The Chat's Out of the Bag
Chat rooms + e-mail + libraries = lots of anxiety
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 2/1/2000
Chat and e-mail--particularly chat--present one of the scariest faces of the Internet for many adults. Chat rooms have assumed a reputation as hotbeds of pedophiles cruising for innocents. Unlike pornography sites, the topic at hand when children or teens are chatting isn't immediately apparent to passersby. Adults may worry, "Who are they really chatting with?" Most Net filters thus default to a setting that blocks out chat sites. The way you handle chat rooms and e-mail on the Net stations in your library, particularly when young people are involved, tells a lot about your institution's culture. (I'm dealing primarily with public libraries here, as library media specialists do in fact serve in loco parentis, while public librarians do not.)
On the PUBYAC online discussion group, Bonnie Wright of Ogdensburg (NY) Public Library recently gave an example of why her library permits e-mail but not chat. "There was an incident in this area (not in this library) where a young teen was kidnapped by a man she met in a chat room at a library," Wright wrote. "She finally was returned home, but she was very lucky. The man posed as a teen but he was in his 30s. I see nothing wrong with e-mail (which we allow) but I am glad the director and board prohibit chats. You might ask, where were the girl's parents? When both parents work, they might think it's great their kid is at the library--never suspecting what the kid is doing."
Paula Lefkowitz of Parsippany (NJ) Public Library wrote that chat room use "is not a big problem for us. A sizable part of our kid/teen population doesn't have computers at home and uses ours to look up Pokemon and teen faves. They don't seem to be all that interested in chat rooms. I frequently see adults going into chat rooms, but there are signs on terminals and on the main menus prohibiting them, so if you walk by and smile and ask if you can help, they usually exit quickly."
Many libraries prohibit both chat and e-mail when librarians decide that neither is an "appropriate use." Anyone who has worked in a library with few terminals and lots of demand for them knows that sometimes users wanting to use a periodical database can't because so many people are in their Hotmail accounts. Young people, of course, can use chat and e-mail for educational purposes, but most often their use is purely recreational. Librarians who oppose chat and e-mail on library Net stations often defend their position by asking, "Libraries don't offer a bank of telephones to make free long-distance calls, do they?"
John Lubans Jr., who surveyed young people about their Net use (see "When Students Hit the Surf," September 1999, pp. 144-147), found that they used e-mail more frequently than anything else online. Chat ranked lowest, after recreational surfing and games, but there is a sizable minority for whom chat is very important.
Many libraries allow both e-mail and chat with a time limit, and this approach is the one I prefer. If we want to refresh the reputation of the library with each new generation of young people, libraries need to provide the materials and services each new generation wants. Promising the Internet and then holding back desirable chunks of it--particularly e-mail--tells them that the library doesn't respect their choices. Telling young users that they can do what they like online within a time limit (as long as it's legal, of course) tells them that the library's not going to be hanging over them, watching them, and evaluating their choices.
But then how do we assure anxious adults--and quiet our own anxieties--about the safety of kids in chat rooms? We can't, but we must educate ourselves and the kids with whom we work to be realistic instead of nervous. Sure, there are jerks online, but there are jerks everywhere. Young people shouldn't give people they don't know personal information or arrange to meet them in isolated places, but that advice is relevant in more venues than just the Net. It's called common sense.
