Do you not have costs in relation to volume of internet content accessed?

This sounds to me to be an enforcement failure, not a Constitutional issue.

I also invite you to talk to a recently hired 20-year old library employee that was verbally and physically assualted [sic] by a young man after viewing questionable content on library computers.

post hoc ergo propter hoc argument

This same library had to call police to report an assault on a female patron by a male patron just this month. Guess what, he wasn’t checking out books or reading, he was on the computers.

post hoc ergo propter hoc argument

I also invite you to talk to a recently hired 20-year old library employee that was verbally and physically assualted by a young man after viewing questionable content on library computers.

This same library had to call police to report an assault on a female patron by a male patron just this month. Guess what, he wasn’t checking out books or reading, he was on the computers.

People over 18 have the right to legally view anything they want on the internet, I just don’t think the library is the place to necessarily provide that service.

Also, incidents of assault in the library setting are real. The availability of porn and a large population of homeless (predominantly male) population does sometimes make for an uncomfortable and complicated work environment. Anyone that believes otherwise is naive. This also detracts from the goal of the library and is not why I am working to obtaim my MLS. I want to get back to the work of providing information access without providing peep show services.

As Louise points out, this is a gray, gray, gray issue. Which is a big part of the reason I strongly suggest that we empower libraries to make these calls at the local level, and that we support their decisions with whatever power we can muster, rather than trying to strike them down in the name of a larger ideal.

Namely, that conditions vary from community to community and from library to library.

I am not, in any way, against people exercising their constitutional rights. People have the right to yell, too, and speak loudly, but I still don’t want them to do that in a library, either. It’s not a matter of saying that they should not have the right, but that some consideration should be given to the environment in which they are seeking to express that right.

It’s easy to hate censorship, but are you really not willing to admit that there are some situations where it’s a valid, and even the right, decision to make?

The librarian at the link you shared was in an unsafe worksplace because of physical behavioral issues, not because of online content. Patrons who are inappropriately exposing or touching themselves or others are causing the danger. Not everybody who looks at sexual content online will behave that way; conversely, people who want to behave that way will almost certainly do so even without online sexuality. Censorship is not now and has never been the best way to stop a behavior.

C’mon. I’m a girl, and even I was titillated by words and images about sex as a pre-teen.

And what makes you call that the animated figure on the screen a “whore”?

Then you respond “all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing.” Evil? Yes, if you see someone being harmed, forced, coerced, someone who wishes to be rescued, then sure, it is right to try to help. But in this case, no one was asking for help, not the virtual exhibitionist on the screen and not the boys.

Where is the evil? Who are you to decide what is evil?

It’s a great idea to have a “village” available for every child (and adult!) to offer advice and assistance, to teach trades, to keep each other company … but not to butt in and judge and condemn their activities. I sure wouldn’t want to live in that kind of village, and I wouldn’t want my kids living in one like that either.

No, it wouldn’t.

I would also speak up if I saw a child or young person shoplifting illegal
, or bullying someone, illegal or getting drunk. illegal

Viewing animated material that offends you doesn’t fall into the same category.