[Publib] MySpace and U-Tube

[Robert L. Balliot]

Greetings,

 

Although YouTube <http://www.youtube.com/>  and MySpace
<http://www.myspace.com/>  are some of the most popular social
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites> 

networking <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites>
sites, the methods that they use can be fairly easily replicated.

If you were going to decide to limit access to something, I think you

would have to be very clear on why it would qualify as inaccessible.  

 

With Ning <http://gotbooks.ning.com/>  or other social networking sites and
tools, you could set up 

essentially the same services to which someone might have objections.

You would have no way of knowing until you reached the site if it had

those characteristics without employing some sort of intermediate

review.  So, the features that you would deem to be objectionable and

qualify as inaccessible would still be available.  And, a social networking
site 

can be set up within minutes and changed within seconds.  

 

I created http://gotbooks.ning.com/  in about five minutes for purposes

of this discussion.

 

With that in mind, it seems that it the decision to specifically disallow
YouTube <http://www.youtube.com/> 

or MySpace <http://www.myspace.com/>   would be arbitrary and based on
popularity alone - which would 

not appear to me to be a valid reason to block.

 

********************************

Robert L. Balliot

1-401-441-5763

Skype: RBalliot

Bristol, Rhode Island

http://gotbooks.ning.com/

http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm

*************************************************

----- Original Message ----
From: George Hazelton <ghazelton at mail.henry.public.lib.ga.us>
Subject: [Publib] MySpace and U-Tube

I'd like the group's thoughts on allowing public access to MySpace and
U-Tube.  We are finding that people who use these services spend immense
amounts of time on them, use up a lot of bandwidth downloading videos of
God-knows-what, and tend to be noiser than the usual internet users.  So far
no parents have jumped us for allowing precious little Bismuth to talk to
naughty people, but that will probably come.

 

If you have blocked access to these and similar services, what was the
reaction of patrons to the loss of today's "opiate of the masses"?
Grumblings and mutterings, or pitchforks and torches?

 

Happy Friday to all, and to all a Good Labor Day!

 

George Hazelton
Assistant Director
Henry County Library System
1001 Florence McGarity Pkwy
McDonough, GA  30252
Phone:  770-954-2806
FAX:    770-954-2808
email:    ghazelton at mail.henry.public.lib.ga.us

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/attachments/20070831/5a70e4f4/attachment.htm