Library Challenged On Use Of Internet Filters

Staff -- School Library Journal, 1/1/1998

Librarians who've been debating the use of Internet filters in public libraries will now hear what a federal court thinks on the subject. In one of the first legal challenges of its kind, the civil liberties group People for the Amercian Way and Hogan & Hartson, a major Washington, DC law firm, filed suit last week against the Loudoun County (VA) Public Library. Saying it wanted to protect customers and staff from sexual harassment, the library board voted 5-4 to install blocking software on all Internet terminals, whether used by children or adults. It also decided to place the terminals in view of librarians so they could monitor customers' Internet use. The suit claims that the library is violating the First Amendment by limiting adults "to even less information than is fit for children" and blocking access to "valuable, educational, and constitutionally protected information." The complaint, filed December 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, was brought on behalf of Mainstream Loudoun, a local civil liberties group, and 11 individual plaintiffs, including a school librarian in the Loudoun County public schools.