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Published on 09/08/1999 All articles from this issue

No one complaining over library Internet filters

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By Wendy Marinaccio

Special to the Town Crier

The Los Altos Library's Internet filters have not caused any significant problems since being installed last year, the culmination of a long controversy over minors' access to pornography when using library computers.

All nine branches of the Santa Clara County Library system now restrict access to sexual content on the Internet using CyberNOT filtering software. The filter, combined with Sonic technology, blocks pornography on all computers in children's library areas. However, terminals not set aside for children offer Net surfers a choice between filtered and nonfiltered Internet use - and all library visitors are allowed to use these terminals, regardless of age.

"Right here, right now we have a workable situation, and I'm happy," said Cheryl Houts, children's program librarian at the Los Altos main library.

A year after the installation of CyberNOT, Deputy County Librarian Julie Farnsworth said, "The only response was resentment of the few steps you have to take to click through the filter screen." On adult-area computers, patrons must click to choose whether they want a filtered or nonfiltered terminal before they can use the Internet, she said.

Although county library system officials did not want to install filters, the issue was brought to a head in 1997 by the Keep Internet Decent and Safe (KIDS) group in Gilroy and other concerned parents around the county. At that time, the county system set up a committee, chaired by Elayne Dauber, Los Altos Hills' current mayor, to study the situation and recommend a solution.

Dauber said open access to the Internet was a non-issue at most county libraries, but said the committee eventually "found what we felt was a middle ground" after receiving complaints from patrons in Gilroy and Morgan Hill.

After a heated yearlong debate during which parents asked policemen to arrest librarians and the library system commissioned at 230-page report on filtering, the committee compromised on the system in place today.

Proponents of filters were adamant that access to pornography be restricted in the children's areas of the libraries, and the committee eventually used the criteria of blocking sexually-explicit sites as its most important for choosing a filter.

Although filtering had been a controversial issue, Farnsworth said there was no public reaction when the filters were introduced July 27, 1998. In fact, the library had offered the unfiltered Internet for two-and-a-half years previous with no complaint, she said.

"I think that's largely because people aren't aware of the issues with the filter," Houts said.

Catharine Fouts, Community Library Supervisor at the Los Altos Library, said the library will keep abreast of changes as technology improves. But for now, she said "the filtering system we have and the policies we have in place seem to be working quite well."

Library officials were determined to find filtering software that would not block out harmless or informational Web sites, while still keeping sex sites off the children's terminals, Dauber said. For example, many filters block sites that include certain keywords, so a site about breast cancer support groups could be unnecessarily filtered with some programs. The library has already requested CyberNOT unblock an educational site about tubeworms.

Houts said, "My biggest problem with (filters) is we will never know what we've missed...We'll never know what the filter is leaving out."

Retired Los Altos community librarian Carol Tefft led the extensive study of filtering software.

CyberNOT missed less than 4 percent of sexually-explicit sites and over-blocked less than 13 percent of informational sites. CyberNOT was also the only software to allow the choice between a filtered or nonfiltered Internet on the adult terminals. In addition, according to the study, it cost significantly less than other top contenders.

Dauber said it was hard to choose a filter because "some company whose philosophy you don't really know is deciding what you do and don't get to see on the Internet. We picked one that most closely matched what we wanted filtered," Dauber said.

CyberNOT filtering software has a speedy system of adding or removing Web sites from the list of those to be blocked. Deputy County Librarian Julie Farnsworth said library patrons can ask the company directly to unblock a site.

The Santa Clara Library System didn't have other libraries it could look to for guidance about filtering, Fouts said. "We were really one of the first to come to grips with the issue," she said. "We were in the forefront of that compromise."

"Our feeling is you're the parents, you tell your children how to behave," Dauber said. "The library is not going to enforce (parents') rules. Los Altos parents understand this and handle the situation.

"The one thing we wanted to be really careful of is librarians should not become parents' baby-sitters," she said.

Dauber likens parents' allowing Internet use to permitting children to cross the street. "It's really dangerous - and you really have to know how to do it. It's a matter of maturity and trust. The parents have to teach it and the parents have to be in charge," she said.