David Burt (librarian)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Burt earned an undergraduate degree in history and a master of library science from the University of Washington in 1992. He worked for the New York Public Library for four years, then worked at the Lake Oswego Public Library as information technology librarian from 1996 to 2000.

In July 1997, his concern about protecting children from pornography on the Internet led him to start Filtering Facts, a nonprofit organization that encouraged libraries to voluntarily adopt filters (the organization is no longer in operation, but archived versions are available at [1]).

In his article, “In Defense of Filtering,” Burt responds to 10 arguments against the use of Internet filters in public libraries. Some of his points include:

• better filtering products allow you to turn keyword blocking off, break down banned sites by subject, and unblock a site that has been incorrectly blocked

• filtering does give selection of materials to outsiders, but librarians already rely on vendors to preselect other materials for them

• the secret stop list of banned sites can’t be viewed because that’s what makes the software competitive

• the Cox-Wyden amendment to the Communications Act establishes protection for “Good Samaritan blocking” and screening of offensive material

• filters try to make a library’s resources more consistent with its mission-—they don’t have to be 100 percent effective

• librarians let users choose which library materials are appropriate for them, but have always restricted those choices

• use of the Internet in a pubic library is a finite resource—there are only so many blocks of time to allocate to patrons—librarians need to consider what is an appropriate use of scarce resources

• blocking does not remove materials from the library—it restricts the potentiality of access to materials that do not exist in the library. If restricting the potentiality of access to materials that do not exist within the library constitutes censorship, then so does the nonselection of materials.

Burt’s report Dangerous Access 2000: Uncovering Pornography in America’s Libraries (funded by the right-wing Family Research Council) attacked the American Library Association’s policies on filtering and claimed that Internet pornography and related sex crimes are a serious problem in America’s libraries. The report was criticized as “irresponsible” for not defining the terms “pornography” or “inappropriate.” The credibility of Burt’s research was also questioned.

Burt left the library in March 2000 to do public relations work for N2H2 (a filtering software company that was eventually purchased by Secure Computing); he now does public relations work for Microsoft’s network security products.

[edit] David Burt quotes

“I think it is a silly charge to say that wanting to protect children from pornography is being against the First Amendment. There is no precedent to support the idea that minors have a constitutional right to pornography.”

“The Librarians’ Right to Electronic Selection”: Every library has the right to include or exclude access to any electronic resource based on its appropriateness or inappropriateness to a library’s mission and collection development policies.”

“The highlight of my activism came on June 23, 2003, when the Supreme Court upheld CIPA and cited my research in footnote 1 (citing D. Burt, Dangerous Access, 2000 Edition: Uncovering Internet Pornography in America's Libraries, noting more than 2,000 incidents of patrons, both adults and minors, using library computers to view online pornography, including obscenity and child pornography.” [2]

[edit] Publications

Burt, David. 1996. “Policies for the Use of Public Internet Workstations in Public Libraries: Service or Resource?” PNLA Quarterly 60 (3): 9-11.

Burt, David. 1998. “Update on Policies for the Use of Public Internet Workstations.” OLA Quarterly 3 (4): 7+.

Burt, David. 2000. Dangerous Access, 2000 Edition: Uncovering Pornography in America’s Libraries. Washington, D.C.: Family Research Council.

Burt, David. 1997. “In Defense of Filtering.” American Libraries 28 (8): 46-48.

Burt, David and Nancy Kranich. 2001. “At Issue: Should Public Libraries Use Filters to Block Obscenity and Pornography on the Internet?” CQ Researcher 11 (June 1, 2001): 481.

[edit] Other sources

Peake, Carolyn. 1998. “An Interview with David Burt.” OLA Quarterly 3 (4). http://www.olaweb.org/quarterly/quar3-4/peake.shtml[3] (accessed Nov. 2006).

Roger, Michaels and Oder, Norman. 2000. “Burt Report Slams ALA, Net Policy.” [Library Journal News] 125 (April 15): 12.