Council Committee Recommends Monitors for Library Computers
By Dave Levinthal, The Dallas Morning News
Feb. 12–Dallas should install Internet monitoring software on its publicly accessible library computers — but not install more restrictive filters that actively block Web content, such as pornography, the Dallas City Council’s quality of life and government services committee unanimously voted Tuesday afternoon.
The decision comes less than a month after a Dallas Morning News report indicated that patrons of Dallas’ J. Erik Jonsson Central Library regularly access Web sites containing nudity, sex acts and sexual violence.
The recommended monitoring software would send an electronic message to librarians and Internet users alike “when possibly inappropriate content is accessed” on a public library computer, city staff members told council members. The full City Council must now vote on the committee’s recommendation.
Dallas’ director of communication and information services Worris Levine called the Internet monitoring software “the best of both worlds,” noting that the software would allow librarians to not “rely solely on walking around and visual observation.”
Mr. Levine likewise warned council members about potential problems with installing software that attempts to actively block sexually explicit content — software that some large public library systems employ, but others shun.
“The Internet is so vast, and develops so rapidly, that there is no way to block all of the objectionable material,” Mr. Levine said, noting that the monitoring software would augment visual observations of Internet usage that librarians already make.
“This is a good balance. We don’t want to provide such oversight of our patrons that we’re restricting legitimate use … This is a very smart response,” District 14 council member Angela Hunt said.
“The reality is that our libraries are the only way a lot of people can access the Internet. But we’ve got to make sure that our community is using the resource in a responsible way,” Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia said. “This is a good, middle-of-the-road compromise.”
As conceived, the proposed monitoring software would allow library patrons choose whether to continue to their selections after being notified, on-screen, that they’ve accessed potentially objectionable content, such as sexually explicit images.
The software would also automatically send a message to a librarian’s computer when suspected inappropriate content is accessed on the Internet. Librarians could then request an Internet user to stop accessing material they deem in violation of the library’s internal service policy.
City officials said they couldn’t yet estimate how much the recommended monitoring software would cost.
The News’ study in part analyzed central library Internet traffic during a 45-minute period Dec. 19.
During that time, central library computer users accessed more than 5,200 Web pages containing identifiably pornographic material. That figure represents about 7.5 percent of the more than 69,000 Web pages accessed on the central library’s public computers during the period studied.
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