Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

The ACLU released a great short YouTube video about why they feel strongly that filters in libraries (or even centrally placed by the government, like China *yelp!*) are not acceptable.  What's cool to me is that they mention in the description, and in the piece, the study that I headed up at my library (the San Jose Public Library) about the effectiveness of internet filters.  The big issue is over-blocking…not under-blocking.  Though the study is now a year old, it's still relevant.  I believe that the numbers might slightly (ever so slightly) improve were we to do a similar study today, but with the rise of non-text media, the filtering companies have not been able to produce effective filters for things like video, audio, and even photos.