Librarian Suspended over Patrons' Web Access 414
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?"
That's Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it in their job description? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dismiss the dismissers! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what actually happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
good grief. (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:That's Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Rights Online???!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Same for this dude. He has nothing to do with it, provided he took reasonable precautions prior to letting patrons on the library computers (i.e. install "sanctioned" filters). If patrons know how to circumvent the filter, then it's either the patrons who should be arrested, or the filter's manufacturer who should bear some responsability.
What I'm driving at is that if the librarian did whatever he could to prevent downloading kiddy porn (and remember, he's no IT guy, he's a librarian, so installing a commercial web filter is about as much as he's expected to do) then he's not to be blamed.
Re:My Rights Online???!! (Score:4, Insightful)
So, in essence, this is about everyone's rights online.
Knowing about how cheap the Valparaiso City Commission can be about things, I doubt the library was provided the funding for any kind of useful software to help in this task. But I cannot say authoritatively since the last time I visited the ValP library was back when the only computer there was a Commodore 64.
As usual, the summary doesn't tell the whole story (Score:5, Insightful)
"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???!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Librarians (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From TFA: (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:My Rights Online???!! (Score:3, Insightful)
An excellent question. Where to begin?
First, the library is one of the traditional places for persons to get information. Things related to your rights that concern librarians:
-Censorship
-Public Access to Information
-Public Access to Government Information
-Intellectual Freedom
-Privacy
-Copyright and Intellectual Property
There's more.
One of these issues is technological barriers to access, such as filtering, and how they impact people (adults and children).
Your Rights Online. Here's how: (Score:3, Insightful)
Calm Down Silly Person. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Dismiss the dismissers! (Score:2, Insightful)
let's fire all the politicians who only server the interests of the people who contributed to there compaigns while were at it! and fire all the teachers who've had a student who fails.
great idea. So who hasn't been fired yet? anyone? Fire them too, they've done there job LESS THAN PERFECTLY...
you know there are things called punishments that fit the crime... this guy should have maybe a days pay docked for every person who manages to get access to porn if it's in his/her job description to prevent it... if the person shows repeated incompetence then you fire them... in the mean time perhaps having had time to look for a more qualified canidate..
Re:The Real Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Public vs. Private Libraries (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
That still only blocks porn it knows about or can guess by the text in the site. It seems that every three days there's a new goatsecx or lemonparty or tubgirl, and thats just the shock and horror sites. Imageboards are the new place for porn and those are growing like weeds and tend to not have enough text to figure out their porn-ness on the fly.
Re:Is it in their job description? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Big Brother Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
I will take my Internet service without Big Brother government watching, thanks.
Gahd, America is fucked up! (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't it time you started demanding that things change?
Come on, mobilize already!
Your religious right is going to completely fubar your society and culture if you don't start demanding better. You can't afford to sit on your fat asses pretending that this stuff doesn't hurt you.
Re:My Rights Online???!! (Score:2, Insightful)
KFG
Bigger picture (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
But since i went in to a libary this week may i add that i had the full atttention of a librarian for an hour reserving 18 books.
Libraries need to decide what they are either a) blockbuster, b) a book shop, c) or an internet cafe. and hire the right staff.
When i go into the library i dont want dvd's, or computer time. I want books, 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.
Re:Dismiss the dismissers! (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be more accurate to say we should fire any cop who fails to increase crime on his shift. Ludicrous, yeah?
Re:Is it in their job description? (Score:3, Insightful)
I know I'd rather live in a world with free information - yes, even if that means a sick minority can masturbate over pictures of little kids - than in a police state where I could be "disappeared" if I was caught looking at anti-government websites.
I think I'll propose a new corrolary to Godwin's Law. Anonymous Coward's Law states: in any discussion about freedom of information, the likelihood of a troll pretending child porn is the "ultimate evil", the eradication of which can justify any act of repression, hits 1 long before anyone's even thought of introducing Hitler.
Re:Is it in their job description? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's Stupid (Score:1, Insightful)
Address
459 Valparaiso Parkway
Valparaiso, FL 32580
Phone: 850.729.5406
vcl@valp.org
Re:Obvious answer: make sexual offender wear ID (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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 :).
Re:That's Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
You may not see anything wrong with it but that's just your opinion, which, I suspect, has no basis science and merely an opinion. The dangers of sexual addiction (the sex offender from the article is key in this discussion) are widely known within and outside of psychiatric circles. Do your own internet search for proof.
Re:That's Stupid (Score:1, Insightful)
Sorry, but you are absolutely wrong.
The First Amendment doesn't say "the right to freedom of speech, and the press, shall not be infringed (unless a majority approves)" - in this country, where all are supposed to be equal before the law, you have no more right to tell me what I can say, print, or read than I have to tell you what you can.
Yes, I know the courts have ruled that some speech may be curtailed, e.g. slander, libel, obscenity, inciting violence, etc. Those decisions are (very obviously, in my opinion) in direct violation of the First Amendment, but nobody seems to give a damn.
I don't know why people are bothering to protest this - the war is over, the people have lost. There's no hope anymore, sorry to say.
Re:Very Deliberate (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are so many Slashdotters anti-technology?
wrong question (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody should be fired (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:The view 300' from the scene of the crime (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Very Deliberate (Score:1, Insightful)
I can think of one case where a dictatorship did go away without violence. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Carlos_of_Spain [wikipedia.org] who is the King of Spain, and oversaw the transition from dictatorship to democracy.
(Basically, Juan Carlos was the prince, and the dictator Franco designated Juan as his heir. However, once Franco died, Juan took things in a very different direction to what Franco expected.)
But, this required the dictator to die a natural death and the dictator to groom an astute heir that (presumably secretly) cared more about the people than the dictatorship; so it perhaps may unfortunatly be a unique occourance.
I don't think USA problems are because you have a Fiat currency.
Re:Nobody should be fired (Score:2, Insightful)
And the obvious questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
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"
Darwinism at work (Score:3, Insightful)
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.