Librarians select which books and other media to include in their collections. That doesn't mean that they are censoring the works that are not included. Libraries also prohibit behavior that is disruptive to other patrons, such as talking loudly and masturbating. The role and mission of a public library is not to provide the public with free Internet access. The fact that they often do does not oblige them to provide unrestricted access.

> if you ban one thing that's offensive you have
> to ban everything everyone thinks is offensive.

What on Earth would make someone say something so silly?

Lady Chatterly's Lover is boring. Who cares about Sir John and Lady Jane? Boring, boring, boring and goofy.

That aside, I don't think viewing porn is acceptable public behavior, any more than having sex on the street is acceptable public behavior. If someone can watch people having sex on a screen anyone can see, why can't I have sex on the check-out desk?

There already are public places where you can go view porn.

What Max said.

So apparently, we only have to ban things the Crids of the world find offensive.
That sounds just as silly, yes?
I believe it is a logical extrapolation, if we ban something you find offensive because it is something you find offensive...we need to ban something I find offensive...and so on.

More to the point, I was unaware that free internet access to porn was added to that magical list of unalienable rights. But, seeing as how freedom of speech and protection from unlawful searches are being taken away, we get some other 'token' rights like this. Hooray!

Banning materials from the library because the majority of people find them distasteful is a dicey step

I thought democracy was about the majority. But going by what you say, it seems like you want it to be about the special interests. (ie) ban things that are offensive to gays, women, blah blah etc etc, but keep things that are offensive to the majority. It is as if you want the majority to be subjugated by the special interests.

Whose rights matter more?

In a public place, it is the rights of the public that matter. Not the rights of 1 single individual individual. Public rights trump private rights anyday in a public place.

If a person is so desperate to watch porn on the internet, that person can as well pay for a internet connection at his/her home/homeless shelter etc etc.

People who can't see a difference in not allowing porn viewing in a public family location and in censoring history books are imbeciles. The kind not even worth arguing with. Internet access is not a right.

Libraries should be privately run and not paid for out of taxpayer funds, especially in a day and age of Google Books, Google Scholar, universities making their course materials free, etc. As a privately run institution, the library could censor or not censor as it sees fit.

Also, not sure that physical books have much of a future. In a generation or two, libraries private or public may be a thing of the past.

Is the problem porn, or is the problem porn viewing in inappropriate places, and masturbation?

My problem with banning porn is that the techniques to do so usually ban a lot of sites that have legitimate free speech on them.

And then it's too easy for zealous librarians and zealous citizens to ban other sites: Al Jazaeera, OWS, reason, Canadian pharmacies.

I see no civil right to masturbate in a library, but I don't think librarians should be filtering the internet.

(I know from personal experience that the LA library carried Playboy in its stacks in the sixties and seventies.)

Max,

I believe the reason librarians are forced to decide which of two books to provide is due to limited financial and physical resources, not because there is something inherent in the job of librarian that makes them "curator" or "editor".

Filtering the internet is not easily justified on the basis of limited financial and physical resources.

Censoring something that everyone finds inappropriate doesn't equate to censoring something that a minority of people MIGHT find inappropriate.

The majority of people, for instance, agree that the library should be a quiet place. There may be some people somehwere who believe it should be a loud place, where they can stand up and speak their minds and exercise free speech, but the library doesn't have to cater to that minority. They aren't restricting free speech by demanding quiet because there are plenty of other places those people can go to speak.

Likewise, nobody is guaranteed a porn experience in the library. True, filtering the internet may block some other controversial yet legitimate sites, but if someone wants to see porn or view those sites, they can find or buy internet access somewhere else.

> I thought democracy was about the majority.

No. We do wonderful things with minorities here as well.

Marian the librarian & the mayor's wife in The Music Man:

"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is beautiful Persian poetry!"
"It's a smutty book."

Pickalittle talkalittle pickalittle talkalittle,
Pick pick pick talk a lot, pick a little more...

There's also a practical reason for prohibiting the viewing of porn in libraries, which is that it would compel them to segregate their facilities and staffing. Which would be hugely expensive. There's also a less obvious reason, which is that the type of people who want to view porn openly among the general public are going to skew towards the predatory and exhibitionistic.

We are talking about taxpayer supported public libraries, right? Public money, public rules.

It's like Food Stamps for the mind. You won't starve, but you won't get everything you'd like.

Of course there have to be standards. No porn in publicly funded places. Especially since libraries are becoming the shelter of choice for so many homeless individuals.

An interesting argument may be though should some porn, say Caligula, Short Bus, or Ken Park be available for check-out? I could argue they are as redeemable as The Hangover Part 2.

There are still public libraries?

I thought democracy was about the majority.

Our founding fathers were worried about the tyranny of the majority. That's why they put the Bill of Rights into the Constitution and made the country a representative (republican) democracy instead of a pure democracy.

Whose rights matter more?

Mine.

if you ban one thing that's offensive you have to ban everything everyone thinks is offensive.

I believe he meant "you have to ban everything anyone thinks is offensive."

'cause there's nothing everyone finds offensive ... unfortunately.

And just because you restrict access to one thing in one location doesn't mean we're on the slippery slope to mass censorship and a police state.

Insistence on decorum does not equal censorship.

Sorry ... I missed a blockquote tag.

It should read:

Whose rights matter more?

Mine.

...if you ban one thing that's offensive you have to ban everything everyone thinks is offensive.

I believe he meant "you have to ban everything anyone thinks is offensive."

'cause there's nothing everyone finds offensive ... unfortunately.

And just because you restrict access to one thing in one location doesn't mean we're on the slippery slope to mass censorship and a police state.

Insistence on decorum does not equal censorship.

"I could argue they are as redeemable as The Hangover Part 2."

Is that at the library?

Placing the line in the sand of what is permissible and what is not is inherently dangerous, but the answer is not necessarily not having a line at all.

You just need to make a computer section that is all ages, and a separate computer section that you must be an adult for.

Just as you can't sell some things to minors, and you can"t let them in some shows. THIS, is not that hard.

The problem (my mother works in a library) is that you have creeps who come in and surf porn and play with themselves while doing so. Then they harass other patrons, and the library staff.

If surfing porn is so important to them, let them pay for it on their own and do it at their house so my mother doesn't have to see them jacking off.

We also get back to the definition of porn. I think pretty much everyone would agree that images or video showing sexual activity in all its glory is porn. Is a picture of a woman topless porn? What if she's demonstrating a breast self-examination? A woman wearing a bra? A woman wearing lingerie? (Before you laugh, I have relatives who honestly think it is.) A man naked without an erection? With an erection?

But what about a picture or video of a couple embracing naked, but in which you can see no breasts or genitalia. To make it more complicated, what about pictures or videos of couples copulating while fully clothed (turns out that's a fetish with entire web sites devoted to it.)

Incidentally, at my local library, the only stated rule is to respect other people and children in the library and the librarians can kick you off the computers for any reason whatsoever. To my knowledge nobody has been kicked off.

They may use Blue Coat, which is a pretty good on-the-fly filter.

Okay, the librarian in the room has to weigh in.

1) Yes, we have the Hangover Pt 2. At least until budget cuts hit again. We didn't buy any DVD's in 2010 because of money. When 2011 hit & we got fundage, we went back and bought all the movies that made over X amount at the box office (along with all the usual educational fare).

2) As many have pointed out, we ban porn because of what people do while watching it, not porn in and of itself.

3) Having separate "adult only" areas sounds like a great solution. Until you consider that we're dead broke and who is going to re-construct our buildings to allow room for a separate room? Currently, our 1982 library doesn't have any space for a "Teen" collection, let alone a whole separate space for computers, complete with data ports. Oh, and don't forget those other computers we'll need!

4) Like most public spaces, we have a Code of Conduct we expect our customers to adhere by. Just because you pay for the building and its contents does not entitle you to do how you please. Use of our computers is conditional upon your agreement to abide by our rules (ie: You can't install your own personal programs on our systems either). Your comfort extends only to the comfort of those around you (ie: loudness and other disruptive behaviors). You can't check out a book and write in it.

In reality, this is not a censorship issue. Your average librarian doesn't give a rat's ass about who's looking at what on the computer, in fact. What they care about is the seedy, unwashed individual who's getting very excited over his viewing experience and who is sitting in between two thirteen year old girls doing it. It's about the disruption of the environment.

Who's gonna clean the "adults only" section?

> we only have to ban things the Crids of the
> world find offensive.
>
> That sounds just as silly, yes?

No.

(Serious! Some people are foolish, others aren't.)

Hugzzz ♥

As an author Amy, do you mind people being able to check out your book without you really being compensated for it? I always thought there was a good argument against commercial films being available at the libraries since it takes business away from private rental distributors and doesn't really compensate the studios.

FWIW, from ArsTechnica Published 16 minutes ago...

"Library computers can block porn—but Wicca? ACLU says no
By Nate Anderson | Published 16 minutes ago

I work on occasion from my local public library, a wonderful spot with huge glass windows overlooking an attached park. The views are nice, the quiet is terrific, but the free Wi-Fi is indispensable. But the Internet connectivity comes with limits, in the form of a content filter that periodically prevents me from accessing research materials. Infuriating, yes. But illegal?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just filed a complaint (PDF) on behalf of a Salem, Missouri resident named Anaka Hunter, who contends that the Salem public library is unconstitutionally blocking her ability to access information on "minority" religious views. Federal and state law both govern libraries in Missouri, which are generally ordered to block access to obscene online material and child pornography. But the Salem library allegedly goes far beyond the mandate.

The library's "Netsweeper" content filtering system can block a huge variety of material, from porn to P2P to "occult" to "criminal skills," but it's up to the institution to choose which content categories will get filtered. Hunter claims that while looking into Native American and Wiccan religious practices, she was repeatedly halted by the filter's "occult" and "criminal skills" categories. When she complained, she says that the library staff wasn't especially helpful. According to the ACLU complaint:

"

Hunter raised the issue of filtering again with [head librarian] Wofford and stated that she thought the filtering of the websites she sought to view was improper and the classification of Native American cultural and religious history and practices as the “occult” and “criminal skills” was misleading and derogatory.

Wofford responded that it was up to the filtering system which websites library patrons could view and that she only allows people to view blocked websites if it pertains to their job, if they are writing a paper, or if she determined that they otherwise have a legitimate reason to view the content.

Wofford additionally asserted that she had an “obligation” to call the “proper authorities” to report those who were attempting to access blocked sites if she thought they would misuse the information they were attempting to access.

""

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/library-computers-can-block-pornbut-wicca.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

As I understand it, government censorship is prohibiting something from being distributed, not failing to provide a venue for it.

Like others, I really don't want to walk by computers at the library and see something explicit.

And so the argument shows once again that sex is more important than murder in the good old USA.

There's no uproar about looking at murders in the library.

And when a copycat finds out how to do something, it's lots less fun.

"The problem here, which most people just can't seem to comprehend, is that if you ban one thing that's offensive you have to ban everything everyone thinks is offensive."

Most people can't comprehend this, or they prefer discretion to a stupid zero tolerance policy? Every day, network TV bans certain foul language and explicit material while allowing "adult situations."

"Libraries should be privately run and not paid for out of taxpayer funds"

That's funny.

Porn in libraries makes no sense, why bother having NC17 ratings that kids can't go to if they can see it in the library?

Why is it that libraries have internet connections? Especially when they are short on funds for materials.

Because poor people don't have internet connections?

Why not have all sorts of other things poor people don't have too? Free phones, laundry machines, a bunk section if they need a good place to sleep, meals, loaner cars, baby sitters,and medical care.

I mean, once you start turning the public library into a free services for poor people station, why not go all the way?

The terminals should be disconnected from the Internet, and only access a library server system so they function as a modern card catalog to help you find or order books and other materials.

Problem solved. It's a library, not an Internet access center.

Okay, taking it from the top. Grading A, B, C, D, & F.

> Librarians select which books and other media
> to include in their collections. That doesn't
> mean that they are censoring

[Grade: A+] Correct. Librarians serve at the whim of their constituents. And no library in the world is promising to deliver all the information you could possibly want, electronically or otherwise.

> I don't think viewing porn is acceptable public
> behavior

[Grade: A] Correct. Especially in what is paradoxically a supremely private venue... Where people silently experience the entirety of the human experience in full view of others. Everyone reading these words has had the experience of looking up from a brilliant library book, scanning the other patrons, and thinking 'Christ, these pathetic saps got no clue'. That's one of the things we want a library to teach... The boundary of your own education. You could sit next to me and read the most disturbing text ever written, but I needn't know anything about it. Internet porn doesn't work that way.

> I believe it is a logical extrapolation

Then you might wanna consider a semester of booklearnin'.

> seeing as how freedom of speech and protection
> from unlawful searches are being taken away, we
> get some other 'token' rights like this. Hooray!

[Grade: F+] With the earlier demerits for irrationality in the first point, your watery, tepid sarcasm in this second point conveys nothing more than a teenage presumption that everything should go great for everybody all the time in perpetual motion at zero cost.

> Public rights trump private rights anyday

[Grade: B-] Only most days, and only in very decent societies. Here in the 'States, we used to sell human beings in the town square. Sunday afternoon passersby, serenading young maidens, were cool with it.

> People who can't see a difference in not
> allowing porn viewing in a public family
> location and in censoring history books
> are imbeciles. The kind not even worth
> arguing with. Internet access is not a
> right.

[Grade: A-] {1.} Never turn down an argument. {2.} I'm still pissed at you for that earlier thing.

> Libraries should be privately run

[Grade: See Gog, 3:06pm] A spectacularly goofy thing to say. Could you be that foolish? The public library network, for all its constraints, is the last undefeated argument that the United States of America wants all citizens to accept as much wisdom as their skulls can hold, without regard to profitable or manageable outcomes.

> Also, not sure that physical books have
> much of a future.

[Grade: C-] When the apocalypse comes and the power goes out, good paper media will be more precious than water.

> Is the problem porn, or is the problem
> porn viewing in inappropriate places,
> and masturbation?

[Grade: C+] Who cares? Are libraries and the communities which sustain them going to be required to teach people the difference?

> Filtering the internet is not easily justified
> on the basis of limited financial and physical
> resources

[Grade: C] {1} Says who?... {2} ...Especially where the internet encourages disruptive misconduct? There may be enormous justification just at hand. (So to speak.)

> They aren't restricting free speech by
> demanding quiet because there are plenty
> of other places those people can
> go to speak.

[Grade: B] Yeah. People are also forbidden to host keggers on public bus lines.

> Likewise, nobody is guaranteed a porn
> experience in the library.

[Grade: B] Yeah, as noted above. To a really lonely and unbalanced patron, porn is not merely bookish information, just as bypass is not an incidental traffic condition to a cardiac patient. Context counts.

> Pickalittle talkalittle

[Grade: C-] Hideous movie.

> it would compel them to segregate their
> facilities and staffing.

[Grade: C+] Only presumably.

> the type of people who want to view porn
> openly among the general public are going
> to skew towards the predatory

[Grade: C-] Not yet in evidence...

... But let's not try it to find out. [Final grade: B]

> It's like Food Stamps for the mind.

[Grade: B-] Understates the cosmically unchallenged powers of both a mediocre collection and a motivated student. Meals last a day at best but lessons turn epochs.

> Caligula, Short Bus, or Ken Park be
> available for check-out? I could argue
> they are as redeemable as The Hangover

[Grade: A-] Well, yeah, but almost any good book that someone takes home is going to give the reader ideas that others would think indecent.

> I believe he meant "you have to ban
> everything anyone thinks is offensive."

[Grade: B+] Wut-EV-ar

> Insistence on decorum does not equal
> censorship.

[Grade: No grade] True dat.

> Placing the line in the sand of what is
> permissible and what is not is inherently
> dangerous, but the answer is not
> necessarily not having a line at all.

[Grade: B+] I like the cut of your jib, sailor, but I resent your signature, which reads like some literary allusion I happen not to recognize.

> THIS, is not that hard.

[Grade: C-/D+] {1.} If that were true, you'd not have bungled the punctuation. {2.} Adults don't want to have to deal with the porn of strangers any more than they want their kids to deal with it.

> We also get back to the definition
> of porn.

[Grade: C+] I don't think so. I don't think our problem is that prissy, inorgasmic old ladies from the 700 Club are going to stand behind library patrons and pass judgment on what they're reading. The problem is that winos will stumble in at noon on Tuesday to login to BustyButtfuckers dot com.

> the only stated rule is to respect other
> people and children in the library

[Grade: A] Then we're done. But people come to public libraries with weird, powerplay expectations of the library staff... That's kinda why this is an issue.

> It's about the disruption of the
> environment.

[Grade: A+] As the son of a librarian, how could I argue? (But aren't you kind of amazed how everyone has just assumed that the PL will be the release valve with internet access for the entire community? That's amazing to me. I don't think library collections and internet services are truly contiguous.)

> Who's gonna clean the "adults only" section?

[Grade: F] You.

> I always thought there was a good argument
> against commercial films being available

[Grade: A] Me too, even though I used to borrow them (with a projector) for parties back in college.

> The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
> has just filed a complaint (PDF) on behalf
> of a Salem, Missouri resident

[Grade: A] I'm reminded of Paglia's description of how she came to recognize that her 1960's-spirit disruption of faculty meetings meant that less time was given to the students whom they all wanted to serve. The ACLU is like that. They sometimes seem not to understand that the world is in motion, and their foolishness has very real costs.

> I really don't want to walk by computers
> at the library and see something explicit.

[Grade: A-] Me neither. And I like weird, freaky, disruptive, stanky sex.

> And so the argument shows once again
> that sex is more important than murder
> in the good old USA.

[Grade: D-] Grotesqule pompous. You should go home to stroke the little Brown Bear Cub, if you know what I mean. Choke the Blue Heron.

> or they prefer discretion to a stupid
> zero tolerance policy?

[Grade: A] That's a much better comment than you think it is.

> Porn in libraries makes no sense, why
> bother having NC17 ratings that kids
> can't go to if they can see it in
> the library?

[Grade: B-] Well, a virtuous society can and will make distinct demands of public institutions and private enterprise.

> Problem solved. It's a library, not
> an Internet access center

[Grade: B-] Please don't tempt us with irrefutable logic.

My friend in highschool and I used to skip school to go to the public library, pick out a Beatles book and there we'd look at just how small john lennon's wang was, wondering, are all Englishmens wangs that small?

"Why is it that libraries have internet connections?"

It's an indispensable tool for finding a job. Running a help wanted ad in the Denver Post is much more expensive than running one on some of the popular internet sites--so we've given up running ads in the Post. Our new hires have to fill out all their paperwork online.

It's also an indispensable research tool. Google Scholar has more research articles than a small public library could hold. And when I needed to cure some painful GI issues, it was blogs by Drs. Michael Eades and William Davis that helped me where other doctors and books had failed.

Libraries having online databases is awesome. I use my library card and home computer to access Morningstar and Valueline.

As for NC-17 movies, the library near my house has two kinds of internet passes: one for adults (unrestricted) and one for minors (filtered).

>> [Grade: A-] Well, yeah, but almost any good book that someone takes home is going to give the reader ideas that others would think indecent.

I'll take it. We do need to meet in the arena those one of these days, like during the good old Iraq invasion days when we hated each other. Like gay rights, this really isn't my fight. It's just that Hangover 1 was so great, and Hangover 2 was one of the great disappointments of my existence.

PS- With society having adapted so quickly to the internet, as a taxpayer I want those who rely on the libraries to have internet access, if for nothing else than to research economic opportunity (online job applications and postings), but more importantly our libraries are probably some of the best bang for our taxpayer buck.

PPS- no pun about "bang" and porn intended.

> We do need to meet in the arena those one of
> these days, like during the good old Iraq
> invasion days when we hated each other.

I'll always think taking Saddam out of power was a great idea. Everything that followed was a waste of blood, treasure and time. If you have 20 minutes, this explains what SHOULD have happened in Iraq. And in an hour and half this explains that we are going to have to do this again and again, no matter what. We shouldn't be doing it alone. At this point we're like blinged-out rappers flying through the 'hood in limousines, yelling "Just say no to drugs and violence!"

(And that includes Barry's little enterprise in Libya.)

We agree (strongly) about libraries.

Looking forward to that beer.

> It's an indispensable tool for finding a job.

Agree, agree. But there must be a lot of librarians who watch that person brushing their teeth in the mirror every morning and think "How did this poor mook, with a Masters in Library Science, suddenly become responsible for scheduling internet stations for belligerent psychos and odoriferous street people?"

I mean, in a better, tighter culture, the Churches would be doing this. Or the trade schools. Or the freaking car washes.

I love the internet, but let's not pretend it's truly a kind of literacy.

Hey Lori, tell us more about that Morningstar access... That's pretty sweet.

I thought democracy was about the majority.
Posted by: Redrajesh

It is, but we live in a 'Represenitive Republic' otherwise the majority could decide to kill you for no reason and it would be perfectly legal

There's also a less obvious reason, which is that the type of people who want to view porn openly among the general public are going to skew towards the predatory and exhibitionistic.
Posted by: Pornosaurus Rex

Ahhh yes 'think of the children'. "They like porn - it must mean they'll kidnap, rape, and murder my children if they see a picture of tits in a library"

Every day, network TV bans certain foul language and explicit material while allowing "adult situations."
Posted by: Lori

Thats because the word "Fuck" gets you fined simulated blowjob dont

Of course there have to be standards. No porn in publicly funded places.
Posted by: Eric

Carfull Eric, you ever read the bible? Orgies, incest, beastiality - more sex in the bible then any other book I know of

If surfing porn is so important to them, let them pay for it on their own and do it at their house so my mother doesn't have to see them jacking off.
Posted by: brian

I got a question, how is it peple wind up in jail or on sex offender registries for pulling children out of traffic, urinating in the mens room only to have a girl walk in on you, and being naked in your own house and only seen because some soccor mom and her spawn illegally tresspassed on your property - but these hundereds or thousands of people masterbating in public libraires never get caught by cops?

There's a huge difference between reading about sex, and watching it on a screen where it is actually being performed in front of you, and where people can walk by and see it. Reading is much more private.

As for the "Lady Chatterly's Lover was considered porn and now its considered art" argument, fine. Standards change. If 50 years from now the works of Ron Jeremy are considered great classics that every high schooler should watch, then put them in the library at that point.

> Reading is much more private.

Yeah. For very long time, libraries were (mostly) about the silent projection of thoughts into your brain.

> Standards change. If 50 years from now...

Exactly. I don't understand why people think we can't make choices about what's best, as if a single visitor's disagreement with five neighborhoods' worth of other patrons means we have to accommodate everyone.

but these hundereds or thousands of people masterbating in public libraires never get caught by cops?

Because the library won't call the cops. Remember the Library Association's response to the PATRIOT Act provision that allowed the FBI to present a warrant for someone's book history?

Libraries have an active hostility towards law enforcement, probably strengthened by the historical destruction of libraries by same.

So unless another patron calls the cops (and it's happened) nothing gets done.

"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just filed a complaint (PDF) on behalf of a Salem, Missouri resident named Anaka Hunter, who contends that the Salem public library is unconstitutionally blocking her ability to access information on "minority" religious views. Federal and state law both govern libraries in Missouri, which are generally ordered to block access to obscene online material and child pornography. But the Salem library allegedly goes far beyond the mandate."

So this Wiccan is suing over the town blocking her access to the Internet? And presumably this will drag its way through the courts?

It's the Salem Witch Trials all over again!