Libraries: Monitoring best way to stop porn

Libraries: Monitoring best way to stop porn
What’s the best way to discourage people from looking at pornography on library computers?
Put the computers where everyone else can see them, say the folks at the Hickory and Catawba County libraries. “All of our screens face out and are visible from all angles,” she said. “Occasionally visitors will tell us about someone viewing something that’s inappropriate. We really try to stay on top of that.”

January 21, 2010 by Uncategorized 3

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3 Responses

  1. effinglibrarian says:
    January 22, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    what else is that camera for?
    if you wear pajamas to Walmart, some idiot will take your pic and upload it. if you park your car in a sinkhole, same thing.
    so where are the people with those cameras when the scumbags look at porn?
    we usually hear about some guy ten minutes after he’s left the library.

    people need to use those phones to snap those pictures and put those on the web. oh, what? it’s a violation of privacy? if George Clooney walked through the front door, half the librarians would snap his picture. but we’re going to protect the porn guy?

    and no, our library would never create a policy to allow people to take pictures of other library users… our pedophile population would love to hear that so they can come in and take pix of our kid users.

    but no one ever complains in a timely manner. and turning all the monitors to face out creates different privacy problems, meaning there is none.

    you need to give people the benefit of the doubt and provide private areas so they can send message or print boarding passes without everyone looking at their screens. but you also need to have policies to punish those who abuse these privileges… but you can’t do nothing. you can’t ignore the problem. you can’t allow unfettered porn viewing in your library or that’s all you will ever be is a porn room.

    so have policies to either call the cops or ban the guy or whatever, and then enforce those policies so the good patrons will report the behavior when they see it.

    and if possible, filter the hell out of your internet… 🙂

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says:
    January 22, 2010 at 5:49 pm

    Stop being so antsy about
    Stop being so antsy about internet filters. The content that is overblocked, i.e. actual medical information that people need, is available from various other sources often located within spitting distance of the computers. Most libraries do not have a porn collection, no circulating copies of Playboy or Hustler, but they do have medical and biology books. Problem solved, filter the net and have the patron use the actual medical texts contained in the library. The patron gets the information they need and everyone is saved from the situation.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous says:
    January 22, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    Public libraries can’t
    Public libraries can’t usually afford to buy medical textbooks, much less to keep that collection updated.

    Anyway, visible screens haven’t stopped people from looking at porn anywhere that I’ve worked. I don’t know why we can’t just walk around actually monitoring what people are doing rather than sitting on our butts at the desk, and if we see someone looking at porn just tell them it’s a public place and they can’t have that on their screen. It’s not so hard to do.

    Reply

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