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Filters are tools that help librarians keep inappropriate material out of their libraries.
The year is 1967.
A patron finds a book in your library containing detailed instructions for making dynamite, and uses that information to build a bomb that he uses to destroy a neighbor's house. Now, you are being sued-and you may be charged with complicity in a crime.
Or, it's 1972, and last month you refused to allow a young patron to withdraw books from the "adult" section of your library. Despite the long-standing rule that anyone under 12 is restricted to the juvenile and reference sections, a lawsuit is brought, naming you, library staff, and trustees as defendants.
Absurd? Unthinkable? Indeed, yes-in those times. But such scenarios are possible now, with one major difference. Rather than allowing access to the "wrong" sort of books, or denying access to certain books, today's focus is on whether to allow Internet access. As more and more people turn to local libraries for Internet access, the possibility of such conflicts becomes more probable. This situation has forced more than a few libraries to pass judgment on what Internet content is appropriate for adults and children to see. The task is simple in theory, but complex in practice. Exactly what should you permit, and what should you block? And why?
At the same time, some communities and/or individuals are demanding that libraries abstain from such judgment. For example, late in December 1997 a community group in Virginia filed suit against the public library system in Louden County in order to block an Internet usage policy. Among other things, the policy specified that library computers used for Internet access be equipped with filtering software, to protect children from pornography and other objectionable material on the Web and in Usenet newsgroups. The lawsuit claims that the use of such software is a violation of free speech rights, since material that adults may want to access is also blocked.
In short, even though you are not expected to have on hand every magazine and every book in the world, you are expected by many to provide access to the full Internet. Since, as the Virginia case proves, there are no hard and fast definitions of what constitutes community...