CoLAPL Increases Net Filtering

The County of Los Angeles Public Library (CoLAPL), directed by the Board of Supervisors to better block access to pornography, will spend $344,000 allotted by the county: $237,000 for 445 new computer monitors, about $75,000 to improve filtering, and $32,000 to reconfigure computer banks in 14 of 84 libraries so children going to computers designated for them need not walk on the screen side of the adult computer bank.

The monitors will have integrated privacy screens, and the adult computers will add “a very low-level filter that would screen out explicit graphic sexual sites only,” library spokeswoman Nancy Mahr told LJ. Meanwhile, staff will be trained to respond in a timely fashion to requests for the filter to be turned off if users find legitimate sites blocked. “We feel that the solution does respect the rights of adults while doing the best we can to protect children,” said Mahr.

For two years, the library has had some level of filtering, in a plan approved by the Board of Supervisors. Adults could choose filtered or unfiltered access, while parents could designate access for their children—and nearly all chose filtering. Privacy screens were hooked on the outside of monitors, but many users removed them, saying the screens impeded their vision.

The new plan arose after a complaint last summer from a woman who sat at an adult computer bank with her four-year-old child. The user at the next computer, which lacked a privacy screen, “was viewing a site that the mother found objectionable,” Mahr said. The woman contacted local officials and the press.