Despite porn, libraries should keep Internet open

Published 11:01 pm Saturday, September 27, 2008

Put yourself in Chris Danielsen’s place, a place about as uncomfortable as any I can think of offhand.

On Sept. 19, the 39-year-old Everett man was sitting at a computer on the second floor of the Everett Public Library. Danielsen said another man was sitting at a computer next to him.

An e-mail Danielsen sent to The Herald and the library that day describes what he claims happened:

“He was watching XXX-rated porn on the computer. I had to report it to a few people before anything was done or said about it!” Danielsen wrote. “I thought this was a family public library, not a sex shop or adult porn shop.”

It gets worse. When I met Danielsen last week, he said the other man was “rubbing his crotch.”

Reading all this, how can you not agree with Danielsen’s view? “I don’t think anybody has the right, at a public library, to be going on a computer watching porn,” he said.

Actually — and I told Danielsen this when we talked — I disagree with him. Adults do have the right to open Internet access for lawful purposes.

That’s part of the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act, signed into law in 2000 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. The law calls for filtering of the Internet for minors and providing open access for adults.

My view lines up squarely with policies at the Everett Public Library and the Sno-Isle Regional Library System. Both agencies allow adults open access to the Internet, and have for years.

Everett Public Library Director Eileen Simmons said Friday she’s heard only one complaint about Internet use this year, and just one last year. “I would be lying to you saying nobody ever looks at porn, but we’re not hearing any outcry from the community,” she said.

Simmons, who talked with Danielsen, said he felt a library staff member did not take appropriate action after he complained.

“If someone is looking at pornography, and someone else becomes aware of that and reports it to a library staff member, we can go up to that person and ask that they look at something more appropriate,” she said. Simmons sent library workers an e-mail reminder that policies allow for confronting Internet users. “We take patron complaints seriously,” she said.

Why not filter the Internet for everyone?

“There’s a technical answer and a philosophical answer,” said Mary Kelly, the Sno-Isle Regional Library System’s community relations director. “Technically, filters are getting better, but no filter is 100 percent perfect,” said Kelly. Sno-Isle libraries use privacy screens and desks with hoods covering computer monitors, she said.

“Philosophically, libraries are historically places where people can go and access a variety of information,” Kelly said. “You know how difficult it is for courts to determine what is pornographic, what is obscene. We have a compromise that gives parents some controls but doesn’t take away the rights of adults.”

I see limiting access as a slippery slope. It may seem silly to say that blocking Internet use could lead to banning art books showing Renoir’s nude women. Remember, though, that as recently as 1961, the U.S. publication of Henry Miller’s novel “Tropic of Cancer” led to obscenity trials.

Danielsen’s complaint came as libraries were about to commemorate Banned Book Week. Among books challenged around the country are “The Golden Compass,” “The Color Purple” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Porn, they’re not, but someone thought they shouldn’t be available to the reading public.

Everett Public Library and Sno-Isle take slightly different approaches to the Internet for children. At Sno-Isle’s 21 libraries, minors get only filtered access. In Everett, parents can request that kids have open access or no Internet access. The default when children sign up for a library card is filtered access. And yes, I asked Simmons to check my 9-year-old’s card — it calls for filtered access.

Kate Mossman, assistant director at the Everett library, said of about 7,800 children ages 4 to 17 with active library cards, 5,023 have filtered Internet access. Parents have requested no access for 1,217 children, and 1,559 kids have open Internet access, Mossman said.

Both the Everett library and Sno-Isle have computers in children’s areas that are always filtered. At Sno-Isle libraries, adults are asked when they use a computer to choose either filtered or unfiltered use.

Complaints are few, but Internet demand is high.

“Our Internet stations are busy from the moment we open to the moment we close, seven days a week,” Simmons said. The Everett library recently conducted surveys asking people about facilities and services. “People want more public Internet computers,” Simmons said.

Bad stuff is out there, Kelly said, “but there is so much more on the Internet that is valuable and meaningful.”

No one wants to sit next to a creep. The answer is to deal quickly with creeps, not block information for all.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.