Recently a woman walked into one of our libraries and saw a sexually explicit image on one of our Internet workstations. The man who had called it up seemed oblivious to his surroundings.
The image deeply offended her. So she confronted the man. She even filed a complaint with the police.
Well, the police came. They determined that no crime was committed. But the man hasn't been back to the library since.
The next day, the woman called me. What was wrong with me that I hadn't authorized my staff to make the library a safe place for children? (She said a young child -- perhaps 10 or so, was wandering around unattended in the library at the time, and could have been exposed to this image.) Besides, didn't she (the woman) have a right not to be assaulted by such imagery?
Frankly, she was angry and disappointed at my response.
One of my comments was so surprising to her that she stopped to write it down. I said, "The library really doesn't have the right to tell people what they can't look at."
Another comment I didn't make but could have is that actually no one has the right not to be offended. That's the whole point to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Ordinary speech (and related expression) doesn't need special protections.
People have a tendency to think the Internet raises all kinds of new issues for libraries. I'm not so sure. Fifty years ago, if a man walked into a library with a magazine (purchased at an adult book store) full of sexually explicit images, librarians did not tell him to put it away or get out. Then and now, it's legal for adults to buy such materials and legal to read them. What's new is that an Internet terminal is like a patron who holds the magazine up high, so anybody can see it. It's immature and annoying. It's even pathetic. But it's not illegal.
I try to steer our libraries by the Principle of Least Interference. It would be insufferably intrusive and arrogant of public library staff to hover over patrons' shoulders and say, "That might offend somebody, so stop it right now!"
But let me be clear about another point. I'm no happier about the importing of pornography to the library than was the woman who complained to me about it.
When the library invested in Internet connections and workstations, it was to provide access to such data as consumer guides, periodical articles, local historical information, parenting tips, and so on. We've spent a great deal of time selecting, linking to, and even creating a host of useful resources appropriate to our youngest patrons. I'm proud of what we offer, and the vast majority of the time, our Internet workstations are used just as we hoped they would be.
But let me offer two reminders. First, as we state in our "appropriate use" policies, if you do anything illegal on the Internet -- try to hack into somebody's computer, lie about your age in order to gain access to a site, view child pornography, and so on -- you can be turned over to the police.
Second, many people may not be aware that we have the ability (if not the inclination) to monitor any session. This is necessary both for internal data security and for computer troubleshooting. If people do break the law, we can provided detailed print-outs of exactly what they did.
Beyond that, I've placed, and the Library Board has approved, a time limit on the use of an Internet workstation. At any time, patron use is limited to 20 minutes. We're not too strict about it if no one appears to be waiting, but if we ask someone to move along after 20 minutes, then they do have to do that. This seems to us a far less heavy-handed way to control the use of a public resource.
Finally, if someone is in fact bothered by something a patron is looking it, and lets our staff know about it, we will indeed request a patron to amend his or her behavior, to be considerate of others.
But as difficult as some patrons may find this to be, any public place is "dangerous" in that we cannot guarantee the mental stability of some of the people who congregate there. Our staff act swiftly to protect the physical well-being of our patrons. But no place is truly "safe." If parents drop off their child at the library unattended, they take the same risk they would take if they abandoned him or her at the Park Meadows Mall. It's a sad truth of modern life.
Given that this column is running near April Fool's Day, I'm tempted to say that our solution will be to just take control of any Internet terminal that brings up naughty bits, and automatically transfer the person to Disney (www.disney.com), or perhaps Focus on the Family (www.fotf.org). Hmm. Maybe that's not so foolish after all.
If it happens to you, don't say you weren't warned.
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