An author who tried to access an online version of Hamlet at the British Library had his attempt blocked and then logged by the newly-installed WiFi service.

Mark Forsyth wrote on his blog that while researching his new book he went online to check a quote from Shakespeare’s play, in order to forgo the 70 minutes waiting time incurred actually ordering a physical copy of it.

When he Googled Hamlet MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put the Bard’s entire works up online for free) a message came up from the library said access was blocked due to ‘violent content’.

You wouldn’t think this would come as news to the British Library, it being a play with a pretty high body count and it being a library frequented by scholars of Shakespeare.

When he told the IT department about the problem, they apparently didn’t get the irony of Hamlet being banned by the British Library, and instead told him it was the WiFi service and not the library responsible for restricting access to it.

Forsyth wrote: "I asked them how it was that I could still access Youtube, Ffacebook and Twitter. I asked why the girl at the next desk to me had been able to spend the last half hour on Guardian Soulmates, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s website was banned. They shrugged.

"I asked if they saw the problem, perhaps just the symbolism, of Hamlet being banned in the British Library. They shrugged."

Hamlet is now unbanned and the British Library has said it is ‘tweaking’ the web filter, but it is funny timing a month after David Cameron announced plans to block porn automatically from households’ internet services.

Surely the British Library doesn’t even need a web filter? As a public body dedicated to recording and holding a copy of everything, including rude or, indeed, violent texts, why is its internet access being treated differently?

To use the British Library you need a membership card, which you often need to interview for. This is proof enough that the people there are accessing information generally because they need to use it (perhaps with the exception of the online dating girl).

It’s time internet providers, governments and even libraries (surely the embodiment of freedom of expression) stop telling people what is and isn’t good for them, and let them decide for themselves.

Now, really I should go and post this on Facebook, but it’s blocked.