[128] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Library's role in campus info. tech.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Carl M. Kadie)
Wed Apr 29 15:40:19 1992
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1992 13:58:44 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: "Carl M. Kadie" <kadie%eff.org@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
LIPPERT@UCBEH.BITNET writes:
>Can anyone out there provide copies of policy statements, position
>papers, proposals or citations to articles describing the library's
>role in information technology within the university?
You may find this interesting, it tells how Stanford ended its
computer censorship on the recommendation of the library committee. As
someone interested in computers and academic freedom, I have found
library policy on intellectual freedom invaluable. (I'm enclosing
access information for an on-line archive.)
- Carl
====================================================
From: jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET
The cost saving in suppressing a particular newsgroup are trivial.
At Stanford they were probably negative, since personnel time went
into it.
We won the restoration by the following means:
1. There were faculty and student petitions on the subject, mostly
from computer science people.
2. There was only one strong-minded bad guy and he was rather
perfunctory in his "off with its head" decree.
3. The Academic Senate Steering Committee was persuaded to refer
the issue to the faculty committee on libraries. This committee
came up with a statement to the effect that the policy of an
electronic library should be the same as that of a print library -
universality tempered only by cost.
*****
From: jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET
In 1989 rec.humor.funny was suppressed in some of the Stanford
University computers. After a campaign it was re-installed
in those computers. It was never suppressed in the Computer
Science Department's computers. There follow two relevant
documents. The first is self-explanatory, and the second
came about through the following sequence of events.
(1) Donald Kennedy, Stanford's President, told the Academic
Senate that he supported the suppression but would defer to
the Senate.
(2) The Senate Steering Committee asked the Committee on Libraries
for a general policy recommendation on how to treat electronic
newsgroups. Referring the issue to the Committee on Libraries
indicated what kind of issue the Steering Committee thought was
involved.
(3) The Committee on Libraries made the statement given below.
(4) The Steering Committee asked the Vice-President for Information
Resources (i.e. the boss of the computer centers) whether
he preferred to back down and re-establish rec.humor.funny
or have the matter discussed by the full Senate.
(5) He backed down somewhat grumpily.
The following statement was passed unanimously at a meeting
of the Computer Science Department faculty of Stanford
University on Tuesday, Feb 21, 1989.
Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny.
Computer scientists and computer users have been involved in
making information resources widely available since the 1960s.
Such resources are analogous to libraries. The newsgroups
available on various networks are the computer analog of
magazines and partial prototypes of future universal computer
libraries. These libraries will make available the information
resources of the whole world to anyone's terminal or personal
computer.
Therefore, the criteria for including newsgroups in computer
systems or removing them should be identical to those for
including books in or removing books from libraries. For this
reason, and since the resource requirements for keeping
newsgroups available are very small, we consider it contrary to
the function of a university to censor the presence of newsgroups in
University computers. We regard it as analogous to removing a
book from the library. To be able to read anything subject only
to cost limitations is an essential part of academic freedom.
Censorship is not an appropriate tool for preventing or dealing
with offensive behavior.
We therefore think that AIR and SDC should rescind the purge of
rec.humor.funny. The Computer Science Department has also decided
not to censor Department Computers.
*****
Here's something else - a statement by the Stanford faculty
committee on libraries.
Office Memo, Stanford University Libraries
To: The Steering Committee of the Academic Senate via Arthur Coladarci
From: Joan Krasner, Secretary, C-Lib
The following is an excerpt from the minutes of the April 10th meeting
of C-Lib which considered the matter of computer bulletin boards on campus.
The Preamble to the Statement on Academic Freedom (1974) states that
``Expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged, free
from institutional orthodoxy and from internal or external coercion.''
It is the view of the Academic Council Committee on Libraries that this
statement pertains to materials received on computer bulletin boards on
campus. Acquisition and access to information in new forms should be
subject only to financial limits and other standard criteria of collection
such as the useful life of the materials, storage capacity, etc.
- approved by Academic Council Commmittee on Libraries, April 10, 1989.
*****
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
library/README
=================
Library Policy Archive
[part of the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
[part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Archive]]
This is an on-line collection of library policy statements. It
includes the American Library Association's Freedom To Read statement
and the ALA Library Bill of Rights. (The ALA material is made
available by permission of the American Library Association.)
The archive is accessible via anonymous ftp and email. Ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4). It is in directory "pub/academic/library".
For email access, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:
send acad-freedom/library <filenames>
where <filenames> is a list of the files that you want. File README is
a detailed description of the items in the directory.
For more information, to make contributions, or to report typos
contact Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org).
=================
caf
=================
A description to the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?
=================
To get these documents by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/library README
send acad-freedom caf
The files are also available via anonymous ftp from ftp.eff.org
(192.88.144.4) as file(s):
pub/academic/library/README
pub/academic/caf
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
