It’S Not ‘Charlotte’S Web’ Anymore Libraries Struggle With Dark Side Of Internet

Ah, the library. Where children can fuel their naturally curious brains with picture books, read-aloud storytimes, friendly librarians and pornographic Internet sites.

Say what?

While patrons are demanding more and more access to the Internet, Inland Northwest libraries are also having to deal with the technology’s pitfalls.

If your son is searching the Internet for his favorite after-school sport, wrestling, he’ll also find links to things like “Amazons in Combat,” “Ringmaster Girls” and “Steel Kittens.”

Look up information on your daughter’s church youth group, “Girls in Action” and you’ll find sites that would make Larry Flynt blush.

As the Internet grows in popularity, libraries are finding themselves forced to devise strategies for dealing with tough access questions. Should the library play parent and prevent people - even adults - from accessing the naughty sites? And who decides which sites are the naughty ones, anyway?

On the other hand, should people really be able to view pornography in a public library, a place typically thought of as being kid-friendly?

The majority of Inland Northwest libraries have policies forbidding access to what they define as inappropriate sites.

At the Spokane Public Library, for example, minors must have their parents’ permission to go on-line and librarians monitor the use of machines.

“If we discover that someone is viewing materials that we would not collect, we ask them to desist,” said Dolly Richandrfer, manager of community relations for the library. “We do not collect porn.”

It’s the same at smaller libraries in Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Pullman and Kellogg.

“We have a lot of kids using this, and we want it safe for them,” said Karen Rumpel, co-director of the Kellogg library.

Across the nation, 72 percent of public libaries have policies limiting the use of their Internet access to “acceptable” purposes, according to a 1998 survey by the American Library Association.

That’s not what the association recommends, though.

A resolution the ALA’s council adopted two years ago states that libraries should not limit access to information on the Internet because of any controversial content or because of any librarian’s personal beliefs.

At least three Inland Northwest libraries follow ALA guidelines - the Kootenai-Shoshone Area Libraries, the Spokane County Library District and the East Bonner County Free Library District.

The Internet is an unregulated medium, notes the Kootenai-Shoshone Area Libraries’ policy, and therefore, the library takes no responsibility for what it contains. A parent can request that their underage child be barred from access.

“Basically, we’re saying to people, `You may find something offensive, and you’ve been warned,”’ said John Hartung, co-director of the library system.

As far as people accessing pornography, “we haven’t had a real issue there,” he said.

The computers in the Kootenai-Shoshone Area Libraries - as in other libraries in the Inland Northwest - are in a very public area.

“There’s sort of some self-policing there,” Hartung said.

“One approach we’ve been advised to take is we can deal with the behavior but not the content,” said Mike Wirt, director of the Spokane County Library District. “If it’s causing a disruption and is against the customer conduct policy, then we can ask them to take the information off the screen.”

The Latah County Library hasn’t formed an official policy, but parents should monitor what their children view, said Mildred Hoskins, public services coordinator.

So far, none of the major library systems uses filtering software, which blocks access to sexually explicit, racist, or other offensive sites.

Filtering software programs search for key words in the coding of web sites. Whenever they find any of their key words, they block access to the site.

“The bottom line with any kind of filter is that it’s just a dumb program,” explained Marc Reynolds, chief executive officer of ACE Technology in Coeur d’Alene. “It can only do what it’s told.”

The Post Falls Public Library board is considering using the software on computers that children use but not on computers adults use, said Library Director Joe Reiss.

“It would be up to individual parents to decide what level they want to access or have their kids access,” he said. “We would not be in the business of censorship.”

That’s the complaint about filtering software.

Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union say it’s tantamount to censorship. It abridges free speech, they say, because it limits site creators’ rights to say what they want and web surfers’ rights to read what they want.

On the other hand, groups in favor of filtering software - like the nonprofit organization Filtering Facts - say children should be protected from pornography at public libraries.

For that reason, filtering software is a bit of a mess legally.

In Virginia, one library system is being sued for using filtering software while another library system in California is being sued for not using it.

For all the major Inland Northwest libraries, use of the Internet is skyrocketting. Even in the East Bonner County Free Library District, where there are 22 Internet terminals in three library branches, the computers are almost constantly in use.

“The main problem we have here isn’t one of content,” Reiss said, “it’s one of access.”