I'm a librarian, and I work part-time (on call) for a local city library. Yesterday, I was at a small inner-city branch, which is filled with kids after school. Usually most of them are in the Family Learning Center, getting help with their homework, but yesterday none of the homework helpers were in, so there were more kids than usual running around the main part of the library.
At about 5 minutes before closing, a man at one of the public internet terminals called me over. Seems he had been trying to get into a site and had been blocked. He had tried using his own email address to override the filtering software, which of course didn't work. I could tell by the name he used (which, thankfully, I can't remember, so I don't have to repeat it) that he was trying to get into a porn site.
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He asked me why he was blocked from entering the site, and if I could override the filter for him.
Luckily, I was able to avoid any personal ethical dilemmas by telling him that I could not, as we were closing in a few minutes.
Now, I can hear some of you saying "Filters? what about freedom of information?"
HOWEVER
- Our library gets federal funding, and in order to continue to receive these funds, we are required to comply with the CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act), which means we have to have filtering software. This was a decision made by the City Council, and of course with all the cutbacks we have been dealing with, we need those federal funds.
- The public internet terminals are in the middle of the library, and there were dozens of elementary-school-aged (and younger) kids running around.
- As a substitute librarian, I do not know the password that overrides the filtering software.
My ethical dilemma:
If I'd had the passwords, and it wasn't 5 minutes before closing, would/should I have overridden the filtering software?