California Library Compromises on Filters
A months-long debate over whether to install blocking software on the public workstations of the Solano County (Calif.) Library ended November 8 when the board of supervisors voted 3–2 to equip every computer in the seven-branch system with filters. The board also instructed library officials to disable the software at the request of an adult with no questions asked. All patrons younger than 18 will be permitted only filtered searches unless their parent or guardian allows them unfettered access.
The decision came some seven months after a patron reported that her 9-year-old daughter had seen a sexually explicit image on a Vacaville branch computer being used by another visitor. Toni Horn’s complaint triggered a series of meetings throughout the county in September, conducted in the style of a National Issues Forum program.
SCL Director Ann Cousineau told American Libraries that the structured NIF communication style “allowed people that had widely diverse opinions on this to come together.” She added that while “I don’t know that anybody changed anyone else’s mind,” the dialogue “epitomized the democratic process and it really epitomized that role of the library as a commons, as a place to discuss the issues of the day.”
Before the community discussions could take place, however, the same youngster saw another person viewing another explicit image online during a visit to SCL’s Fairfield branch to claim an essay-contest prize the child had won. “Why promote storytime and lap sits and summer reading programs for kids when you can simply walk into the library and see pornography?” Horn said in the November 7 Vacaville Reporter, adding that since the second incident “We have stopped going to the library.”
Posted November 11, 2005.
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