To Link, or Not To Link

The World Wide Web may be a morass of information, but a library is making a value judgment when it identifies and selects sites it considers important and links to those sites from its own web page. In the same way selecting a book, video, CD, or magazine for inclusion in a library collection represents the recognition of some value to the users of that item, the act of selecting a web site also ascribes another level of value to that site. Traditional collection development is often shaped by an active documented policy reflecting the institution's values, however, the selection of web sites tends to be left to the staff members as a subjective judgment call.

In many cases that judgment call is perfectly valid. There are, after all, guidelines professionals use in evaluating web sites. But how do professionals explain the process of collecting web sites, of creating relationships among various sites relative to particular subjects? Why do they create the juxtapositions that they do? Which lists are regularly updated, and what collections languish once posted? How do professionals justify the costs of their collections, when we investigate the staff time, server time, and cataloging time involved in the process?

The Bettendorf Public Library, IA, created a link selection policy for its web site on the advice of the city attorney. Bettendorf was concerned that white supremacist groups active in the area would request a link from the library web site to its own. Without a policy, the library had no grounds by which to refuse a request for a link, and so the board passed a "Policy for Links" to the library web site in May 2001.

This is a common stimulus for any selection policy, in large part a defensive maneuver to thwart the strategies of special interest groups to, in effect, manipulate a practice to further their own ends. If the group is mainstream and innocuous, there is seldom a problem. If its views are marginal, the stage is set for fireworks.

The case of Putnam Pit v. City of Cookeville has highlighted the need to document the decision-making process by which links are added to governmental web sites. Geoffrey Davidian was the publisher of the Putnam Pit, a watchdog newspaper that monitored the government of the City of Cookeville, TN. Davidian had requested that the city provide a link from its web site to the web site of his tabloid. When Cookeville refused, Davidian filed suit, claiming a violation of his First Amendment rights.

The Cookeville site had been maintained by the city computer operations manager, who usually simply added any requested link to the city site. In this case, however, given the nature of the requestor, the computer services staffer referred the decision to the city manager. The city manager denied the request and then instituted a policy requiring that links be limited to nonprofit agencies. He apparently also made the statement that he would not allow a link to the Putnam Pit under any circumstances, as the newspaper was often critical of city government. The city then determined that links would be required to promote the economic welfare and appreciation of the city. Several links were removed from its site that did not fit this policy.

The lower court found for the city, but Davidian appealed. It was in the appeal that the lack of a selection policy became prominent. The court found that the city web site qualified as a nonpublic forum, but, as a result, the regulation of that forum must be viewpoint neutral. The policy requiring that sites promote the economic welfare, tourism, and industry of the city allowed too much discretion to the city; it allowed for the possibility of discriminatory practice. The Sixth Circuit Court basically found the city of Cookeville vulnerable to a charge of First Amendment violations. Cookeville is not the only city to have faced a challenge of discrimination regarding a decision not to link to another web site. As a result some lawyers are recommending link selection policies for city web sites.

The Bettendorf policy states that its links are added and evaluated based on its collection development policy, that sites are not added upon request, and that it does not intend to "open up the Library or city's web site as a full or partial public forum."

As public forums are not often intentionally created, but tend to grow through a process of public appropriation, such a statement does not provide much protection. The League of Wisconsin Municipalities, in its interpretation of the decision, listed several strategies for dealing with the situation:

• Ideally, include no other links besides those of other government agencies. This strategy would obviously not work for libraries and basically turns the web site into an electronic brochure;
• Have a policy governing web site selection that is viewpoint neutral;
• Adopt a policy based on information type, such as government, schools, and cultural institutions and eliminate resources also by type, such as commercial sites, illegal sites, or sites violating city policies;
• Avoid broad categories to avoid vulnerability to viewpoint discrimination charges.

The need for a policy that governs selection should be obvious for any public web site, especially library sites. Materials selection is a large part of what libraries do; many libraries already have materials selection policies, and those that do not have them certainly should. If we extend the role of selection to library web site link collections, the need for a link selection policy is obvious.

G. Edward Evans and Margaret R. Zarnosky devote a chapter of Developing Library and Information Center Collections (Libraries Unlimited, 1999. 4th ed.) to the development of collection policies, characterizing selection as a subprocess of collection development. The point of the policy is to outline the plan, which maintains the strengths of a library collection while addressing the weaknesses.

Evans outlines a number of elements to fashion within a collection development policy, including the intended service community, specific subject areas for collecting, the programming requirements of the community (educational, recreational, etc.), details about the collection, who does the selecting, how they select (i.e., which resources do they use), what criteria they employ, how the library handles miscellaneous items, the evaluative process, and, finally, the process for handling collection challenges.

While Evans does address electronic resources, the selection of web links is not considered a part of the collection development process. Electronic resources are purchased materials, either directly or through participation in a consortium, and they are often related to a text resource, which may or may not already be part of the collection. As libraries develop a stronger and more robust web presence, as they attract greater numbers of users, and as they expend professional time and energy in expanding access, the need for a link collection policy becomes apparent, even without legal challenges looming.

The Bettendorf Public Library "Policy for Links for the Library's Web Site" is a simple two-paragraph statement that clarifies the purpose of the link selection, and it is useful to staff in answering patron questions. It states twice that the selection must be consistent with the library collection development policy and lists a simple set of criteria that include "currency, authority, organization, and accessibility." With the addition of the statement indicating that neither the library nor, by extension, the city library web site was to be considered a public forum, the counselor for the city was satisfied with the policy.

Web site selection policies do not need to be extensive documents. However, other libraries have taken a more detailed approach to policy development. Monroe County Public Library, Bloomington, IN, states that its selections are oriented to users, with the intention of providing access to good information. According to Paula Gray-Overtoom, information systems librarian, a committee drafted the policy to parallel the materials collection policy. "We have a web committee composed of staff who create web pages, department managers, administration, and any other staff interested in the development of our web site. Since we have a large number of people who create web pages, the committee decided that we should have standard guidelines that everyone could follow."

The recognition that the policy should guide the selectors is significant. The assumption that web links are free is a misperception. While one web site may occupy a limited amount of a staff member's time in identifying, annotating, and marking up, the accumulation of sites can begin to develop real costs. Pennies do, after all, add up. Also, a mass of links can be as useless as no links at all, if the end-user is overwhelmed. Monroe County was interested in publishing the policy so that patrons could be aware of it. Admittedly it also serves as a "right of refusal" document when external agencies request links.

The Wyoming-based GoWyld! site constitutes an online "special collection." As it immediately states in its policy, "The GoWYLD! Wyoming Collection contains Wyoming-related Internet resources of interest to librarians, teachers, students, and citizens of the state of Wyoming." The developers of GoWyld have included five different criteria: access, design, content, scope, and authority. The policy emphasizes ease of use, quality and persistence of content, ADA accessibility, and accountability. The policy is detailed without being wordy, making the policy itself as readable and accessible as the web sites it evaluates. It is also available online, and the last update is noted on the page.

Academic libraries are not exempt from the need for link collection policies. The Newman Library of Baruch College, CUNY, includes link selection in its electronic collections policy, which is another strategy to pursue in the development of a policy. It states, energetically, that the goal of collecting must be "to insure the incorporation of the best in educational technology into the Baruch academic environment. All resources accessed through the Newman Library home page, whether to internal resources, to CUNY+, or to other web sites, must reflect the mission of the library, the curricular and research interests of the faculty and students, and undergo a rigorous process of selection for comprehensiveness, for relevance to the collection, for quality, and for educational value." The library goes on to explain that the selection of web links is not quite as demanding as selection of other resources, since the expenditure of library funds is not involved. However, the expectation of a quality product remains. There is little detail outside the broad scope of quality, but it does go on to tie the selections to the curriculum and the existing collections, not only within Newman but through all shared resources.

The Internet Collegiate Reference Collection (ICRC) of Bloomsburg University's Harvey A. Andruss Library, PA, includes selection resources in its document. It includes the Best Free Reference Web Sites from the American Library Association's Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), Internet Scout Report, and Librarians Index to the Internet. It also lists various resources from which links have, euphemistically, been "borrowed," such as Digital Librarian: Reference Sites, Louisiana State: Ready Reference Sources, and Martindale's—the Reference Desk.

The most extensive policy, however, belongs to healthfinder®, the online information and referral resource for health questions. Within the introduction to its Content Selection Policies and Procedures is the following: "The goal of the Web site is to improve consumer access to selected health information from government agencies, their many partner organizations, and other reliable sources that serve the public interest."

Its 12-page document is divided into six sections that wed policy and procedure. In addition to identifying the goal, the introduction identifies the target groups and what it calls "credible organizations" and selected individual resources, i.e., web pages that are part of a larger site but may be lost in a more general organizational link. It identifies its relationship to the Federal Health Information Clearinghouse network and outlines the characteristics of organizations that are included in an evaluation. It indicates that the development of the Internet has allowed it to expand the number of inclusions.

With its high visibility and accountability, healthfinder® has provided a very thorough analysis of its process, has used its professional credibility to ground its policies, and has made the product readily available. It also recognizes that, as a web-based service, link selection is neither a casual nor an add-on service. As libraries begin to expand their concept of the web site as on online branch, they must also come to grips with the particulars of the web-based collection.

In considering a link collection policy, we are actually engaging in an analysis of the role of such a collection within the library service model. Link collections began as ad hoc assortments of Internet resources usually grouped by topic. The web has grown to include a great deal of chaff, but the wheat is also much more robust. There are real, persistent resources available to be documented and maintained. As Baruch's Newman Library's collection policy states in its opening paragraph, "The Internet, with its rapid growth, decentralized architecture, vast resources, and lack of standards, demands the information access skills the library faculty have traditionally provided on this campus. With so many faculty members at Baruch and elsewhere skeptical of electronic information sources and dubious about the educational value of the World Wide Web, it is important that the Newman homepage reflect the best in electronic collection management."

Davidian won a retrial of his case for Putnam Pit's link to the city of Cookeville's web site, but the jury did not find that his paper's content fit the requirements outlined in Cookeville's selection policy. It may be a loss in terms of free speech, but it certainly demonstrates the significance of the policy.