Internet Filters at San José PL?

Navigating between an 11-year-old city policy supporting unfiltered Internet access at city libraries and a Council member who wants to require filtering, the San José City Council, CA, will vote June 17 to consider a new filtering mandate, even though a library report was skeptical about the filter's effectiveness and the joint-use library's university partner opposes the proposed change.

Library director Jane Light called the issue at heart relatively minor, citing just 12 arrests for computer-related sex crimes out of 2.1 million library computer sessions in the 2006–07 budget year, the Mercury News reported. San José State University (SJSU) president Don Kassing said in a letter, however, that filtering violated “the spirit of our joint operating agreement by restricting intellectual freedom.”

A library memo further stated that “it would not be acceptable to the university to apply this proposed policy to university students or personnel. Implementation of the software filter would have to be carried out in a way that library cardholders whose record shows a patron status of University would have unfiltered access at login.”

According to the Mercury News, Councilman Pete Constant's proposed filtering policy would require filters on all computers. In terms of categories blocked, it would track the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) but, as with a small number of libraries, it would not allow adults to turn the filter off but instead would allow for unblocking sites on a case by case basis. City Attorney Rick Doyle, however, recommended against Constant's proposal, saying that unblocking sites on request might still leave the city vulnerable to lawsuits.

Librarians, meanwhile, have offered another reason to oppose the policy: filtering software is ineffective. A recent library report noted that testing—conducted by Sarah Houghton-Jan, Digital Futures senior librarian—confirmed earlier published results, concluding that 15–20 percent of keyword searches would be overblocked or underblocked, although keyword searching is not necessarily the choice for users.

“Our testing did reveal new information,” the report noted. “All the software we tested was ineffective in filtering and blocking other, newer types of Internet uses, specifically, image search engine results, RSS feeds, and email attachments.” Constant, meanwhile, disagreed with the results and said he'd publicly demonstrate that filters work well.