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?"

Comments

Is it in their job description?

[Antony-Kyre]

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.

Re:Is it in their job description?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Is it in their job description to monitor what users access?

As someone with generations of many librarians in the family, I can say that monitoring what users access - be it electronic or paper - is antithetical to being a librarian.

Librarians are supposed to be about enabling patrons to find the information they are looking for, not judging them and certainly not censoring the information.

It's true that lots of people want to turn librarians into the information police to enforce their own social agendas. But that role is about as far from what it means to be a librarian as you can get.

For example, when the Patriot Act required that libraries secretly reveal their patrons' borrowing histories in effectively warrantless searches, librarians around the country made sure that their systems stopped keeping borrowing histories. That all they ever tracked is what books a patron currently had checked out and once returned all records of that check-out were destroyed. Thus enabling their patrons to borrow any material they wanted without fear of being tracked.

Being a librarian is about tearing down the walls around information, not building them up.

Re:Is it in their job description?

[Monkelectric]

he head librarian should be implementing sane policies that prevent things like this, and should be trying to provide a sliver of oversight for this stuff.

Ever worked at a big institution? Everyone who works at big institutions tries to arrange the facts and situation so the blame lands somewhere else, often while they are not given the resources to do so, and completely conflicted directives.

A friend of mine once worked in a situation where after working at a company for 5 weeks, he was asked to be personally responsible (as far as his career goes anyways), for the certification of each device manufactured. A piece of software which he was responsible for certified the devices, and this software was basically 8000 lines of if-then-else statements cobbled together over 6 years. A misconfigured device could easily destory 100,000's of dollars of materials.

Whats wrong with that you ask? There was *NO* policy describing the correct certification of these devices. None. No way to verify the program is operating correctly, a no definition even of waht correct operation was. So basically they were looking for a fall guy when the inevitable happened.

Dismiss the dismissers!

[Anonymous Coward]

By analogy, perhaps it would be best to fire any cop who doesn't manage to stop all crime on his shift?

Re:Dismiss the dismissers!

[Boing]

Poor analogy, because this situation is even worse. Stopping people from accessing desired materials is the POLAR OPPOSITE of a librarian's responsibility.

It would be more accurate to say we should fire any cop who fails to increase crime on his shift. Ludicrous, yeah?

Re:Dismiss the dismissers!

[xigxag]

Stopping people from accessing desired materials is the POLAR OPPOSITE of a librarian's responsibility.

Things seem to be heating up around here. A smidgen over four hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit, even.

So, what actually happened?

[OO7david]

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.

Simple solution

[ThatGeek]

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.

As usual, the summary doesn't tell the whole story

[rolfwind]

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.

Re:My Rights Online???!!

[steelfood]

Read TFA.

The director of the library was suspended, not just any librarian. TFA doesn't go into the details too much, but the city officials were orchestrating this, and she have a hearing. That's pretty much how serious it is. Start thinking criminal charges. Maybe not jail time, but possibly community service.

Nor was it kiddy porn that the people surfed. They just charged the sex offender with possession, but TFA states that he (and some underaged boys, big surprise there) had looked at adult material using library computers.

Nice try, troll.

Damned if you do...

[HomerNet]

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?

Re:That's Stupid

[macdaddy357]

She was supposed to use her god-like omniscience, and know what all people were doing at all times. In fact, it was her duty to read their minds and stop them before the fact. Since she didn't, we need to get two sturdy pieces of wood, and three nails. Crucify her!

Re:That's Stupid

[canuck57]

How is it the librarian's fault?

You hit the nail on the head with that statement. It should be city management that should be fired for neglect of supporting policy. City politicians could have subscribed to a block list and lay down the infrastructure to enforce this policy, like most do. Instead they make her out as the cause when in fact it is disfunctional inept city politics that is the cause.

I hope the lawyers tear the city apart for wrongful dismissal. The city's only chance in surviving would be if they demonstraited support for the library personnel to boot patrons out for viewing porn, which is not likely. And last I checked, sex offenders don't walk around with tattos on their forehead to say so.

She is clearly a victim.

Re:That's Stupid

[qw(name)]

It wasn't the librarian that's getting suspendeded. It's the "The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library".

It looks like people are on a witch hunt since a registered sex offender downloaded child pornography from the library's website.

If anyone should be fired it should be the librarian on-duty sice he or she was not doing his or her duty of performing a walk-through of the area and monitoring all the computers.

From the article:

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."

Bigger picture

[TheHawke]

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.

Re:That's Stupid

[ultranova]

Libraries need to decide what they are either a) blockbuster, b) a book shop, c) or an internet cafe. and hire the right staff.

Libraries are d) a storage and distribution center for information and culture, whether it is printed in books, recorded into a tape, engraved into a vinyl disk, burned into a CD, downloaded from the Internet, or memorized by bards. They exist to distribute information to everyone who needs (by his own judgement, not governments or anyone elses) it, and culture for the enlightenment and entertainment of all. As new forms to store and distribute information are developed, libraries need to adapt to do their job. They are doing exactly that.

And the "right staff" is people who refuse to install any kind of information filters into computers, or perform any other kind of censorship. Internet content filters are just a modern equivalent of book pyres. Installing them is suitable behaviour for nazi hordes, not for civilized citizens of civilized countries.

A librarian who walks behind peoples backs to make sure they don't access forbidden pages might be complying with laws, but she is betraying her society by perverting her job into a propaganda officer ("citizen, don't watch those disgusting lies, go and watch this page which gives praise to our glorious leader").

When i go into the library i dont want dvd's, or computer time. I want books,

Well, you obviously either have a computer of your own or can use some other way to connect to Slashdot, but not everyone is so lucky. Be happy that you are.

And DVD's are in the library for the same reason that cassettes, vinyls, CD's and videos are - they contain culture, and it is half of librarys mandate to give access to that culture to its users.

and if i take an hour of the library staffs time to reserve those books then it takes an hour - if your behind me well thats your problem.

Any particular reason you're mention this ? Are you just trying to demonstrate what a though guy you are, or are you trolling ?

But go ahead, take an hour (altought that's about three minutes per book - pretty slow library staff you have there). We have three desks in my library (and most customers use automated lending machine anyway), and I'm sitting and you're standing while making the reservations. No skin off my back, or anyone elses, plenty of skin of your feet :).

Re:Very Deliberate

[mhearne]

In the past 40 years, we have gone from an industrial nation with a hard currency, to a paper nation of the pseudo-wealthy, and their neccessary servants.

Since the dollar began to float, in 1971, the buying power of that dollar has dropped by approximately 80 per cent. It has dropped 55 per cent since 2000 alone, when the present regime came to power.

Rome existed for 1,000 years, and was finally destroyed by uncontrolled immigration. There just wasn't enough to go around.

We may be past the point of a peaceful resolution to the totalitarianism that is overwhelming us. Historically, only violence has been a successful solution to dictatorship.

Nobody should be fired

[tkrotchko]

"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.