Alabama Library Challenges (Stevenson Public Library)
Submitted | Jan. 20, 2014 |
Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Chris Peterson
To Whom It May Concern:
We are a team of academic researchers studying information access and availability in public schools and libraries. We are contacting you as part of a national effort to help us better understand the scope and substance of the various challenges which arise in the course of administering a public library system or public school system.
Under Alabama's Public Records Law, we are requesting copies of the following public records:
-any complaints, requests, and/or challenges for removal, reclassification, and/or reconsideration of publications including books, magazines, movies, music, and/or other media, along with any associated records, petitions, and/or correspondence since January 1, 2003
-any current collection or curriculum development policy or policies governing your institution(s)
-any records related to Internet filtering, including but not limited to:
-any current acceptable use policies, web publishing policies, or equivalents
-any current contracts with Internet filtering services and/or providers
-any current categories of content which your provider offers to block, along with which categories your library or libraries currently block
-any modifications to the standard configuration of your filter, including lists of sites, services, URLs, keywords, or other identifiers which have been specifically configured as forbidden or allowed (i.e. "blacklists/whitelists")
We will use these records in our research. Please note that we are not asking for registration, circulation, or other private records protected by state law, and you should feel free to redact personally identifiable information from the records you send us, at your discretion.
You may respond to this request by sending electronic documents (e.g. emails, screen captures, spreadsheets, etc) or high-quality scanned PDFs to this inbox. If you cannot respond by email, please fax copies to 206-984-9551, with “MIA” written clearly at the top of the first page. If you do not have any documents responsive to our request, or if you have questions about how to respond, then you may email us at this inbox. In order to assist you in responding to our request, we have also posted guidelines and examples at http://mappinginfoaccess.org.
We understand that there may be fees associated with responding to our request. We ask that you waive any such fees in light of our project’s character, which is non-commercial, academic, open, and firmly in the public interest. If you are unable to waive fees, and if they are in excess of $20, please contact us with an estimate of fees before responding.
Thank you in advance for helping us better understand the important work that you do. If you have any questions about our request or our project, please email us at: team [at] mappinginfoaccess [dot] org.
Sincerely,
Emily Knox
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois
Shannon M. Oltmann
Assistant Professor
School of Library & Information Science
University of Kentucky
Chris Peterson
Researcher
Center for Civic Media, Media Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 20, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thank you for your help.
From: Monica Davis
Our library is only open to the public 20 hours per week and has 1
employee. I am not sure I even understand what you are asking. Our internet
is filtered by Sonic Wall, and I don't chose what it filters. I guess it is
automated or something. Please clarify what it is you are asking for. Also,
please note, that if you are requesting copies, faxes, or scans of
anything, then you will be required to pay the same fee everyone else does.
From: Chris Peterson
Monica,
Thank you for your response, and apologies if our request was unclear. Since you've responded to the filtering portion of the request, the remaining documents we're requesting under the Alabama public records statute are:
-any complaints, requests, and/or challenges for removal, reclassification, and/or reconsideration of publications including books, magazines, movies, music, and/or other media, along with any associated records, petitions, and/or correspondence since January 1, 2003
-any current collection or curriculum development policy or policies governing your institution(s)
Please let me know if this clarifies, or if we can provide further details.
Thank you!
From: Monica Davis
The only complaint we have ever gotten was that patrons are only aloud to
use the computers for 2 hours a day, unless they are doing homework or job
searches.
We do not have a collection development policy, we are a very small library
in a very small town with very small funding. We purchase books off of the
best sellers list, and we purchase any reasonable request we receive.
Files
There are no files associated with this request.