Library Plan Targets Adult Internet Sites

Responding to concerns about minors seeing pornography on the Internet, Los Angeles libraries will block access to adult sites from some computer terminals in children’s areas, officials said Wednesday.

Librarian Susan Kent briefed the Los Angeles City Council on the 90-day trial program that will be instituted at six branch libraries.

“We’re trying to be responsive to council concerns about the usage of the Internet,” Kent said.

The test program was endorsed by Councilmen Mike Feuer and Rudy Svorinich Jr. during a Wednesday hearing of the council’s Arts, Health and Humanities Committee.

“I think it’s a good first step,” Feuer said. “I want to see what happens in practice as we try this before I want to vote on a citywide policy.”

The city is operating in a emerging area of free speech, said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. The courts have not clearly defined what is permissible, but Volokh said it appears that any program that blocks all access to certain Web sites would be found unconstitutional.

However, he said he believes that the courts might uphold restrictions on access by children while maintaining unlimited access by adults.

Minors now can use any public computer in the city library system, but are greeted with a message discussing the availability of child-oriented Internet search engines, including Yahooligans and Jeeves for Kids.

Those search engines direct users to child-friendly Web sites and do block out some adult sites, Kent said. However, children may use other search engines that do provide access to adult-oriented Web sites.

The city attorney’s office has warned the City Council that there are court rulings against blocking all adult-oriented Web sites on all library computers, because it limits the public’s access to the free flow of information.

Kent also said she does not want to restrict access of library patrons to the Internet. “Full access to the Internet for everyone is the policy in 80% of the libraries” nationally, she said.

The proposed pilot program would dedicate some computers that would default to children’s search engines. Librarians would help guide children to those search engines, but would not prevent children from choosing other search engines.