Display of Explicit Websites in Your Local Library -aka- the Unlimited Access Debate

I’d like your opinion on a current issue facing public libraries – unrestricted access to the Internet.

Many public libraries allow anyone who walks in their door to use the Internet. No library card or proof of residence required.

Patrons can access any web site when they’re in the library-- including web sites with graphic pictures with sexual & violent content.

Opposing views on the subject:

http://www.ftrf.org/internetfilteringmemo.html#section4

http://www.newbreedlibrarian.org/archives/02.02.apr2002/feature.html

Library employees may see explicit material displayed on computer monitors when:

  • another patron asks them for help at an adjacent computer.
  • they are responsible for unfreezing computers with graphic material on the screen.
  • they are adding software to computers or maintaining equipment.
  • content is pointed out to them by a patron as they walk past.

They may also see graphic material when they are responsible for counting, writing receipts, or taking money for web pages that patrons print out.

Some employees argue that being exposed to this material creates a hostile work environment.

How do you think patrons’ right to view any web site weigh against employees’ right to not have to view them?

What are your thoughts on this?

Will anyone share their public library’s Internet policy?
Extremely controversial at the moment…

Just sign me,
No Name
No Town.

As much as I sympathize with the library workers’ plight, I don’t think installing filters is necessarily the best idea. After all, it’s not hard to see that it’s not just pornography that can be ‘explicit’ or otherwise objectionable; sooner or later, a library worker could claim that allowing other material they found offensive (homosexual web sites, aborted fetuses, artistic nudity) should also be disallowed. This troubles me as libraries are one of the very few ways to get free access to the Internet.

Personally, I think it is most prudent to simply make a rule like “no pornography” and enforce it when staff members or patrons notice it rather than filtering out content. This is the way it was done at my college computer lab and it worked quite well, as far as I’m concerned. Other than that, any sort of material couldn’t really be considered worse than other library materials, and hence not be contributing to a hostile work environment.

Another thing – I thought hostile work environment applied to employers and co-workers, not to customers/patrons and that sort of thing. If that wasn’t the case, couldn’t a porn store worker make similar complaints? Could someone explain the law governing hostile work environments?

Welcome to the SDMB, Polyphemous.

I’m not opposed to filtering per se, but the problem is that no filter is 100 or even 90% effective. It makes far more sense to just put the computers in a highly visible place where people will be walking by. Problem solved.

A library that filters what its patrons have access to is compromising its duty as a font of knowledge.

If they have a problem with free expression, why are they working in a library?

rjung, Mr2001: are you arguing that libraries should add pornographic magazines to their periodicals sections?

I can see how people wandering in to use library computers for the sole purpose of looking at porn is a problem. While I am loathe to make blanket rules, I’m fairly certain that library workers didn’t join up to see hard-core porn all day. There has to be a way to disallow abuse of the system.

I have no problem with making explicit magazines available in libraries. Authors such as Shel Silverstein and Isaac Asimov have been published in Playboy… can you say that about Highlights for Kids or Rosie?

The workers didn’t specifically join up to see porn all day, but they knew that they would have to deal with controversial material in some form. Why single out porn… some librarians might not be offended at all by images of naked women, but be deeply offended by Nazi literature - let’s take Mein Kampf off the shelves. Where do you stop?

What about children roaming through the library, and “bumping into” one of those porn-viewers? In some states, you can’t even bring your child into a bar. But you CAN bring them into a virtual porn shop?

Nobody is making the library order hard-core videos or books, why force them to provide hard-core porn over the internet?

You’ll have to have a “porno section” in the library where children are not allowed…

and to state the obvious, guys hanging out for hours looking at pornography are going to be jacking off, and I don’t want a bunch of them in my library!!!

Libraries can only stock a limited supply of books, so it is reasonable that they would not use their limited resources on pornography.

However, access to web pages is not like access to books. There is nothing extra that they have to do to provide access to pornographic web pages. In fact, they would have to go to extra lengths to bar access to pornographic web sites.

Filters do not work as advertised. They block out tons of perfectly mundane sites. Someone decoded the blocked site list of a major filter program last year and checked out the sites. It was blocking a huge percentage of .edu sites, sites that critized the filter program and on and on. (Go search the archives at http://slashdot.org lots of articles about this.) Filtering is done badly, will always be done badly, and won’t block determined people (including 9 year old kids).

I keep seeing this naive “well, just use filters” attitude on this board. Please try to be somewhat more informed on the topic.

Certainly, we can’t have kids seeing nekkid gyrating flesh. Or reading Nazi literature. Or learning how to make bombs. Or reading about communism, drugs, and sex. Goodbye Mein Kampf, goodbye Kama Sutra, goodbye Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do, goodbye Gray’s Anatomy.

Let’s just close the library entirely, because there’s always something that will make Maude Flanders scream, “Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children?”

Or parents could just accompany their kids to the library. The librarians aren’t being paid to raise children.

Not at all. I have a friend whose favorite thing to do at my house seems to be looking at porn. “Got any new porn?” he says. He’ll sit there for an hour downloading and watching it, but thank god, I’ve never seen him masturbate.

If some disturbed guy starts patting the buchanan right there in the library, I don’t think it’d be too hard for the librarian to walk over and say, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask your penis to leave my sight.”

I believe larger libraries already do – IIRC, the Central Library in Los Angeles includes Playboy and Penthouse in its perodicals selection. You have to be over 18 to check them out, but there’s nothing else stopping you from doing so. And I believe the library will offer to help you locate other back issues if you have a need to do so.

Filters prevent users from viewing legit, informative, quality, web sites. The problem is that in trying to prevent the viewing of porn sites, we make policy and set up control systems that limit exposure to valuable knowledge. We must not rely on policy-making alone to improve society. Would we have a better society if we did not have large numbers of people sitting in public libraries studying porn? Certainly. Honestly, I find it difficult to believe that this is a widespread problem. I think filters are not the solution.

You realize, of course, that this site would be blocked from filtered internet? We’re talking about porn and that’s all it takes to set off the filter.

I’m a librarian. Personally, I’d go for filtered internet in the kid’s room, children strongly discouraged from wandering unattended in the addult section, and unfiltered internet for the adults with a clearly posted NO PORN OR YOU"RE OUT policy. It puts a burden on the librarian to monitor patron behavior and deal with abusers (and there are lots of them) but that’s a librarian’s job in the 21st c. and we can’t be prissy about it, even if it means that we see something shocking.

And, no I don’t want to bust people for minor infractions. Checking out controversial sites or wandering into explicit pop-ups is not a problem, but if you want to look at live sex feeds and nekkid pictures all day. do it at home. Free access should mean that you can indulge every urge in a public place.

I meant
Free access should NOT mean that you can indulge every urge in a public place.:eek:

Although that last post would definitely have increased foot traffic in my library.

Yes, but three are a limited number of terminals, and I think you can make an arguement that it is a legitimate to give “research” priority over recreation. It’s a hard line to draw, fo course, but I think it’s ok for Libraries to ban looking at porn on public terminals and enforce it using a “we know it if we see it” basis. Not perfect, by any means, but the best solution I can think of.

Comparisons between viewing Internet porn sites and checking out sexy magazines and controversial books miss one important point. The latter are library materials which have gone through a process of review under accepted procedures before being OK’d for patron use. Internet sites are not in the same category.

Sad to say, there are creepy people who get off on pornographic and/or sick materials and attempting to shock others around them through content or by the sickos’ behavior. Libraries do not need to cater to these folks.

I think library groups who object to Internet porno bans that don’t significantly compromise legitimate general use of the Internet are shooting themselves in the foot.

Thank you Jackmannii. In my experience, displaying images on computer monitors is often a much more public act than thumbing through a magazine of pictures on a table.

I see now that existing filters for the Internet are a rough and inexact tool. I have not investigated Internet filters closely; it is not something we studied in library school. : )

Not to say that what people here haven’t contributed is valid, but personally I think it’s very difficult to see from the patron side of the desk the day to day patterns of what goes on in a public library, especially in regards to the Internet.

I went to work in the library that I grew up going to. I was away at college when the Internet arrived in libraries and when I started to work in one it seemed like it the atmosphere of the library had changed drastically. What struck me immediately was how patrons seemed much more vocal than they were when I was a patron. Maybe that’s my misconception. Patrons are often persistent and pushy about getting Internet time and assistance. They sometimes get into fights with each other over getting onto a computer. I just didn’t see any of that pre-Internet.

Public library staff often endure patrons’ behavior that the business world would drop kick employees out of their companies for doing. I didn’t understand that the definition of a public library as a public civic space make legal limits few and for some reason difficult to define. As library administrations are increasingly reluctant to establish written liable policies governing patron behavior the onus has moved to the library staff to use their best judgment in handling any sort of situation. If the administration disagrees with how an employee handled a situation it’s not so good for the employee. Think about that one. Many employees choose the safest route by ignoring all that is humanly possible.

I personally have had suggestive and personal remarks made to me by patrons that I continued to see in the library nearly everyday. I have had inappropriate images pointed out to me while I was helping another patron. I have seen some of those same patrons as I ran errands after work and they have addressed me by name. I didn’t foresee how quickly after becoming a librarian that the circumstantial nature of my job would come to overshadow any of the professional assistance I provided to patrons.

The burden of proof is on the library to show that a patron has a history of disrupting behavior. In many libraries it has become the employee’s responsibility to fend off inappropriate behavior because libraries are loath to deny anyone service. After I was exposed to patrons’ comments and behaviors without any library policies nor administrative guidance to draw upon I began to feel deeply demoralized and disturbed about the nature of the profession I had so eagerly trained for.

Would filtering the Internet “fix” the issues I’ve related? No one thing would. Then what’s the answer? I don’t have it, but something has got to give.

I like kaiju’s suggestion for Internet filters on kids’ computers and unrestricted access on adult computers.

Keeping the computers in a very visible space, where librarians and other patrons can see what you’re viewing might cut down on some porn viewing as well.

I’m all for having a strictly-enforced “no porn” policy. At our public libraries, you have to have a library card to access the Internet, which seems fair. Maybe anyone caught viewing porn sites could have their card revoked either temporarily or permanently–after repeat offenses.

Polyphemus, I’m sorry you have to deal with rude patrons. I’ve done it before and it sucks.

My library had filters on the kids’ computers and an optional filter on the adults’ terminals–it gave you an option every 20 minutes. Librarians could only ask porn-viewers to quit if a patron complained. The terminals were out in plain sight, but that didn’t stop a lot of people.

Poly is quite right about the behaviors that librarians put up with. Librarians, on the whole, are rabid about free access for all, with emphasis on those who don’t have access from other sources. This is good, but it makes for some strange, uncomfortable, and sometimes scary situations.