Ethics

            
             Since the advent of the Internet, libraries have ceased to be repositories of selected materials alone and have become gateways to a vast and ever-changing array of resources not selected by library employees or for the most part evaluated by anyone in any way. In contrast to most of the print materials in library collections, their authors publish the majorities of Worldwide Web sites. Many of these sites provide reliable, current, readily retrievable information, some of which is obtainable nowhere else. .
             A LIBRARY'S CORE MISSION is to provide free and full access to a world of ideas. The most exciting thing to happen in libraries in the last decade has been to see that mission extended to include access to the Internet. New library services, funded by generous federal support, have made more Internet access available to more and more people. Now, those same sources may force public libraries to censor Internet access. .
             Public institutions like libraries offer the only point of Internet access for many poor and minority Americans. The new law will force public libraries to censor the web via filtering software or lose their funding. If libraries reject the law, their budgets will shrink, seriously curtailing their ability to provide any Internet access whatsoever.
             Filtering programs inadvertently block access to some web sites that may be considered useful as well as to sites that may be deemed offensive. Other programs depend upon reviewers to select sites for blocking but give no indication of the criteria the reviewers follow. Filtering programs sometimes block access to certain sites solely because they contain links to other sites deemed objectionable. Libraries that make filtering software available to their users are urged to provide them with information about its limitations and about possible unforeseen consequences of its use. .
             In the library, this raises factual questions.