Librarianship on the Bleeding Edge:
Meeting the Pressure to Filter
Mark Smith

The Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association maintains that "libraries and librarians should not deny or limit access to information available via electronic resources because of its allegedly controversial content or because of the librarian’s personal beliefs or fear of confrontation." (From: "Access to Electronic Information, Services and Networks: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.")

But for many front-line librarians, ALA headquarters in Chicago seems far removed from the hard choices they must make in their libraries. Faced with mounting pressure from mayors, city managers, staff, and an increasingly hostile public, many library directors are finding it difficult, if not downright impossible, to uphold ALA-OIF standards of unrestricted access.

Some of these directors have understood that the price of offering unlimited Internet access is a loss of all Internet service, library funding, or even their jobs. To some directors, the price has been too high and they have agreed to filtering what some or all of their users are allowed to see in the library.

Libraries across the country are confronting this issue with increasing regularity. In Boston, Chicago, Spokane, Charlotte, and other cities, librarians have confronted pressure to filter the public’s access to the Internet. One typical article in the Staten Island Advance (2/9/97) announced that "Staten Island youngsters are viewing raunchy hard-core pornography on computers at public libraries across the borough and library officials say there’s little they can--or will--do about it."

One of the most widely publicized of these incidents occurred in Texas at the Austin Public Library earlier this year. Director Brenda Branch was forced to retreat from her initial commitment to offer unrestricted access with an announcement that the library would filter, followed in turn by another announcement that some filters would be lifted. Ms. Branch feels that the compromise that she ultimately developed--with community leaders, local government, the library board, and library staff--represents something as close to consensus as is possible in this climate.

The chronology that led to the troubles at APL is classic and began in October 1995 when the library entered into a partnership with Austin Free Net to apply for an Internet Assistance Grant from the Texas State Library. In a conscientious attempt to lay a groundwork for the new service, library administrators talked to numerous libraries across the country and decided to build an Internet policy around unrestricted access. From the beginning Ms. Branch and her staff resisted strong encouragement from numerous quarters to filter.

In summer 1996 the Internet went up at APL with four machines at the central library, two at each branch and the Austin History Center, and seven at the Riverside Branch Internet Training Center. No machine was filtered, but all machines had privacy screens that permitted only the person using the machine to see the monitor.

This approach proved difficult, however, because many patrons could not see the screen and staff found themselves reattaching the screens after every use. In efforts to protect children, the library posted warnings about the availability of explicit graphics on the Internet and distributed printed materials to parents, including one item titled, "Child Safety on the Information Superhighway" (distributed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).

All was fine until two incidents occurred in February 1997 that caused the library to rethink its policy. In the first incident, a librarian at the Spicewood Springs branch library encountered a patron printing images of child pornography on the library printer that the patron had found through the Internet. Staff confiscated the pictures over the vehement objections of the patron. When Ms. Branch saw the images, she was shocked and dismayed at the crudity of the material that is, she says, in "clear violation of any standard of community decency."

The second incident occurred at another branch, Twin Oaks, where the circulation supervisor witnessed an adult customer instructing a group of children on how to access pornographic sites on the Internet. The staff member was so incensed that he wrote letters to the mayor, city manager, city council, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Austin Chronicle.

In both cases, staff felt they had been sexually harassed, but were most concerned that the actions of these customers made the staff liable for prosecution under a Texas law that makes display of pornography to minors a criminal act. Section 43.24 of the Texas Penal Code reads, "a person commits an offense if, knowing that the material is harmful . . . and knowing the person is a minor . . . displays harmful material and is reckless about whether a minor is present who will be offended or alarmed by the display."

The statute defines "harmful material" as that which appeals to the "prurient interest" of a minor, in sex, nudity, or excretion . . . is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community and is utterly without redeeming social value for minors." In Ms. Branch’s view, the materials in question met all these definitions.

Knowing she had to get control of the issue, and to buy time to think, Ms. Branch announced that she intended to install Cyber Patrol Internet blocking software on every Internet computer. The reaction from the community was sharp and immediate, with many patrons expressing unhappiness at the library for censoring sites. The Electronic Freedom Frontier of Austin (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) threatened to bring a class action suit to end blocking in the library.

Ms. Branch decided to host a community round table to discuss the matter. Among the groups invited to participate were EFF-Austin, the ACLU, PTA representatives, the Metropolitan Area Interactive Network, Austin Free Net, the city manager’s office, library staff, and the Austin Public Library Commission. The group acknowledged the dilemma faced by the library and reached a unanimous agreement that the filter needed to be refined in such a way that certain sites would be made accessible.

With the exception of the ACLU and EFF, the group agreed that of the 12 categories of blocks imposed by Cyber Patrol, all but four would be lifted (full nudity, partial nudity, gross depictions, and sexual activity). Of the many other sites blocked by key word, library staff, in consultation with Cyber Patrol representatives, identified sites customers could not access but felt were not pornographic, and removed blocks where necessary. This process had to be done individually on each machine, but by April 11 every site that the library decided not to filter had been unblocked on all machines.

Complaints from the public about blocked sites slowed to prefiltering levels. The staff is comfortable with the policy, and threats of a lawsuit from EFF and ACLU have not yet materialized. But the process took a huge toll. "This thing has eaten my lunch," says Ms. Branch. "I have let other equally important matters go to deal with it and Frank Bridge [the library’s systems programming manager], hasn’t been able to do any other work for weeks."

Before the controversy broke, Ms. Branch inquired to the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) regarding their advice to libraries in light of the pending Communications Decency Act (CDA). In a letter dated October 31, 1996, ALA-OIF Director Judith Krug responded that "the speech at issue does NOT include obscenity, pornography, child pornography, or any speech that is currently prohibited by law."

Because Texas specifically prohibits such materials by law, Ms. Branch feels that this response is typical of the ambiguous advice she has received from the OIF. In Ms. Branch’s view, the OIF "must give libraries some guidelines and not just leave us hanging. It’s just too overwhelming."

Ms. Branch is comfortable with the arrangement in the Austin Public Library. At first, she felt she had compromised her professional values. "But I flash back on those pictures [child pornography confiscated by branch staff] and I don’t think there was anything else we could have done. I’ve changed my mind." Still, Ms. Branch suggests that libraries just getting the Internet for the first time should consider trying to leave the machines unblocked at the outset and filter only if they must.

Another library that has faced a significant community push to block access on Internet sites and handled it somewhat differently is the Lovett Memorial Library in Pampa. The Lovett Memorial Library, which serves a population of 22,000 in Gray County in the Panhandle, is a member of the Harrington Library Consortium and applied, with Amarillo and other Panhandle libraries, for an Internet Assistance Grant from the Texas State Library in spring 1996. Almost immediately after learning that the project would be funded, a member of the library board raised objections to the Internet because it allowed access to pornography.

Facing this challenge, Library Director Dan Snider contacted Mary Kay Wells at the Texas Panhandle Library System and Roseann Perez at the Harrington Library Consortium for supporting information on dealing with censorship challenges. Ms. Wells and Ms. Perez provided Mr. Snider with American Library Association and Texas Library Association freedom of information materials. Mr. Snider, with supportive board members like Betty Henderson, began what would become a five-month campaign to oppose attempts to block the Internet. Board members were agreed that they wanted the Internet in the library, but three of nine members insisted that the library filter. These members waged their own campaign, writing letters to the city manager, mayor, and city commission.

The city commission proposed a compromise that one of the library’s two Internet computers be blocked and the other not. In October, the library board voted 6 to 3 not to block. City officials then decided that the board would not have the authority to decide whether or not to filter.

Mr. Snider and supportive board members distributed to the city manager, mayor, and commission ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement (already an adopted policy of the library board) as well as the recent court ruling on the Communications Decency Act (CDA). At a packed meeting of the city commission, dozens of citizens spoke against the need for the Internet in the library because of the fear that minors would be exposed to pornography.

After much debate the city commission voted 4 to 3 to allow the Internet in the Lovett Memorial Library and to filter one site and leave the other unfiltered. Also, anyone under the age of eighteen must have parental permission to use the Internet in the library.

At the time we interviewed Mr. Snider, the Internet machines had not yet been turned on due to technical problems, and he felt that he had not seen the last of the issue and that those attempting to impose filtering on all machines would not give up their fight.

Mr. Snider credits the ALA OIF materials he received from Mary Kay Wells and Roseann Perez with providing the support to fight for Internet access at all and especially to leave one machine unfiltered. Mr. Snider credits board member Betty Henderson with the drive and determination to get these policies adopted by the full board and for helping the library to hold at least some ground by keeping one unfiltered machine.

Still, Mr. Snider believes that the Internet is so radically different a medium that ALA will necessarily have to rethink its positions on filtering. "The Internet is an entirely new thing," says Mr. Snider, "substantively different because first of all you can’t take it home and access it in the privacy of your own home, and second because the graphic nature of the material is much stronger and more immediate than the printed word. Displaying this in the library infringes on someone else’s right not to see that material if they so choose."

Like Brenda Branch, Mr. Snider advises libraries to try to maintain unfiltered access as long as possible, but he goes on to suggest that libraries should lay a groundwork of community understanding of the need for and value of the Internet before they go online. By first developing this base of client support, libraries can have a core of defenders when controversy erupts.

"And be prepared for the backlash," Mr. Snider warns. "Because the general public has seen the publicity about all the pornography on the Internet. You can’t understand how wrenching this can be until you’ve been through it. You have to be prepared for it. Living here in the Bible Belt, you have to be prepared for it."