Re: [LM_NET] sudo-HIT bocking blogs & wikis

[Mary Ann Bell <drmaryannbell@GMAIL.COM>]

Thanks, Pam, for your nice mention of my article! I wish I could say that
there has been a big improvement over the past year but I still hear far too
many sad stories to believe that. I do see a few glimmers of hope, though,
and continue to maintain that we must keep on campaigning for the access
that educators and students need and deserve. This past summer my students
and I had the pleasure of visiting with Lisa Von Drasek at Bank Street
School Library. She used a phrase that is appropriate here. In describing
how we must keep trying to get needed permissions and equipment, funding,
etc. she said, "water on stone." We have to keep persistently working for
positive changes with the understanding that, while it may not happen
overnight, eventually like water on stone we will wear away opposition.
Today is a good day to talk about working to gain the rights our students
deserve, and I encourage everyone to keep up your efforts to support all the
values we care about as librarians, including right to access to
information. Cheers!--mabell

On Jan 21, 2008 9:17 AM, Pamela Burke <pam.burke@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks to everyone who replied to my post about filtering blogs &
> wikis. My original email asked a number of questions that I realize
> now are split into two categories - creating your own blogs & wikis
> and access others'. I did hear from a large number of you who cannot
> access blogs & wikis of any kind, more below.
>
> What I'm still wondering about is the use of your own blogs & wikis,
> as opposed to accessing others. To those districts who block all
> Edublogs or PBWikis etc., I'd love to know if you've requested that
> they install software for you to use on an in-house basis. If these
> district IT departments maintain their own webservers, or have
> websites hosted elsewhere, they should be able to set up 2.0 software
> like Wordpress or Mediawiki for the schools to use in-house (heck, I
> did it myself, but I don't have an IT dept).  If you are wanting to
> use a blog to discuss literature with your students, or for whatever
> reason, will the IT departments support that? If not, why not?
>
> About accessing the sites of others:
> Since I do not want to compromise the privacy of the librarians who
> wrote to me of their district filtering rules, instead of posting a
> HIT, here's a summary of the replies I received. I heard from many
> librarians whose entire districts are filtering with a very heavy
> hand. It seems very common to filter based on what (internet-adverse)
> administrators feel you should be spending your time doing while at
> work, rather than any concern for the student's well-being. Amazon,
> Gmail, eBay are blocked right along with any site with wiki or blog
> in the URL, or included in a filtering company's list of "social"
> sites. Well-intentioned and thoughtful requests to unblock valid
> sites (including a number of librarians who have been unable to
> access Debbie Reese's blog) have been denied.
>
> For great reading: Mary Ann Bell wrote an informative article in SLJ
> Jan '07 issue about filtering in schools (see the issue with the
> pierced second life avatar)  called "The Elephant in the Room. Thanks
> Mary Ann.
>
> If anyone has been successful in loosening up the filtering in your
> districts, I'm sure many on the list would love to hear from you. It
> sounds like things are getting worse for many librarians trying to
> teach successful, modern-day research practices.
>
> Pamela Burke
> Librarian, Marlboro School
> Marlboro, VT 05344
> http://marlboroschool.net
> pam.burke@gmail.com
>
>
> SurRural Librarian
> http://lib.surruralist.net/
>
>
>
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-- 

*********************************
"Try Curiosity!"--Dorothy Parker
*********************************
Dr. Mary Ann Bell
Associate Professor
Sam Houston State University
A Member of the Texas State University System
Department of Library Science
lis_mah@shsu.edu
drmaryannbell@gmail.com

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