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Fort Vancouver Filters All Access 24/7The board of the Fort Vancouver (Wash.) Regional Library District voted 4–3 at its February 13 meeting to require filters on all library computers. The rule also prohibits any patron, regardless of age, from viewing pornography online, library officials announced in a February 14 press release.The decision came some four months after the library district failed to win a 60% supermajority for a $44 million capital-improvement bond issue. The measure had attracted a tantalizingly close 59.37% yes vote, and subsequent feedback solicited by FVRLD resulted in several hundred people requesting a more stringent filtering policy than the four-year-old one that filters a minor’s access unless a parent exercises an opt-out provision. Nonetheless, board member Jack Burkman, who proposed the policy change, insisted before the February 13 vote that he was not motivated by voter sentiment but because “it’s critical the library be friendly to families,” according to the February 14 Vancouver Columbian. “We might pick up a point or two,” he noted, but “we’ll alienate some people and lose a point or two.” Board chair Jerry King, former Vancouver city attorney and opponent of the new policy, had argued, “There are valid reasons to watch porn in a library.” The Columbian reported that his remarks were met with gasps from onlookers, one of whom shouted, “It’s a matter of right and wrong!” In a prepared statement, FVRLD Executive Director Bruce Ziegman expressed hope that library officials could now “refocus our energies on the 2006 strategic plan priorities, which include getting full benefit out of the district’s electronic resources and addressing facility needs.” Posted February 17, 2006. |
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