Filter Policy Snags Rochester

County official threatens budget if library continues unblocking

By Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 4/1/2007

The budget of the Monroe County Library System, Rochester, NY, is under threat from County Executive Maggie Brooks, who was on the warpath after a television report on “porn at the library.” If the library doesn’t make its filtering policy—which is guided by the American Library Association stand regarding the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)—more stringent, Brooks said that she’d pull $6.6 million in funding for the Central Library in Rochester and its services to 34 member libraries.

In response, the library agreed to stop disabling the filter during a 60-day policy review, up to April 28. The Central Library previously disabled the filter upon request by adults, no questions asked, though it required privacy screens for unfiltered viewing. Some of the town-governed branches in the system, however, don’t unblock sites on request, or do so only if a site was clearly blocked in error, according to the Democrat and Chronicle.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized Brooks and also said the library had been “knuckling under” to her in response to her threatened funding cut. Brooks said that her legal advisors don’t think the library is required to unblock sites—an issue being tested in court in a lawsuit filed in Washington state (see News, LJ 1/07, p. 18ff.). Library spokeswoman Patricia Uttaro told LJ that the public was split; no one favors porn in libraries, but many people don’t like Brooks’s tactics.