Privacy and Acceptable online use

Working in a high school library - I have many concerns about the Internet and it's use. One of my biggest areas of concern is whether my students are safe online and what sort of digital footprint they're creating. While these two issues are different they fall under the same category - digital citizenship.

Librarians have many responsiblities regarding the Internet. We must provide equitable and reasonable access for our students. We must provide them freedom to follow their own inquiry - so we need to limit blocks. We need to provide our students access to materials on the Internet that would enhance their education - like Youtube for example. We must try to keep them safe. We need to enable our students to be self-directed and self-policing. We also have to recognize that our students are citizen's of the digital world and their view of access to information is extremely different than ours. Our final responsilities are to teach, teach them to respect copy right, and creative expression. We must teach them the difference between reasonable access and plaigirizing. We need to teach them the effect of living their lives on line - what kind of presence they create and leave on the Web and how that could affect them in the future. What will a college see?  What will a future employer see?  We need to teach them to critically evaluate the information that they do find and the friends that they might make. This is atwo-fold issue, being safe and being discriminating and discerning. We need to teach students to be concerned with their own privacy and with the privacy of others. Hodson's article, while focusing more on the issue of privacy in archives, brings up several points that should concern everyday citizens. The Internet is growing increasingly ubiquitous. The amount of information available on the web is growing exponentially. The amount of an individuals own private information available on the web is growing exponentially. The amount of individuals willing to search for an use private information should concern us all. Librarians must teach their students in some kind of real way how they can be affected by privacy issues.

So librarians must do two things essentially - provide access equitably to their students/patrons and they must teach/assist patrons/students to be smart, ethical citizens on the digital world.