Abstract
This paper reports the results of an online survey concerning the management of Internet access in UK public libraries. All UK public library authorities were invited to complete the survey which had a response rate of 39%. The survey explored the ways in which acceptable use of the Internet in public libraries is managed through the use of mechanisms such as filtering software and authentication of identity. All 80 responding public library authorities used filtering software. Procedures for authenticating identity for static Internet access were uniform whereas wireless access was much less regulated.
Highlights
This article presents the preliminary quantitative results concerning the management of Internet access in UK public libraries collected as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded MAIPLE (Managing Access to the Internet in Public Libraries) project
Councillors were involved in Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) formulation in fewer than 10% of services
The results indicated that for those responding Public Library Authorities (PLAs), all static PCs with Internet access were filtered and yet not all Wi-Fi provision was subject to content control mechanisms
Summary
This article presents the preliminary quantitative results concerning the management of Internet access in UK public libraries collected as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded MAIPLE (Managing Access to the Internet in Public Libraries) project. One of the key purposes of the public library is to provide access to information (UNESCO, 1994). In the UK, Arts Council England, the non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which has responsibility for supporting and developing libraries recently noted that public libraries: ‘build a healthy democracy by providing free access to reliable information through which we form our opinions’ (Arts Council England, 2013: 4). Information is available in public libraries both in printed formats and via the provision of public access Internet workstations. To date there has been little research undertaken to investigate how UK public libraries manage issues of misuse and content control of their public Internet provision, including the access of illegal material. It has even been suggested that, despite the information profession’s espousal of a commitment ‘to provide, as far as resources allow, access to all publicly available information’ (CILIP, 2005), Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 47(1)
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