Fight Content Filters

Buffy Hamilton (pictured) thinks one shouldn’t take online content filters lying down, but instead build a well-supported case to get them removed.

“I think out of an effort to be proactive, keep children safe, and avoid litigation, schools may err on the safe side,” says Hamilton, school librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, GA. Librarians must have a voice in that decision-making process, says Hamilton, who hosted the webinar “Fighting the Filter” last month. The primary takeaway from the one-hour chat? A strategy in which school librarians can show decision makers that blocked sites actually support educational standards of their state, as well as benchmarks created by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the International Society for Education in Technology.

Hamilton, who blogs at The Unquiet Librarian, recently petitioned her district for access to the bookmarking site Diigo. She says, “I outlined how it can be used, offered links to other articles that showed it as beneficial, including a list from AASL that listed it as one of the top 25 tools for educators.” The site was unblocked.