Is internet porn okay at a public library? In point of fact, the Brooklyn Public Library installed a filter to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, but it can be turned off by adults. People being people, the result is that some people use library computers to look at porn or at images that some people would define as being so. An email from the Park Slope Parents group, sent to Slopers from a Boerum Hill parent, found its way into our inbox and we think it’s interesting:
I was at my branch library (Pacific) 4th Ave, btw Pacific & Dean St. and today I was without my kids but usually they are always with me…there are 8 computers (I never use the computers as I have one at home) but they are a great resource for people who don’t and for students…so this particular branch separates the adults and kids under 12 with 4 computers each on each side of the library…
Today as I was checking out (with 2 others) we were all shocked to see 2 adult males looking at PORN on the computers….at the circulation desk the woman said that the policy does not object to PORN in the Public Library use of computers as it is against the amendment. I couldn’t believe that in such a public venue when kids are walking around that this could be happening…hope I can get some back up from my sisters and brothers of PS!
The writer of the email asks Park Slope parents to contact the library. The library, in fact, separates “adult” computers and ones for kids and teens and “the amendment” to which the writer refers is the First One. Its internet policy can be found here. The Library’s policy “affirms the right of all users to access constitutionally protected material.” Norman Oder wrote an article in the New York Press on the entire subject of the internet and filters, which can be found here.
17 responses so far ↓
1 p // May 11, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Ohh the outrage.
I so hate Park Slope moms.
2 Seth // May 11, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Explain to your children that one of the great things about America is the first amendment. We don’t censor, we don’t burn books and we don’t tell adults what they can or cannot look at in a library.
Yes, it’s disgusting and thoughtless if you ask me for people to look at such things in a public place. But that’s my opinion and they have a right to there’s.
Here’s an idea, though, that might be legal. Why not have a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library as an exclusive “children’s branch” similar to how they have as a business library.
Think of how many fun ideas could be worked into such a branch. And hopefully, if there was a legal way to do so, all the computers would be filtered…
3 ff // May 11, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Or, set up a specific branch of the library as the “porn branch”.
4 CADA // May 12, 2008 at 10:19 am
First of all, Pacific branch is technically in Park Slope, not Boerum Hill. Second, library employees are supposed to encourage patrons who view porn on the public computers to use privacy screens. Next time she sees porn, the PS mom should just ask a librarian to offer privacy screens to the offending patrons.
5 billybob // May 12, 2008 at 11:55 am
and P, they hate you.
6 theres no "e" in team....... // May 12, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Children can visit any of the 59 libraries, each of which has a seperate children’s section, so they certainly don’t need their own. Then there is the issue of what is obscene. For instance, a parent who thinks a seperate childrens library is needed because her precious snowflake may see something objectable, is obscene and shoudnt be allowed in the library. Some may see it differently. Either way, CADA figured it out – the library should of offered the porn viewers the option of using a privacy screen, and if they refused to use one, then librarians can point out that their are children in the library who can also see the porn. If they refuse, call MSNBC and tell them you got yourself a pederast that needs to be preyed upon.
7 famous mortimer // May 12, 2008 at 4:06 pm
boohoo porn boohoo, call a cop
8 Anonymous // May 12, 2008 at 7:16 pm
The guidelines say users are expected to take other users into consideration when viewing potentially objectionable material; therefore, the guys have the right to watch, but the woman who wrote the e-mail also has a right to a non-sexualized environment. BPL should provide some sort of screen to comply with its own policy. And this was, I think, the adult section, so let’s not worry about the kids. Focus on yourself and what offended you and what your rights are vs the guys viewing porn.
9 S // May 13, 2008 at 7:31 am
“First of all, Pacific branch is technically in Park Slope, not Boerum Hill.”
Really? That’s Park Slope? It’s right next to the Atlantic Terminal. I can’t believe that’s technically “Park Slope.”
10 S // May 13, 2008 at 7:41 am
OK, I just checked. It is NOT technically in Park Slope, or even sort of in Park Slope.
The Slope ends at Park Place on the north end, five blocks away.
It is indeed most definitely, most technically, in Boerum Hill, which starts at Warren Street and is bounded by 4th Ave.
11 a // May 13, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I love that the thing everyone here really cares about is the boundaries of Park Slope.
I’m serious, that warms my heart.
People who freak out about adults viewing adult websites in the library, they do not warm my heart. What is wrong with porn, again? Besides for that it is porn and we all know it is evil?
12 S // May 13, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I don’t really care. I was just surprised at the poster’s assertion and curious. And then surprised again that after he seemed so miffed that he was completely wrong.
13 No Shush Zone // May 14, 2008 at 10:19 am
Hey Brooklynites, we heard your concerns and have posted a response. Check us out at http://blog.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/
14 CADA // May 16, 2008 at 12:50 pm
S:
“Boundaries: Flatbush Avenue to the north, Prospect Park on the east, 4th Avenue on the west, and 17th Street to the south.”
The Village Voice,
“Close-Up on Park Slope”
by Grace Cheung
February 1st, 2005
Also,
“Boundaries: Park Slope: from 4th Avenue on the west to Prospect Park West on the east, from Flatbush Avenue on the north to 9th St. on the south” (170). (This book treats the South Slope as a separate neighborhood, with the boundary at 17th St. in the south).
from:
“The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn”, Kenneth Jackson, ed. (1998).
Where do you get your information?
15 SafeLibraries.org // May 17, 2008 at 10:49 pm
That’s funny! The library involved actually responded here saying, “Hey Brooklynites, we heard your concerns and have posted a response. Check us out at http://blog.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/”
When you look at the response (it’s on the same date, May 14), all it says is, “We wanted to respond to recent threads [with a link to this blog] about our internet Policy. Please feel free to view it here [with a link to the policy].”
So what’s funny is the library that says, “we heard your concerns and have posted a response” actually says absolutely nothing and merely links to the existing Internet policy. More double talk. The library must have a low regard for the people of Brooklyn to think they would not know when they are getting the silent treatment.
The silent treatment. That’s what the library is doing by claiming to respond, saying nothing, then only pointing to existing library policy. Is not such a silent treatment an admission of guilt? It would be nice to know what is the library hiding, if anything. Why are they afraid to speak up?
I encourage librarians in that library to step forward and tell what they know. Naturally whistle blowing may result in being fired (like the library assistant fired in Lindsay, CA, for calling the police against orders on a man viewing child p()rn), but if silence means another rape, how will you feel then?
Listen, Brooklynites. The media has been copying the library in saying p()rn is constitutionally allowed in public libraries. True, “adult” p()rn is constitutionally allowed, but it is NOT true that it must be allowed in public libraries. According to the US Supreme Court in US v. ALA, public libraries are NOT open public fora.
I see the Library has a low opinion of Brooklynites, but I don’t. Read this paragraph from US v. ALA:
Public libraries pursue the worthy missions of facilitating learning and cultural enrichment. Appellee ALA’s Library Bill of Rights states that libraries should provide “[b]ooks and other … resources … for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves.” 201 F. Supp. 2d, at 420 (internal quotation marks omitted). To fulfill their traditional missions, public libraries must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons. Although they seek to provide a wide array of information, their goal has never been to provide “universal coverage.” Id., at 421. Instead, public libraries seek to provide materials “that would be of the greatest direct benefit or interest to the community.” Ibid. To this end, libraries collect only those materials deemed to have “requisite and appropriate quality.” Ibid. See W. Katz, Collection Development: The Selection of Materials for Libraries 6 (1980) (“The librarian’s responsibility … is to separate out the gold from the garbage, not to preserve everything”); F. Drury, Book Selection xi (1930) (“[I]t is the aim of the selector to give the public, not everything it wants, but the best that it will read or use to advantage”); App. 636 (Rebuttal Expert Report of Donald G. Davis, Jr.) (“A hypothetical collection of everything that has been produced is not only of dubious value, but actually detrimental to users trying to find what they want to find and really need”).
Does that sound like libraries must allow access to p()rn on the Internet computers? Here’s more:
“The public forum principles on which the District Court relied, 201 F. Supp. 2d, at 457-470, are out of place in the context of this case. Internet access in public libraries is neither a “traditional” nor a “designated” public forum.”
“A public library does not acquire Internet terminals in order to create a public forum for Web publishers to express themselves, any more than it collects books in order to provide a public forum for the authors of books to speak. It provides Internet access, not to “encourage a diversity of views from private speakers,” Rosenberger, supra, at 834, but for the same reasons it offers other library resources: to facilitate research, learning, and recreational pursuits by furnishing materials of requisite and appropriate quality.”
Does that sound like p()rn must be allowed in public libraries to you? If the library says so, are you supposed to ignore the law and the US Supreme Court and blindly follow the library? If the media repeats the ALA propaganda as if it were true, are you supposed to think you read it in the newspaper so it must be true?
That library is a public library. It belongs to you, not those who oppose you and the US Supreme Court to enforce an agenda that effectively s3xualizes children. How else does one explain the library’s policy, the library’s silent treatment, the library’s misleading its patrons numerous times?
Is there no one in Brooklyn who will lead the effort to get the library to comply with the law?
16 Dylan // May 21, 2008 at 9:56 am
Women (aka Park Slope moms) flaunt their exposed breasts at Two Boots most days. Is there a SafeRestaurants.org to defend my right to a burger without boobs?
17 Dssgusted // Dec 17, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Snapped these at the Brooklyn Public Library today in the popular sections, where children frequently roam. My student brought it to my attention. Library workers said unless its child porn, or something else illegal, they can’t do anything about it.
http://tinypic.com/r/dq3tlg/6