Alabama Library Challenges (Decatur City Schools )

I will be out of the office and unable to return email the week of March 24-31, 2014 for Decatur City School's Spring Break.

>>> Chris Peterson <requests@muckrock.com> 03/26/14 04:00 >>>

March 26, 2014
Decatur City Schools
Decatur City Schools
302 4th Ave NE
Decatur, AL 35601

This is a follow up to a previous request:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 20, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

---

On March 11, 2014:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 20, 2014. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

---

On Jan. 20, 2014:

To Whom It May Concern:

We are a team of academic researchers studying information access and availability in public schools and libraries. We are contacting you as part of a national effort to help us better understand the scope and substance of the various challenges which arise in the course of administering a public library system or public school system.

Under Alabama's Public Records Law, we are requesting copies of the following public records:

-any complaints, requests, and/or challenges for removal, reclassification, and/or reconsideration of publications including books, magazines, movies, music, and/or other media, along with any associated records, petitions, and/or correspondence since January 1, 2003

-any current collection or curriculum development policy or policies governing your institution(s)

-any records related to Internet filtering, including but not limited to:

-any current acceptable use policies, web publishing policies, or equivalents

-any current contracts with Internet filtering services and/or providers

-any current categories of content which your provider offers to block, along with which categories your library or libraries currently block

-any modifications to the standard configuration of your filter, including lists of sites, services, URLs, keywords, or other identifiers which have been specifically configured as forbidden or allowed (i.e. "blacklists/whitelists")

We will use these records in our research. Please note that we are not asking for registration, circulation, or other private records protected by state law, and you should feel free to redact personally identifiable information from the records you send us, at your discretion.

You may respond to this request by sending electronic documents (e.g. emails, screen captures, spreadsheets, etc) or high-quality scanned PDFs to this inbox. If you cannot respond by email, please fax copies to 206-984-9551, with “MIA” written clearly at the top of the first page. If you do not have any documents responsive to our request, or if you have questions about how to respond, then you may email us at this inbox. In order to assist you in responding to our request, we have also posted guidelines and examples at http://mappinginfoaccess.org.

We understand that there may be fees associated with responding to our request. We ask that you waive any such fees in light of our project’s character, which is non-commercial, academic, open, and firmly in the public interest. If you are unable to waive fees, and if they are in excess of $20, please contact us with an estimate of fees before responding.

Thank you in advance for helping us better understand the important work that you do. If you have any questions about our request or our project, please email us at: team [at] mappinginfoaccess [dot] org.

Sincerely,

Emily Knox
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois

Shannon M. Oltmann
Assistant Professor
School of Library & Information Science
University of Kentucky

Chris Peterson
Researcher
Center for Civic Media, Media Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 7790
PO Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

PLEASE NOTE the new address as well as the fact that improperly addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than MuckRock News) requests might be returned by the USPS as undeliverable.

The information you requested is listed below in red. If you have
questions, please let me know.

Kathy Rains
Supervisor of Technology
Decatur City Schools
256-552-3000

>>> Chris Peterson <requests@muckrock.com> 4/10/2014 4:00 AM
>>>

April 10, 2014
Decatur City Schools
Decatur City Schools
302 4th Ave NE
Decatur, AL 35601

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request,
copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 20, 2014. Please let me
know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further
clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

---

On Jan. 20, 2014:

To Whom It May Concern:

We are a team of academic researchers studying information access and
availability in public schools and libraries. We are contacting you as
part of a national effort to help us better understand the scope and
substance of the various challenges which arise in the course of
administering a public library system or public school system.

Under Alabama's Public Records Law, we are requesting copies of the
following public records:

-any complaints, requests, and/or challenges for removal,
reclassification, and/or reconsideration of publications including
books, magazines, movies, music, and/or other media, along with any
associated records, petitions, and/or correspondence since January 1,
2003
We have had no complaints at the district level.

-any current collection or curriculum development policy or policies
governing your institution(s)
Curriculum Design Policy --
http://www.dcs.edu/files/filesystem/ID%20-%20CURRICULUM%20DESIGN.pdf

-any records related to Internet filtering, including but not limited
to:

-any current acceptable use policies, web publishing policies, or
equivalents
Employee Acceptable Use --
http://www.dcs.edu/files/filesystem/GAN%20-%20ACCEPTABLE%20USE%20OF%20TECHNOLOGY%20POLICY.pdf
Student Acceptable Use --
http://www.dcs.edu/files/filesystem/IFBG%20-%20STUDENT%20TECHNOLOGY%20ACCEPTABLE%20USE%20POLICY.pdf

-any current contracts with Internet filtering services and/or
providers
We purchase a web filtering system and content filtering provided by
Sophos.

-any current categories of content which your provider offers to
block, along with which categories your library or libraries currently
block
We block the following categories -- Adult or Sexually Explicit,
Alcohol or Tobacco, Anonymizers, Proxies and Translators, Criminal
Activity, Illegal Drugs, Malware/Spyware, Streaming Media (protection of
bandwidth), and Tasteless or Offensive, Violence (not news), and
Weapons.

Teachers are allowed to over-ride anything for purposes of research and
education.

-any modifications to the standard configuration of your filter,
including lists of sites, services, URLs, keywords, or other identifiers
which have been specifically configured as forbidden or allowed (i.e.
"blacklists/whitelists")
We use the category service only but have opened Animoto through
streaming media for student projects. We also have specifically allowed
some content for sites such as ebscohost.com and studyisland.com so that
all content will work.

We will use these records in our research. Please note that we are not
asking for registration, circulation, or other private records protected
by state law, and you should feel free to redact personally identifiable
information from the records you send us, at your discretion.

You may respond to this request by sending electronic documents (e.g.
emails, screen captures, spreadsheets, etc) or high-quality scanned
PDFs to this inbox. If you cannot respond by email, please fax copies to
206-984-9551, with “MIA” written clearly at the top of the first page.
If you do not have any documents responsive to our request, or if you
have questions about how to respond, then you may email us at this
inbox. In order to assist you in responding to our request, we have also
posted guidelines and examples at http://mappinginfoaccess.org.

We understand that there may be fees associated with responding to our
request. We ask that you waive any such fees in light of our project’s
character, which is non-commercial, academic, open, and firmly in the
public interest. If you are unable to waive fees, and if they are in
excess of $20, please contact us with an estimate of fees before
responding.

Thank you in advance for helping us better understand the important
work that you do. If you have any questions about our request or our
project, please email us at: team [at] mappinginfoaccess [dot] org.

Sincerely,

Emily Knox
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois

Shannon M. Oltmann
Assistant Professor
School of Library & Information Science
University of Kentucky

Chris Peterson
Researcher
Center for Civic Media, Media Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 7790
PO Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

PLEASE NOTE the new address as well as the fact that improperly
addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than MuckRock News)
requests might be returned by the USPS as undeliverable.

---

On March 26, 2014:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request,
copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 20, 2014. Please let me
know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further
clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

---

On March 11, 2014:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request,
copied below, and originally submitted on Jan. 20, 2014. Please let me
know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further
clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

---

On Jan. 20, 2014:

To Whom It May Concern:

We are a team of academic researchers studying information access and
availability in public schools and libraries. We are contacting you as
part of a national effort to help us better understand the scope and
substance of the various challenges which arise in the course of
administering a public library system or public school system.

Under Alabama's Public Records Law, we are requesting copies of the
following public records:

-any complaints, requests, and/or challenges for removal,
reclassification, and/or reconsideration of publications including
books, magazines, movies, music, and/or other media, along with any
associated records, petitions, and/or correspondence since January 1,
2003

-any current collection or curriculum development policy or policies
governing your institution(s)

-any records related to Internet filtering, including but not limited
to:

-any current acceptable use policies, web publishing policies, or
equivalents

-any current contracts with Internet filtering services and/or
providers

-any current categories of content which your provider offers to
block, along with which categories your library or libraries currently
block

-any modifications to the standard configuration of your filter,
including lists of sites, services, URLs, keywords, or other identifiers
which have been specifically configured as forbidden or allowed (i.e.
"blacklists/whitelists")

We will use these records in our research. Please note that we are not
asking for registration, circulation, or other private records protected
by state law, and you should feel free to redact personally identifiable
information from the records you send us, at your discretion.

You may respond to this request by sending electronic documents (e.g.
emails, screen captures, spreadsheets, etc) or high-quality scanned
PDFs to this inbox. If you cannot respond by email, please fax copies to
206-984-9551, with “MIA” written clearly at the top of the first page.
If you do not have any documents responsive to our request, or if you
have questions about how to respond, then you may email us at this
inbox. In order to assist you in responding to our request, we have also
posted guidelines and examples at http://mappinginfoaccess.org.

We understand that there may be fees associated with responding to our
request. We ask that you waive any such fees in light of our project’s
character, which is non-commercial, academic, open, and firmly in the
public interest. If you are unable to waive fees, and if they are in
excess of $20, please contact us with an estimate of fees before
responding.

Thank you in advance for helping us better understand the important
work that you do. If you have any questions about our request or our
project, please email us at: team [at] mappinginfoaccess [dot] org.

Sincerely,

Emily Knox
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois

Shannon M. Oltmann
Assistant Professor
School of Library & Information Science
University of Kentucky

Chris Peterson
Researcher
Center for Civic Media, Media Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 7790
PO Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

PLEASE NOTE the new address as well as the fact that improperly
addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than MuckRock News)
requests might be returned by the USPS as undeliverable.