UETN account of the September complaint
Source: https://go.boarddocs.com/ut/uen/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=B4Z2GR0228CD
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Agenda Item Details
Meeting
Oct 01, 2018 - UETN Board Meeting
Category
2.
Discussion and Action Item
Subject
2.1
K-12 Library Database Issue
Type
Action, Discussion
Recommended Action
Board members will consider whether to re-open links to the K-12 EBSCO databases.
Board members will discuss and take action on recent events with the EBSCO database. A summary is below and attached.
Issue
Board members will consider whether to re-open links to the K-12 EBSCO databases.
A summary of comments from members of the public is attached.
Background
On Thursday September 20, Senator Weiler received an email from one of his constituents regarding an article found in the EBSCO database, part of Utah's Online Library, describing content that she deemed inappropriate for Utah students. Senator Weiler subsequently emailed the message to multiple constituents including Ray Timothy. The message was forwarded to UETN staff that evening.
Staff immediately submitted a support ticket and contacted EBSCO directly, then worked with EBSCO to identify the journal and specific article. Staff requested that the article be removed from the K-12 instance of EBSCO. At that time, EBSCO said the change would take 72 hours to propagate in the database. UETN assumed this would have an effect on Academic and Public Libraries, so elected to leave the databases open on Friday.
After learning on Saturday that the issue could be isolated to K-12 databases, leaving Academic and Public Library services unchanged, and, after consulting with several Board members, staff disabled the links to EBSCO K-12 products (elementary school, middle school, and high school) and notified constituents via several mailing lists and an
article on the UEN.org homepage
.
Throughout the week of September 24 UETN staff held multiple calls with EBSCO to resolve the issue and gain assurance that only school and age appropriate material will be available on the K-12 databases. EBSCO has been responsive and implemented more robust filtering on key terms, blocked journals that are marketed to adults and typically not appropriate for K-12 and other measures (see attached statement from EBSCO). The new measures have been and continue to be tested by EBSCO and UETN staff. Though no solution can provide 100% assurance, the additional measures appear to be working and providing a more robust filtering solution for K-12.
UETN also contacted other database providers Worldbook Online and Gale Cengage. Statements from those providers are included in the Board materials.
Existing UETN Board policy provided guidance for handling this issue, including the
Public Broadcasting Editorial Integrity Guidelines
and the
Public Media Code of Integrity
. Additionally, Board Member Eggett plans to reinstate Utah’s Online Library Committee (previously known as the Pioneer Library Committee) comprised of leaders from academic, public, and K-12 libraries, along with UETN, to provide additional recommendations to UETN for challenges of this nature and for library services overall.
Board members, leaders of public and academic libraries, parents, students, and teachers have all been very helpful in providing advice and perspective on this issue, including messages received through the online form and email.
Recommendations for Board consideration:
Board members will consider whether to re-open links to the K-12 EBSCO databases.
Board members will consider whether to issue written a statement on the UEN.org homepage. A draft statement is attached for Board discussion.
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