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Word From On High
19/2/07 20:22And so the county library system has decided that MySpace will henceforth be filtered from all library computers. A cheer went up when the announcement was made; I understand the sentiment, but my own feelings are very mixed.
What precipitated this: young men, 12-25, were coming into the library to use MySpace. People who would never have come to the library if it weren't for MySpace. Some of them behaved well, some of them were obnoxious and would crowd around a computer getting loud and giggly. And then there were some of them who harassed other patrons, intimidated them, stole things, used MySpace for gang activity and drug deals, and otherwise went rather beyond merely obnoxious.
My feeling about this remains, we can't censor things just because a certain group of people is being a pain in the neck. You know who can really be a pain in the neck? Old people. They think it's your fault if they don't know how to use the computers, and they have very forceful ideas about what the library ought to have, and sometimes you have to talk really loud before they'll hear you. Should we therefore get rid of large print books? (Oh, I like the majority of old people. I like the majority of teenagers too, even the majority of MySpace-using ones!) The library director told us that library school hadn't taught us about mentally ill people who had gone off their meds. Well, my library school did! My library school said you have to serve people if they're crazy or mean or they smell bad, until it gets to the point where there's really nothing you can do to help them.
But it has gotten to the point where it's a public safety issue. Not just for the library staff, but for everybody who wants to use the library in relative peace and quiet. So maybe it's what's got to be done. Maybe that's why you don't get to be library director until you've gotten all the idealism beaten out of you.
What precipitated this: young men, 12-25, were coming into the library to use MySpace. People who would never have come to the library if it weren't for MySpace. Some of them behaved well, some of them were obnoxious and would crowd around a computer getting loud and giggly. And then there were some of them who harassed other patrons, intimidated them, stole things, used MySpace for gang activity and drug deals, and otherwise went rather beyond merely obnoxious.
My feeling about this remains, we can't censor things just because a certain group of people is being a pain in the neck. You know who can really be a pain in the neck? Old people. They think it's your fault if they don't know how to use the computers, and they have very forceful ideas about what the library ought to have, and sometimes you have to talk really loud before they'll hear you. Should we therefore get rid of large print books? (Oh, I like the majority of old people. I like the majority of teenagers too, even the majority of MySpace-using ones!) The library director told us that library school hadn't taught us about mentally ill people who had gone off their meds. Well, my library school did! My library school said you have to serve people if they're crazy or mean or they smell bad, until it gets to the point where there's really nothing you can do to help them.
But it has gotten to the point where it's a public safety issue. Not just for the library staff, but for everybody who wants to use the library in relative peace and quiet. So maybe it's what's got to be done. Maybe that's why you don't get to be library director until you've gotten all the idealism beaten out of you.