Re: Burger King Mentality

[Julie Walker <jawalker@TENET.EDU>]

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Deborah Marie Collier wrote:

> A question just popped into my mind while reading this recent thread.
> This is especially for school librarians who don't believe Internet
> access should be censored:
>
> How many of you have a subscription to _Penthouse_, _Playboy(girl_),
> _Hustler_, etc. on your periodical shelves? If not, then why? If you
> don't, don't you think you've "censored" what the students have access
> to? Maybe the answer is to try to "censor" what actually comes into
> our libraries via the Internet & various "blockout" programs.
>
I doubt that many K-12 libraries have subscriptions to the magazines
listed above.  However, if one did choose to subscribe and found the
content offensive, would one ask the publishers to remove the
"unsuitable" material?  Would one ask Congress to pass a law outlawing
the content?

The Internet is not a K-12 resource.  It is a resource the K-12 community
has chosen to utilize for communication and information. The information
and communication found there is diverse.  Why no public outcry against
misinformation or disinformation?  In its own way, can that not be as
harmful (or in some cases more harmful) than what one would deem to be
"indecent?"  We, as a society, have chosen to unleash an uncontrolled
medium. How we choose to control that medium is just that --- an
individual choice.  Guess that is why we have teachers, and librarians,
and --- a delete key on the computer.

An old southern axiom might apply, "You pays yore money and you takes
yore chances."  --- or you don't!