Library news: Potential e-book censorship issue—and a blog from the Library of Congress
A female executive can read a steamy romance on a PDA during lunch without the boss finding out. Here’s to the privacy of e-books!
But should libraries protect kids from controversial books on topics such as sex or drugs or other minefields? A tricky issue. In the current LISNews, a medical librarian named David Rothman—not me—points to an AP article mentioning a child who learned to sniff nail polish remover via a p-book checked out from a school library. No reference to E. But you can imagine the possibilities. Will keyword-based filtering soon be a feature of e-book servers for libraries and schools, if it isn’t already? The probability that e-book-friendly OLPC machines (photo) will reach the U.S. schools makes these issues rather timely. I’m not the biggest fan of filtering. On the other hand, should New York schools use the same standards as those in Mississippi? Those are issues to discuss now, before implementation. As I recall, OLPC itself has pondered child-safety issues, but the New York/Mississippi example is just one illustration of the complexities that might arise.
LOC’s new blog
Quite separately in another item, LISNews’ Birdie points to a new blog from LOC communications director Matt Raymond (the image at the end of this post, of course, is from LOC).
It’s about time. I hope the LOC blog has a nice, light personal touch while also pointing to authoritative, substantive information in depth. With that in mind, the library might check out the TeleBlog item on a blog from another august entity, Oxford University Press. Matt Raymond or LOC librarians would do well to invite distinguished experts at LOC, and elsewhere in the library and academic worlds, to contribute. Posts obviously could send e-visitors to resources elsewhere on the library’s server. OUP-style navigation features would allow visitors to head for specialized subjects of interest. Librarian of Congress James Billington is a leading authority on Russian history and politics, and ideally the LOC blog can coax some contributions from him. The blog’s current post is Today in History: Who’s Buried in Grant’s Tomb Edition.
Existing categories are Blogging, Capitol Hill, Congress, Curators, Events, Exhibitions, LC Web site, Libraries, New Visitors Experience, News, Thomas Jefferson Building and Today in History. That’s a good start, but as noted, I hope that the blog can also explore specific topics in the depth that the Oxford Press blog intends to—and the right navigation structure and RSS feeds could make this possible without overwhelming visitors.
Detail: The LOC blog isn’t intended to speak officially for the library. Good. That should help make it much more interesting than otherwise.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:28 am
Hi, I have been looking for sites like this for a long time.
Good luck.