To the extent that unequal access serves to promote a two-tiered society, the information highway poses a problem that public schools and libraries need to address. Most journals publish articles that are referred by several experts and books are seldom published unless they meet the publisher's quality criteria. Beyond these filters are the quality filters of the institution itself as each information resource has to meet the selection criteria of the library before it can be purchased. On the Internet, we find a much broader range of information quality. Web sites can be set up by anyone who has an interest in doing so.
Many students have their own web sites that contain information they find interesting or amusing.
Many of the most sophisticated sites are devoted to advertising and selling just about any product you can imagine. From what I have seen, the majority of the material on the World Wide Web portion of the Internet would not be accepted by school or public libraries for inclusion in their holdings. The major concerns relate to the issues of truth and bias. While both of these attributes are relative and material short on truth and heavy on bias can be found in libraries, the filters in place guard against this. When you allow the pressures of advertising to sell products and have no checks on what is published, the risk is great that students will encounter material that distorts the truth for the self-serving purposes of the author.