[OPLINLIST] Children's Internet Use

[Eric Taggart]

Hello, all-

Currently, children at our library who are in 3rd grade or above may use 
the Internet if a parent signs a permission form.  Essentially, parents 
opt-in when their child wants to use the Internet.  We are thinking 
about moving to an opt-out policy, where parents could indicate on the 
card application if they do not want their child to use the Internet.  
We would work with the assumption that children were permitted to use 
the Internet unless we were informed otherwise by the parent.

I have to believe that there are other libraries out there that have 
made a successful transition of this nature, and I would be interested 
in knowing how you were able to accomplish that. Generally, I suspect 
that most parents would not really care given the fact that many 
children have unsupervised access to the Internet anyway.  However, I 
thought that perhaps I could learn from someone else about the pitfalls 
of navigating this change.  It's easy to change the card application for 
new borrowers, but I'm not sure exactly how to handle current cardholders.

If you can give me any insight regarding this, I would be happy to hear 
from you.

Thank you for your assistance-
Eric

-- 
Eric D. Taggart, Director
Rodman Public Library
215 East Broadway St.
Alliance, OH 44601
330.821.2665 x201
www.rodmanlibrary.com