October Poll results

Our October Poll ended with just under 200 readers finishing the sentence "Internet filtering in libraries is...," and the winner by a narrow margin is: "...never a good idea" (35%). Following closely is "...sometimes a good idea" (28.5%) and then not far behind, "...up to the local community" (19.3%) and "...an overblown issue" (12.2%).

Our September issue included two papers on the topic and our November issue will include another. All recognize that this is not an issue with easy answers. Support for filtering accepts that some legitimate resources will be made unavailable; rejection of filtering accepts that some illegal or inappropriate activity might occur. Given the anti-censorship history of the field, it is unsurprising that many would reject filtering altogether. It is far from clear, however, if this can be viewed as censorship or if it is simply an acquisitions decision to select only websites that contain material appropriate to all patrons.

Our November Poll asks: Web 2.o is...

• a big step forward, but underutilized.
• a small step forward. When is 3.0 coming out?
• what?
  
• all hype. Enough already!
• exactly what we need!