I can probably also find several pictures of nude bodies if I look.
I have great respect for librarians and the job they do. I'd much rather see whoever suspended the librarian fired for their knee-jerk reaction and blame-throwing.
I'm really sickened to see the direction this country is headed in.
...are
1) *what* investigators?
2) *why* were there investigators?
3) who sent them?
And a hearty thanks to all those who voted Republican, and so supported Christian neo-fascist "political correctness".
mark "and libertarian votes help the GOP"
Except for the librarian in question, for whom this is undoubtedly a stupid horror, this is just another high water mark that indicates the general stupidity of contemporary U.S. society, especially Florida which I'm sorry to say, may have a couple positive news stories but in general looks like an example of massive social deevolution.
Even IF the librarian had a written contract guaranteeing perfect surveillance and control of the Internet kiosks, it is most likely a minor footnote compared to all the good done for the community. Or to put it another way, the inability to restrain suspicious conduct by a felon was found to outweigh all other contributions. Maybe an accounting of the tasks that were done instead of policing the kiosks would be illuminating.
Possibly there is a secret war against sex offenders that requires the public library to be some kind of gauntlet the newly released offender has to run. Not sure if that wouldn't in fact count as entrapment but.. heck Florida doesn't think libraries and custodians of knowledge are that important so screw 'em! There's a limited number of slots in the Ivies and Big 10 schools anyway.
Hmmm....noticed a lot of people here are slightly peeved at this, and I agree that it isn't right she's taking the fall for this. A quick search through google pulled up some information which I think would be useful to share, so I figured I'd post it here.
If you don't like what is going on, maybe you should be responsible enough to let those elected officials know this. Have fun.
Robert Billingsley
465 Valparaiso Pkwy
Valparaiso, FL 32580
Email: rbillingsley@valp.org
Web: www.valp.org/
Phone: (850)729-5402