Libraries serve as a community's principal source of information. For many in a community, the public library provides the only access to the vast resources of the Internet. School libraries are integral to the curriculum and serve as resources for educating our children. The use of blocking software deprives the community of access to many sites that provide valuable as well as constitutionally protected information for both adults and children on subjects ranging from AIDS and breast cancer to religion and politics. While blocking and filtering products can be useful tools for parents to use at home, their use in a library setting is questionable at best.
Libraries serve all the families and all library users in a given community.
As public institutions supported primarily by local public tax monies, libraries are obligated to meet the information needs of the entire community or school population, while upholding the basic principles of the First Amendment. Within the same community, within the same school district or library system, indeed, even within the same library or school building, users have vastly different needs. Federally mandated blocking software cannot responsibly anticipate the information and curricular needs of a community or determine the best sources of information for any particular public or school library user. This is the responsibility of library and school boards who reflect the values and standards of their constituencies and who are in the best position to know how to responsibly guide childrens' Internet access. But it is the librarian, not the software manufacturer, who has professional skill to serve the community's information needs, the obligation to acquire materials that fulfill those needs, and the responsibility to work with governing boards to help develop policies to assure appropriate Internet use.