Administrative Law

Report by San Jose Public Library shows filters still don't work well

By Mary

I attended an inspiring meeting of the San Jose Public Library Commissioners Feb. 13th. I'm frankly tired of the whole filters in libraries issue, as we've thought about this and debated the issues for over a decade. So I was surprised to see how engaged and thoughtful the Commission and library staff were.

A city councilman has proposed that the library filter every terminal. On paper, the proposal makes sense - filter child pornography and obscenity for adults. Add "harmful to minors" filters for children.   

In practice, however, there are no filters that can do this. In fact, I've never seen a filter setting that even tries to distinguish between these three categories.  They all lump the three together in a category such as "sexually explicit" or "pornographic." 

But the bigger problem is that no matter how well intentioned a filter company is, the filters invariably overblock legitimate sites, especially health sites, gay and lesbian sites, etc. These are often the same topics that users are uncomfortable asking librarians for help in finding.  And as Lori Ayre writes, "I think the reason patrons aren't asking to be unblocked is because many of the filters don't let you know that you've been blocked. One of my pet peaves is that they sometimes just display an error (404 - site not found) so the user thinks they entered the URL wrong..."

The Commission recognized the limitations of filters in a government setting (as opposed to family or corporate).  Sarah Houghton-Jan, Digital Futures Manager at the library gave a thorough presentation of her report that shows overblocking and underblocking of sites. See Internet Filtering Software Tests: CyberPatrol, FilterGate & Websense (February 4, 2007). Here is a summary chart of findings - see the report itself for more detailed data:

Average Filter Accuracy (margin of error +/- 5%)

The Commission voted overwhelmingly to keep the open access policy, with recommendations to get more privacy screens. Privacy screens generally block images from passersby. The meeting agenda and supporting documents are here.

The next step is the City Council Rules committee - at a meeting with a date not yet set. The Library is seeking public input. If you can take the time to read the proposal and the library's response, please add your comments online. Be sure to notice in the library's response that in fact there have been very few porn problem incidents in San Jose. The King library keeps a sworn police officer on duty, and has been able to handle inappropriate behavior incidents in ways that do not block legitimate access to the Internet. How many other libraries have a police officer on location!

Full post as published by LibraryLaw Blog on February 22, 2008 (boomark / email).