In Phase Three of the study, I culled Internet addresses of sites blocked or let through in Phase 2 from the 377 forms and asked the testers to test these URLs with their filters. These URLs were personally tested by me and my work was double-checked by three of the librarian testers to ensure we had working URLs. For Phase 3, we designed a new survey which focused on whether or not the site was accessed, what kind of information it presented, and whether the librarian felt the site would be appropriate in a library setting. The guidelines were to test the filters with keyword blocking disabled. All programs prevented access to non-prurient, noncontroversial information.
All filters block information that librarians felt was non-prurient and inappropriately blocked.
Problems with blocking are not eliminated when keyword blocking is disabled. Many of the resources not available when filters are installed are blocked because filter company employees have intentionally selected these sites to be blocked. Disabling keyword blocking improves filter performance, but does not prevent a substantial amount of non-prurient, noncontroversial information from being blocked. Determining what the categories mean varies from filter to filter and there are no standard guidelines for determining how or what to block. I tried for six months, but without success, to evaluate the filtering product marketed to libraries called X-Stop.