Nancy Branscombe and Gina Barber, City Councilors and Library Board Members from London, ON, are the 2008 recipients of the Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada.
The CLA press release clearly states that librarians were the advocates for internet filtering:
The initial impetus for the London Public Library filtering plan did not [...]
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The Guardian reported that today China expelled foreign journalists from Tibet to try and stop the flow of information about the violent crackdown on Tibetan protesters. The Editor of the Guardian wrote to the Chinese Ambassador to the UK:
“I am writing to express my deep concern over the apparent blocking by Chinese authorities of [...]
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CLA Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom released the results (7 page Word document) from their survey of challenges in Canadian libraries today.
Items challenged ranged from Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby to The Golden Compass; books, graphic novels and film; and internet filtering.
Almost all of the challenges resulted in the item being kept [...]
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In one of the core classes in library school we had field trips to different types of libraries (public, academic, school, legal, special, etc). I had the pleasure of visiting Sylvia’s school library and was inspired by how alive the library felt and the creative projects that the students were doing. On National [...]
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Last week the London Public Library Board voted 5-4 in favour of continuing to filter most adult workstations.
Cory Doctorow nicely summed up the problem with filters in an article in the Guardian:
These systems are failures because they continue to allow the bad stuff through. They’re disasters because they block mountains of good stuff.
See my earlier [...]
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The management team of the London Public Library recommended that adult workstations continue to be filtered with a commercial internet filter (Netsweeper). They had done a pilot project to see what patrons and staff thought of having many adult workstations filtered. Not children’s workstations, but adult ones.
I like that they are transparent in [...]
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Posted in filtering on November 20, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Thanks Ann Curry for posting this to the IFC listserv.
A big hurrah for the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario for passing a motion expressing concern about filters being applied to adult workstations at the London Public Library. I wish I had some buttons left to send you. They [...]
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Posted in filtering, internet on November 2, 2007 | No Comments »
I noticed an interesting library-related post on Boingboing today about the San Clemente public library’s filtered and unfiltered internet access signage. The comments section is filled with people weighing in on the merits of internet access in public libraries, the potential ‘abuse’ of internet access by patrons, the potential violation of privacy by librarians [...]
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The recent military crackdown in Burma got me thinking about access to information around the world. The media also commented on the role that the internet played in getting uncensored information out about the monk’s protests against the military dictatorship as well as how the internet was essentially shut off to stop the flow [...]
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Posted in CBC, filtering, porn on September 6, 2007 | No Comments »
i just caught the tail end of an interview on CBC radio’s Search Engine with Tom Wood, the 16 year old Australian who hacked the $84 million porn filter created by the Australian government in about 30 minutes.
download this episode, the interview with Tom is from 15:00 to 19:13.
this makes me laugh, even though i [...]
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