Is Your Local Library Safe?
We trust you had a restful break and we look forward to continuing our partnership in 2010.Throughout January, the NetAssure team will be working hard to introduce and educate Libraries on the many benefits of our managed service. Libraries across Australia are upgrading their facilities to offer free WiFi for their members. Whilst this is a positive move, Internet abuse places libraries in a vulnerable position. Last year a Sunshine Coast council spokesman said staff at more than one council library had to take action after witnessing multiple counts of sexual misconduct at the public computer work stations. These incidents resulted in a petition with 3222 signatures that was presented to council calling for Internet filtering software to be installed on council computers. Petitioner Paul Sheldon began the campaign due to concerns children were being exposed to hard core pornography on library computers.
In the Internet access in public libraries survey 2008, conducted by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), it was shown that there has been a slight increase in the use of filtering software (36% of respondents in 2008 compared with 30% in 2005) however using Internet filters has not stopped complaints.
The survey also showed that filtering mechanisms vary significantly from library to library, and no single commercial filtering product is used by more than 10% of responding libraries. NetAssures objective is to be involved with at least 35% of libraries by July 2010 and we would like you to help us reach that goal.
We have commenced a campaign to all libraries introducing the NetAssure managed network service. We will follow up with a more detailed letter and then with a phone call by late January. Please express interest if you would like to assist us campaign libraries or have any contacts in this space. We can put your details on the letter and push any enquiries/sales back to you.