Public Internet Access in Libraries and Information Services

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2002), "Public Internet Access in Libraries and Information Services", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 58 No. 5, pp. 593-595. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd.2002.58.5.593.5

The Internet has been around for a long time and libraries even longer. Discussion about the impact of one on the other has gone the rounds and, for some time now, information professionals have been putting things into practice, or have been wanting to do so. Sturges, who lectures at the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University, has produced a book designed to help such professionals – in public, school, academic, and other kinds of library – form policy on public Internet access. It is not a set of policy recommendations but advice about how to make policy. His position is that policy should above all be effective, and that means getting the mix of practical, legal, and ethical right.

Access has been a mantra for LISs for years, although achieving it, and being seen to do this inclusively, has always been a challenge. The democratic context of many library and information services ask us to see close links between freedom of expression and freedom of access, and this is why Sturges summarizes the law. It is British law even though he accepts that, with the Internet, law is transnational and decisions in any one jurisdiction should not presume application in any other. He is right to say that international regulation is patchy (and maybe, ultimately, futile) but that human rights law and sentiment moves information (and computer) professionals inexorably in the direction of accountability and (not necessarily as good) legality.

At the heart of the book, then, is advice about making policy, and to support this he provides a wealth of useful information in appendices – the Council of Europe guidelines on public access and FOI in networked information (covering public and children’s access, the management of public access points, handling disruptive use, and Internet use policies/acceptable use policies), as well as policy documents from various UK public and school and university library and information services. Such policies incorporate ethics, too, since acceptable use involves both law and ethics: there are examples of codes of conduct for academic, public, and school libraries, all starting points, if practitioners need them (and cannot get or have not yet got them from the Internet itself) for policy‐making.

The thrust of practical policy‐making dictates what Sturges says about the law: liability, human rights, privacy, intellectual property – none of them can be ignored by the busy professional, and he pinpoints topics well and supports them persuasively with relevant examples (many in this field deal with abstract legal points or with situations relevant to other professionals). He weaves ethics in persuasively, too, picking up not just on the wider issues of intellectual freedom and professional accountability, but also on specifics like confidentiality and filtering (e.g. as it applies to children, netnannies, and the like). To demonstrate that law and ethics overlap here is sensible: more sound still is to show the best kind of eclecticism of themes and examples for the practitioner or student likely to read the book.

It is all set within a useful framework of “the Internet problem”, if it is one (as he rightly asks), and professional debate about contentious and unreliable content on the Internet, searching for it, allowing access to it, and managing it. Managing Internet access is the heart of this book. Throughout Sturges drives everything towards that point: what should you know in order to make policy, what ethical considerations should you take on board, how does the law help you to do the “right” thing and avoid traps? He provides some useful checklists but draws back (and says so) from asserting that the book is a toolkit. This is not a cop out but more of a realistic stand which throws the glove back to the reader – you will know what you need to do in your own situation and institution, it is not for me to tell you.

He provides advice about staff training (this is suddenly a very, very practical section indeed, rather like a training manual, but all good sense) and has some arch things to say about relationships between information professionals (who are arguably interested in content and use) and computer professionals (who are arguably only interested in systems). These groups come together over Internet delivery, above all the technical side, and, in matters like reliable delivery, adminstering acceptable use, filtering and monitoring, need to work together. He implies they do not always do this (how true, how sad) and this is an implicit (and sad) comment on how insular professional perspectives get (not Sturges’s own!) over things like Internet access. But it does “prove” that this work is not one for groups other than information professionals.

The well‐chosen sources cited by the book show that information, computer, legal, and many other people, working together, will ensure effective and equitable Internet access, and that the sharp end lies in the institution itself. Sturges’s case then is based on getting the managerial and practical stuff right and fitting it coherently with the legal and ethical stuff. I am sure that most readers could do without the disproportionately long generalized section on what policy is, as well as the highly missable introduction, but, all said, this is a timely and useful work. It captures the UK/British end of things well, and as such contrasts neatly with works like Mark Smith’s Internet Policy Handbook for Libraries (Neal‐Schuman, 1999) with its US emphasis. In a fast‐moving field, it will have to chase its own tail to remain relevant, so I see new editions trickling out over the next three‐to‐five years, and would welcome a paperback version for students.