Porn on Library Computers

* Re “Libraries Work to Address X-Rated Excursions Online,” Jan. 15: I’ll bet a lot of librarians got a good laugh over L.A. Central Library administrator Joan Bartel’s assertion that there may be pornography on library Internet terminals but she’s never seen it. If you want to know something about an organization don’t ask executives. Talk to customers and those who serve them, in this case reference librarians.

The Central Library librarians I talk to get an eyeful daily. But librarians don’t see being forced to view pornography as the main problem with library Internet use. What bothers them the most is the same thing that frustrates me. The Los Angeles city library subscribes to many wonderful online services: full-text magazines and newspapers going back quite a few years, a health database with articles from medical journals, many business and statistical sources. Librarians are always telling me, “Oh, there’s a great source that can answer your question, even compile statistics for you, but there’s an hour wait for a terminal.” The $850,000 a year the library pays for the subscription sources is going straight down the drain because the same terminals are used for the Internet. People like me who go to the library for information can’t get it because the terminals are clogged with Internet users gawking, playing games, chatting and spamming. This problem can be solved very simply by reserving one or two terminals in each subject department for reference use.

JOHN E. WESSEL

Rancho Palos Verdes

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As a computer consultant and advocate of free speech, I believe that there is a simple solution to blocking Internet pornography. The government should require that an HTML meta-tag be placed in a pornographic Web site’s code. This is a simple process and is transparent to the user of the site. The meta-tag would be the same in all adult Web sites and would identify them as such to search engines and cyber-sitters.

Current software programs designed to block pornographic sites search for keywords such as “sex” or “breast.” While this may block access to adult-oriented sites, it also blocks access to sites dealing with breast cancer or sexually transmitted diseases. By using the meta-tag, the blocking software need only look for that one code.

Failure to include the tag in pornographic sites should then be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Those adults who wish to access these sites can do so, and those who wish to block them can install the filtering software. Since the software only looks for one thing and could be written by any number of software developers, I have no doubt that it would be free to download from the Internet within a short time.

PAUL BUDZINSKI

Lake Forest