Very interesting debate taking place in Michigan:
http://www.eeekonomy.com/discussion/Should-Adult-Content-at-the-Library-be-Shelved-/62
Interesting that the title of that article is “Should Adult Content at the Library be Shelved?” yet it’s about virtual porn. (I know I know, pun and all that, but it’s a rather major difference.)
I have no problem with libraries using filter software for users who are under 18, though it’s hardly worth the while. (True example: for a friend’s daughter’s Latino Heritage month project recently I did a google image search for Latino; I won’t link, but let’s just say the images that flew straight through this library’s filtering software were hardcore and had little to do with piñatas.) For adults I’d probably adapt a “no filtering/no monitoring” policy and buy the type of desks that are recessed (i.e. what you’re looking at isn’t public), but I’d have a strict behavior/conduct policy so that if anybody decided to go spanky they could be asked to leave immediately.
I’ve been a college librarian for about 8 years now and in that time I’ve only had about two problems with students “behaving inappropriately” due to online porn. One was deranged and the other was a nerdy 17 year old. I would imagine that public librarians have to deal with it more, so I’d defer to their expertise.
Didn’t read the link yet, but my answer is ‘YES’.
I’m cool with restricting masturbation to the bathroom stalls though.
I THINK the answer should be YES…IMHO anyway. 
-XT
Hey, sometimes we catch hookers giving blowjobs in the 940’s. Rumor has it the price is 5 bucks. Why go online when you can go to the Holocast section and get a hummer from a crack whore? Cheap at twice the price.
One library I saw had their computer settings locked at 16 colors. Made porn surfing not worth the effort.
The only issue I can see here is if the computer is in a space where passers-by can see what’s on the screen. If that’s the case, then by viewing porn on the screen you’re exposing others to it presumably against their will, and the library should put a stop to that. If the computers are placed such that that’s not an issue, or if the material is in some other way not made obvious to others (for instance, downloading files onto a thumb drive without showing images on the screen at all), then I don’t see the problem.
I’m not seeing how computers could be placed somewhere that is 1) totally out of sight from children and other passerbys, and 2) still be easily monitored by library staff in case someone decides to spank it right there in the library.
I think it’s a bad idea. I also don’t remember the Supreme Court ever interpreting the First Amendment to mean that we have the right to watch whatever we want in PUBLIC places.
Whoa. “I doubt Melvil Dewey would’ve cared about censorship. He probably would have been fine with the removal of all works written by Jews or any book about women’s suffrage.”
http://www.eeekonomy.com/discussion/Should-Adult-Content-at-the-Library-be-Shelved-/62
I read 940s as 1940s, and briefly thought you were advocating holocaust porn. My bad.
D*mn! Chess is at 794 - so that’s why I miss out on all the action.
One problem if you are going to ban porn at libraries: who gets to define what porn is? Not everybody agrees on what’s pornographic and what’s not.
Then there are implementation issues like clumsy filtering software. One example is filtering software that blocked any site that included the word “breast”. In addition to pornography, it filtered non-pornographic sites like sites that discuss breast cancer and recipes that include chicken breasts. Blocking pornography and only pornography is not easy, because some pornographic sites will try to evade such filters. There’s a substantial incentive for them to do it- they get their normal viewers plus people at libraries or at work who are blocked from other pornographic sites by filters.
We should try to make it so that people aren’t going to be exposed to porn against their will by seeing it on someone else’s computer screen. I think we should do this regardless of whether or not we try to block pornography, since people don’t agree on the definition of pornography and it’s hard to block 100% of pornography while allowing the computer to be used for other purposes.
I don’t know, some of the filtering services out there, like Websense, seem to do a pretty decent job. I beleive they can be set up to allow the filter to be bypassed in the instance of searching for Chicken Breast recipes.
I have no problem with libraries forbidding porn on their computers. But I think the decision should be left to the community level. If you’re without home internet in a conservative area, then I guess you don’t get free pr0n.
HA HA! Holocaust porn.
My favorite example of this was a NASA site that got caught in porn filters. The reason? The URL contained “marsexplorer.html”.
But if the filter can be bypassed, doesn’t that defeat the point of having it in the first place?
Or you end up playing Whack-a-Mole, as porn sites figure out a way around the latest filter, the filter gets improved, then porn sites find their way around the new and improved filter, and so on and so forth. No filter is blocking 100% of porn sites and allowing 100% of non-pornographic material through at any one time.
Websense isn’t perfect, either (not to pick on Websense, neither is any other filtering software). It blocked cisco.com for a while as a “hack” site.
How do you make sure the filtering catches only porn, and not non-pornographic but controversial subjects like certain political or religious views? The same software that can be used to block porn can be used to block those, too. Websense is supposedly used by the Chinese and Yemeni governments for this purpose. I guarantee you there are some people who’d like to restrict public library patrons’ access to certain political or religious sites, and I think there are important freedom-of-speech reasons (as well as research reasons) why we shouldn’t let them do that.
One public library I used to spend a lot of time at had polarized privacy filters on every screen. Basically, if you were sitting right in front of the screen, you didn’t notice the filter at all, but from any other angle they were opaque and you couldn’t see the screen. Sort of like those Fresnel-lens traffic lights.
So that’s one way.
I hear the models were smoking hot
ETA: do people seriously still use public libraries? I haven’t used one in years - almost as long as I haven’t used a phonebook.
If you’ve ever tried to watch the Playboy Channel, scrambled, 16 colors would be an improvement.
Yes. I worked at a public library and there were all sorts of people who came in to check out books, research, or use the computers. Admittedly there have been stretches of years where I never used the public library myself.
Our library, and the one at the university, restricts pornographic material and I cannot recall any instance of it causing a problem. So I’ve got no beef with libraries banning explicit materials from being viewed in areas where others can also view it. If you want your porn go somewhere else.