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Published on 03/16/1998 All articles from this issue

Internet access at the libraries - no easy answers

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By David L. Grey

Media Watch

Sometimes a comic strip highlights an issue and helps drive it home. Thus, from a recent Sunday "Between Friends" by Sandra Bell-Lundy comes this sequence:

Mother, interrupted at work by her computer: "You have mail."

Mother, continued, to her co-worker: "Heh! Heh! Hey, Maeve, look at this. My son sent me his first e-mail message."

"Hmm ... 3:45 ... He must be on my computer at home."

Mother, continuing, rather smugly: "Do you know what this means? It means he's only 10- years-old and already he's become a part of the digital age."

And in pleased wonderment: "It means he's crossed a new milestone. It means he's entering a new phase. It means ..."

Sudden pause. Mother in speechless shock.

And then - her eyes afire and wide open - frantically telephoning home: "HE'S SURFIN' THE NET WITHOUT SUPERVISION!!"

Herein lies one plot of the now protracted story engulfing many Santa Clara County public libraries, including those of Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Cupertino: to limit or not - and how or how not - minors' access, especially to pornography on the Internet.

The word dilemma fits mighty well. Current library district policy is to have open access to materials, including computers, to all patrons. That is in the spirit of taxpayer-supported institutions and basic First Amendment concerns of access to information.

Such groups as Gilroy-based Keep the Internet Decent and Safe (KIDS) want policies now prohibiting minors from open access to computers and/or filtering software that make "objectionable" Web sites inaccessible. This also is in the name of parent-taxpayer rights and the recognized very limited First Amendment protections for pornography.

Librarians and others counter "censorship" and stress that standards of access for many adults and some teens could become those of a child - a level typically ruled unconstitutional. And reasonable research topics could be blocked by such key search words as "sex," "gay," and "pornography"

Yet minors in many situations are treated differently. And so the local arguments and rebuttals for months have gone back, forth.

Compromise might be another good word to use if it is so far unclear how prime time library players could be happy with altered ideologies. This may be the ultimate outcome, however, if one assumes at least nationally that when the White House, Congress, courts plus all others add their societal and political voices no so-called extremes will prevail. The issues are not black-white.

There are too many technical, worldly questions pending. What exactly is the Internet? The status/best models for libraries of the future? These go far beyond local-mostly answers.

In the meantime, the Santa Clara County Library District Joint Powers Authority resumes public discourse at its next meeting April 23 at Cupertino's Quinlan Community Center,10185 N. Stelling Road.

Based especially on the last session,Feb. 26, it seems fair to call these efforts enlightening and revealing local theater in a far bigger drama nowhere near final staging nor deserving hasty or short-term or provincial fixes.