Research: Schools and Libraries Project

With or without the governmental mandates requiring Internet filtering technology in schools and libraries, the Online Policy Group provides educational materials and consulting services to school and library administrators who seek to preserve the free speech and human rights of students and library patrons.

By documenting real-life Internet access conditions in schools and libraries, the Online Policy Group and other organizations involved in a coalition for this purpose, can provide the kinds of hands-on assistance school and library staff need when faced with implementing filtering systems.

The Online Policy Group is collaborating with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on an Internet Blocking in Schools and Libraries research project.

The Schools and Libraries Project lists here some additional resources, including media coverage and links to organizations and related publications related to schools and libraries. More general information about online policy issues is available from the Issues list in the right column of most pages on this site.

Media Coverage

	Library Decision for Unfiltered Net Access May Cost Federal Dollars
	The City Library Board's approval of a proposal that allows some computers unfiltered Internet access might mean the loss of thousand of federal dollars, Associated Press via USA Today (November 19, 2003)

	Porn Filters Found to Be Ineffective Tools
	The Borough Assembly will soon vote on whether to force the public library to install expensive, ineffective Internet censorship filters on all its public and staff computers, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (September 6, 2003)

	Minn. Librarians Settle Internet Porn Case
	The city's public library will consider using Internet filters to restrict patrons' access to online porn, and will pay $435,000 to a dozen librarians who said easy access to the images resulted in a hostile work environment, the librarians' lawyer said Friday, Associated Press via Yahoo! News (August 15, 2003)

	Internet Filters Block Valuable Data, Too
	A 17-year-old girl thinking about having sex for the first time logs onto her school's computer for the latest facts about sexually transmitted diseases, USA Today (August 12, 2003)

	Who's Watching the Class? Webcams in Schools Raise Privacy Issue
	When students in Biloxi, Miss., show up this morning for the first day of the new school year, a virtual army of digital cameras will be recording every minute of every lesson in every classroom, USA Today (August 11, 2003)

Recent Coverage

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Organizations and Related Publications

OPG Co-Hosts Bridging the Digital Divides Event Join us the week of August 25-29 as we discuss "Bridging the Digital Divides, Equal Access to the Internet" on Techsoup's Digital Divide Forum, including topics such as class-based disparity in available technology, the role race, ethnicity, and religion play in the digital divide, women and technology, the impact of Internet blocking software on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, and access to technology for people with disabilities, Online Policy Group (August 25, 2003)

	Digital Divide in Schools: Student Access to and Use of Computers
	Schools appear to play a vital role in bridging a "digital divide" between rural and urban high school students in terms of access to computers and frequency of their use, according to one of the first research papers done under the new Data Research Centre program, Statistics Canada Daily (June 23, 2003)

Study Released on Internet Blocking in Schools, Filtering Software Overblocks and Miscategorizes Websites The Online Policy Group (OPG) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today released a study documenting the effects of Internet blocking, also known as filtering, in U.S. schools. The study found that blocking software overblocked state-mandated curriculum topics extensively -- for every web page correctly blocked as advertised, one or more was blocked incorrectly, Online Policy Group and Electronic Frontier Foundation (June 23, 2003)

Sex and the Internet OPG Executive Director Will Doherty presented a program entitled "Sex and the Internet" to the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in San Jose, CA, Online Policy Group (April 12, 2003)

The Great Firewall of China OPG Executive Director Will Doherty presented a program entitled "The Great Firewall of China: Filtering, Blocking, and Government Censorship" to the annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in New York City, Online Policy Group (April 3, 2003)

Recent Publications

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