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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?"
By analogy, perhaps it would be best to fire any cop who doesn't manage to stop all crime on his shift?
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?.
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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").
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.
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 :).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.