Virginia PL Rejects Filter, Florida PL Adopts One

Staff -- Library Journal, 2/9/1998

The board of Prince William County Library, Prince William, VA, has voted against filtering the Internet, but the library will offer something extra when it debuts Internet access this spring. The board has chosen the Library Channel, a gateway to some 20,000 preselected sites, with access in the children's room limited to the children's section of the Library Channel. However, minors will be allowed to access the Internet at terminals outside the children's room, and those terminals will allow users to search the entire Internet beyond the preselected sites. Some critics of an earlier version of the Library Channel, as detailed in the Internet Filter Assessment Project, have suggested that the product's universe of sites is too small to use as a self-contained subset of the Internet.

Meanwhile, the Seminole County Public Library System, Sanford, FL, will follow its neighbor, Orange County Library System, Orlando, by buying the WebSense filter to block sites classified as hard core pornography. The library initiated Internet access in December at some 45 workstations, but received several complaints from patrons who had glimpsed sex sites accessed by other users. "We did use privacy screens, but it didn't really control the situation," said Suzy Goldman, acting director, Library and Leisure Services. The decision to add the filter, which should be installed in March, was made in the form of a directive from the county manager, Goldman said.