California Library Limits Minors to
G-Rated Videos
The Mission Viejo (Calif.) city council voted January 3 to bar the city library from loaning to patrons under 18 any “entertainment or motion picture videos” except those rated “G.” The council, which doubles as the library board of trustees, acted in response to a state law taking effect January 1 that requires the trustees of every California public library receiving state funding to establish a policy on minors’ access to “motion picture” videos.
Library Director Valerie Meyer told American Libraries that children still can borrow educational films and that staff will designate ratings for non-MPAA-rated theatrical releases.
Although officials “kept in mind what peer libraries are doing” when drafting the video policy, they decided it would have been a “bigger restriction” to forbid minors from checking out videos altogether, as neighboring Orange County Public Library has done for some 20 years. Mission Viejo council members approved the policy a month after they responded to anti-cyberporn activists’ concerns by ordering the library to filter two of its 15 Internet terminals.
Posted January 10, 2000.
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