Library Rights, Responsibilities

Huntington Beach’s director of library services cites computers and the World Wide Web as a “tremendous draw” for youngsters. Getting children into libraries benefits everyone, but parents have to be aware of just what is available on those machines and through that marvel known as the Internet.

Gone are the days when librarians were able to page through books and magazines, decide which ones would go on the shelves, and feel comfortable that their offerings would not outrage their community.

True, some residents whose taxes paid for library acquisitions and operations might feel that some of the materials offered for circulation were a bit on the racy side. But the librarians were able to please most of the readers most of the time.

These days the problems are more abundant. To their credit, Orange County libraries, both city-run and county-operated, are grappling with the challenges.

Librarians and parents understandably are concerned that children can hook up with the Internet and view hard-core pornography. Last year, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act, which sponsors said was designed to shield youngsters from pornography transmitted on the Internet. But last month the U.S. Supreme Court rightly struck the act down as an unconstitutional infringement of the 1st Amendment guarantees of free speech.

That does not mean that anything goes in the world of computers. Some libraries have filters designed to block objectionable material. The problem there is that information may not be objectionable to everyone. A number of librarians have complained as well that the filters block out too much. Barring receipt of everything labeled “sex” also knocks out topics such as sextants and sextuplets.

A number of libraries have installed filters on computers in the children’s section but wisely have omitted them from computers in the rest of the building. Others have required that parents monitor their children’s use of the machines. That may be burdensome to parents, but until new mechanisms are developed to prevent children from gaining access to material they clearly should not be exposed to, that may be the best system for now.