This is my first attempt at blogging so it might take me awhile to get the hang of it. This blog is required for my SLIS 640 class for Intellectual Freedom. This is a very hot topic and one that I discussed frequently when I worked on the back reference desk at my local library. The back desk is in charge of monitoring the adult computer lab. What separates the adult lab from the children's lab is that it is not filtered. Because of this, young people who are under the age of eighteen are not allowed to use the lab unless their parent or legal guardian signs a waiver giving them permission.
Seems easy enough. No. The biggest problem we had was children stealing other people's cards to gain access to the lab. Most of the weekend work days were spent checking sign-in numbers against the age of the person registered to the card. It could sometimes be a complete nightmare when children, especially teenagers, would cause a huge scene and threaten some of the librarians. I never knew Internet access could insight such rage!!
The other problem we frequently ran in to was because the lab was unfiltered, some patrons would get in their daily dose of porn. Inevitably, some other patron would catch a glimpse of the porn riddled screen and come storming out to speak to a librarian and formalize a complaint. That was always fun explaining to those patrons that looking at porn was not illegal (as long as it was not child pornography) and that the lab was unfiltered and the porn patron had a right to look at it.
I am excited about this class because these issues are extremely important. Also, I hope to become a sort of wiz at blogging!
6 comments:
Holy cow, your library had a policy that allowed people to look at porn as long as it wasn’t child porn? Wow! I never knew such a thing was possible in a library. I always assumed it was completely outlawed, no matter what. Wow!!!
This is an interesting post. We don't have this problem at my library because the adult lab is filtered, too. Even Photobucket is blocked here because some members post "adult" pictures there. We don't have many complaints about the filters from the adults. I wonder if they are even aware of their rights, and what they would do if they were.
Hi Dawn!
My library has the same unfiltered policy--as long as it's not an adult looking at kiddie porn & not a child looking at an "adult" site, we don't intervene unless someone says that it is disrupting their own research. When that happens, we just tell the porn-watcher that there's been a complaint & that they'll need to either close out their screen or move to another computer.
Oh, the fun we get to have at the library:)!
Kathleen
I am pretty ignorant when it comes to legal stuff, but I thought it was illegal to look at porn in a public place like the library. It's not illegal to masturbate, but do it in public and you're going to get slapped. So, what's the difference regarding porn?
I'm guessing the difference is the same as the difference between looking at a plate of food and gorging yourself at a buffet?:)
We'll talk in class about the distinction between pornography and obscenity in the eyes of the law, the first being protected and the other unprotected speech.
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