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Houston Reexamines “Go Ask Alice” LinkPending review by a reconsideration committee, Houston Public Library officials have removed the library’s teen-health-website link to Columbia University’s health-information site “Go Ask Alice.” The delinking occurred following Mayor Lee Brown’s December 10 appearance before the city council to declare, “This afternoon, they’ll be off our website.” According to HPL Senior Communications Specialist Blanca Quezada, the controversy actually began two days earlier, although the library did not receive a formal complaint until December 8—an e-mail dated December 4 and forwarded from the mayor’s office just before a news team from the Houston NBC-TV affiliate arrived to film a story. The next day, the mayor’s Citizen’s Assistance Office faxed the library a complaint it had received December 1. Quezada told American Libraries that the TV news story focused on what the station characterized as the website’s “graphic information on various sex acts.” Reporter Cynthia Hunt asked Coordinator for Materials Selection Syma Zerkow, “Do you think it’s appropriate for teens?” referring to a frank question-and-answer feature of the “Alice” site. “Obviously, there are teens who are asking these questions,” Zerkow replied. Quezada also told AL that the mayor will be forming the reconsideration committee. Several weeks earlier, Harris County Public Library, which serves the greater Houston area, got a complaint regarding its link to “Alice” on the library’s “Teens Know” page. Girl Scout troop leader Susan Addington told Houston CBS affiliate KHOU-TV November 18 that she had checked out the links before recommending it to troop members and found the Columbia University–sponsored site “nasty, distasteful” and containing “things that I’ve never seen as a 41-year-old adult.” Although HCPL Director Cathy Park defended the content as “very straightforward and very factual,” she had the link removed pending the decision of a review committee. The American Library Association’s link to “Go Ask Alice” through its Teen Hoopla page led to several months of accusations in 1999 from radio personality Laura Schlessinger that the Association “wants to make sure your children have easy access to pornography.” The 10-year-old Columbia University site is known for answering young-adults’ frank questions about sexuality, emotional health, and other medically related issues in an equally frank manner. Posted December 12, 2003. |
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