The Board unanimously passed a funding measure on Jan. 10 that will dole out $344,000 to libraries for the purchase of strict filtering technology, privacy screens around monitors and a complete redesign of where computers are stationed.
An additional $190,162 will go to the Department of Consumers Affairs for the purchase of new computer equipment.
The decision to allocate funding for filters follows an October measure that required libraries to begin using limited filters for sexually explicit content at all Los Angeles County library computers.
Spearheading the initiative since last year is Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who has made clear his zero tolerance for pornographic content on library computers.
In August, the Board asked County Librarian Margaret Donnellan Todd to study Internet pornography in the county’s libraries, after which Todd returned with a five-step process she said would prevent children from accessing adult sites in the libraries, including “child only” computer stations and privacy screens surrounding every monitor.
Todd’s recommendations, however, met with Antonovich’s disapproval when she said libraries under her jurisdiction would not entirely restrict access to adult sites on library computers.
“The library makes no attempt to determine which sites meet the legal test of obscenity,” Todd said in her report.
In her report, Todd noted that federal law places the responsibility on parents to decide whether children receive filtered access to the Internet while at the library. Adults, she said, are free to choose which sites they visit.
“Library policy requires [only] that law enforcement be called if an adult is viewing what appears to be child pornography,” she said.
The debate over pornographic content on library computers in the city began in July after a Canyon Country woman complained that her 4-year-old daughter witnessed a man access several adult websites in plain view of other library patrons. The computer in question did not have the privacy screens Todd recommended in her proposal.
“We appreciate the work she’s done,” Tony Bell, Antonovich’s spokesperson, said of Todd’s proposal. “[But] it does not behoove the taxpayer or library staff to go to such an extent to preserve the computers for porn users in a public place.”
