MA Ponders State Library Filtering Law

Responding to a parent's complaint, a state senator promises to create a local version of CIPA

By Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2004

Massachusetts may join several other states in considering passage of its own version of the federal Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). State Senator Robert Creedon (D-Brockton) says he plans to propose a library filtering law to the state legislature this year due to a complaint by parent Rosemarie Baker about a boy who was caught viewing pornography on a library computer.

Baker, whose 12-year-old daughter saw a boy last October at the John Curtis Free Library in Hanover looking at Internet pornography, lodged her grievance with library Director Lorraine Welsh. Baker was told that it was the responsibility of parents—not the library staff—to decide what was appropriate for their children. Dissatisfied with the response, Baker insisted that Creedon take some action to prevent children from viewing Internet smut in the library.

While the proposed legislation is still under discussion, it will likely resemble others being considered in Florida, Illinois, Delaware, Ohio, and nearly a dozen other states nationwide—it would deny state funding to libraries that refuse to install Internet filters, says Thomas Brophy, Creedon's spokesman (see "Ohio to Adopt a Less Stringent CIPA ," April 2004, p. 24).

Such a bill, however, would pose a major problem for Massachusetts libraries, which rely heavily on state aid. Most of the state's 347 libraries have decided not to install Internet filters. And those libraries with computer filters have opted to install them only in children's areas, which means they will forfeit federal e-rate and Library Services and Technology Act grants when CIPA goes into effect July 1, says Barbara Flaherty, president of the Massachusetts Library Association and director of the Billerica Public Library. The association endorses the American Library Association's anti-filtering position.

The John Curtis Free Library has been unfiltered for seven years. Since Baker's complaint, the library has received only two letters demanding the installation of Internet filters and four letters against such action.