January 9, 2013
8:58 pm
by: Thomas Lynch

What the Woman Saw

 

The sec­ond floor at Berke­ley Cen­tral Library has a large open area where numer­ous com­put­ers are placed. Chil­dren are allowed in this area. It was in this area that a woman, attempt­ing to use the com­put­ers, could not com­fort­ably work because of all the pornog­ra­phy on the com­puter mon­i­tors around her and the many respon­sive actions to what the view­ers were see­ing. She used to announce loudly, “He’s m.stu.b…ing.” She did this to draw atten­tion of the library per­son­nel to the sit­u­a­tion. She had to do this on repeated occa­sions. When I heard about this from the woman, I e-mailed the mayor and my city coun­cil mem­ber about this and another sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion that had been reported to me. My city coun­cil mem­ber responded that “the library seems to believe that it is not a prob­lem”… “Seems to believe,” I believe, is the prob­lem­atic phrase here.

Pos­si­bil­i­ties of why the library “seems to believe it is not a prob­lem”:

  1. because that is what they would like the City Coun­cil, the pub­lic and them­selves to believe;
  2. because the out­raged woman, tired of com­plain­ing, had quit going there (she now uses a senior cen­ter for com­puter access);
  3. because they pos­si­bly do not fully imple­ment their stated pol­icy that such a per­son will be instructed to leave the library imme­di­ately, police will be called and legal action to fol­low. “In addi­tion, based on the sever­ity of the sit­u­a­tion, a sus­pen­sion of library priv­i­leges for up to one year will be applied with­out advanced warn­ing or prior sus­pen­sion.” One could ask, if that is their pol­icy, why was the woman repeat­edly alert­ing them and call­ing out for help;
  4. because they pre­sumed they have trained offend­ers to not engage in such actions;
  5. because the activ­ity does not hap­pen as often as it used to and they there­fore “seem to believe it is not a problem;”
  6. because many bystanders just leave rather than complain;
  7. because pos­si­bly they have rede­fined what qual­i­fies as self-pleasuring –whether the dif­fer­ence is furtive or full dis­play. A friend of mine recently called the Berke­ley 911 about a naked man on the street where chil­dren were walk­ing and the police stated they would only come out if he had an erec­tion. Pos­si­bly stan­dards are chang­ing more dras­ti­cally than I thought.
  8. because by the time the library per­son­nel arrive, the offender has ceased their activity.

 

Posted in Children, Obscenity, Pornography, Privacy Screens Tagged , ,

January 15, 2013
6:07 pm
by: Thomas Lynch

It’s Not Your Grandmother’s Library Anymore

 

When young peo­ple and com­mon decency play sec­ond fid­dle to free­dom of expres­sion, some­thing is seri­ously out of tune. The library has become a part of our social net­work and has gone way beyond its orig­i­nal func­tion of allow­ing the pub­lic to access and check out books.

In order to cre­ate a smooth tran­si­tion from for­mer times, the Berke­ley Pub­lic Library should reeval­u­ate its ser­vices.  One of the most press­ing issues is that dif­fer­ent age groups need dif­fer­ent atten­tion. If you keep the chil­dren and the young adults out of the adult com­puter areas, it is safer for every­one and there would be no need for pri­vacy screens.

The library has to real­ize that not every­one who comes there is an adult. Since IT already  blocks adults from using the com­put­ers set aside for younger peo­ple, it is time to make all cards age spe­cific to the appro­pri­ate com­put­ers.  Also, because self check-out is in place, DVDs need to be going out to appro­pri­ate ages by using the movie rat­ing sys­tem as a guideline.

If the library refuses to accom­mo­date the dif­fer­ent age groups, then they should pub­li­cally state their pol­icy - “Peo­ple of all ages must have free access to pornog­ra­phy.” This would inform the pub­lic about their com­mit­ment to “chal­lenge cen­sor­ship in the ful­fill­ment of their respon­si­bil­ity to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and enlightenment.”

It is time for peo­ple to make their opin­ions known. Please feel free to con­sider this blog site a forum for pre­sent­ing your con­cerns.  To add com­ments to this blog you must pro­vide your real name and e-mail address.

 

Posted in Children, Privacy Screens Tagged , ,

January 15, 2013
4:42 pm
by: Thomas Lynch

Are Children Safe at the Berkeley Public Library

 

We should all be pro­tec­tors of chil­dren and they should not be exposed to pornog­ra­phy. The library is aid­ing and abet­ting children’s expo­sure to pornog­ra­phy by their pol­icy that pornog­ra­phy is avail­able to all, regard­less of age.

Art work of a 2 year old patron of the library.

Art work of a 2 year old patron of the library.

A children’s librar­ian that I knew tried to keep the children’s area kid friendly by putting up a notice stat­ing that you had to be 13 or older to use My Space (which is My Space’s require­ment.) She was told by the library bureau­crats that the notice had to be taken down and chil­dren were allowed to do as they please.

Any­one who uses library com­put­ers fre­quently hears peo­ple peri­od­i­cally curs­ing their way through their com­puter time in areas that are open to chil­dren. The library also had and, may still have, an unwrit­ten pol­icy not to call the Tru­ant Offi­cer about dif­fi­cult young­sters who were “act­ing out” at the library dur­ing school hours.

Although I enjoyed work­ing for the library, I quit when I was told that I couldn’t do any­thing about young­sters view­ing porno­graphic images on the children’s com­puter. How­ever, the Cal­i­for­nia Board of Appeals stated that I qual­i­fied for Unem­ploy­ment Insur­ance because they agreed with my rea­son for quit­ting. Their judg­ment stated, “The claimant had a heart­felt belief that he could not be party to a pol­icy which did not pro­tect minor chil­dren within its doors. Accord­ingly, we believe that there was a real sub­stan­tial and com­pelling rea­son for the claimant to quit his job and con­clude the claimant had good cause.”

The Berke­ley Pub­lic Library finally ini­ti­ated action requir­ing that only chil­dren could be on the children’s com­put­ers some­time after I left. It used to be that any­one could use the children’s com­put­ers and the staff was sup­posed to tell adults that they were not to use them. Ini­tially, they had two tiers of com­put­ers - “Every­one” and “Children’s.”  I don’t know how long after I quit that they real­ized they had to cre­ate “Young Adult” com­put­ers (ages 13–17), which they later added pri­vacy screens to. See our “Duplic­ity at the Berke­ley Pub­lic Library” blog for more in depth cov­er­age about this issue.

 

 

Posted in Children, Duplicity, Pornography, Privacy Screens Tagged , ,

January 14, 2013
5:27 pm
by: Thomas Lynch

Do You Trust the Berkeley Public Library

 

Ad from the Berkeley Daily Planet, 2008.

Ad from the Berke­ley Daily Planet, 2008.

 

Do you trust the Berke­ley Pub­lic Library to pro­tect your children?

  •  A pedophile was arrested on the sec­ond floor of the Berke­ley Cen­tral Library while he was mak­ing com­puter con­tact with a child. He was sit­ting in the reg­u­lar com­puter area where chil­dren are allowed. Since the library sur­vives as a pub­licly funded insti­tu­tion, sup­ported by the taxes of the peo­ple of Berke­ley, should they not put some effort into pro­tect­ing the chil­dren of Berkeley.
  • Why not make sure that chil­dren and young adults use only the com­put­ers in their “com­puter areas”  since they are now  issued “age spe­cific” library cards for those areas. All other com­put­ers in the rest of the library should not be acces­si­ble to them.

 

Do you trust the Berke­ley Pub­lic Library to spend wisely?

  •  Is it wrong for the library to pay for and pro­vide pri­vacy screens on com­puter mon­i­tors?

    Pri­vacy screens are dark­ened screens that cover the com­puter mon­i­tor for the pur­pose of block­ing expo­sure of the visual con­tent to any­one from a dis­tance. They are uti­lized to mask the pornog­ra­phy that many peo­ple find offen­sive. The osten­si­ble rea­son for their place­ment is that the library is cen­sor­ing what bystanders might see. How­ever, depend­ing on the angle, a passerby can eas­ily see what is on the screen.

  • Was it nec­es­sary for the library to pur­chase lap­tops for use by the pub­lic when they want to use Wi’-Fi instead of hav­ing them use the desk­top com­put­ers that are already hooked up to the inter­net ? The lap­tops have no pri­vacy screens and are used any­where in the library. If they pre­fer peo­ple who wish to view “adult” mate­r­ial to use only com­put­ers with pri­vacy screens on the mon­i­tors, how do these free float­ing lap­tops pro­tect oth­ers from view­ing such “adult” material?

 

Does the Berke­ley Pub­lic Library to fol­low their pub­lic mandates?

  •  The library’s vol­un­teer pol­icy “encour­ages the active par­tic­i­pa­tion of cit­i­zens of a vari­ety of ages” and yet, accord­ing to a librar­ian, they do not engage adults as vol­un­teers anymore.

 

Posted in Children, Duplicity, Pornography, Privacy Screens Tagged , ,

January 14, 2013
3:35 pm
by: Thomas Lynch

This Will Continue

 

If pornog­ra­phy were a drug, one of its side effects would be self-pleasuring. If you think such things do not go on in libraries, check out (at your own risk) You Tube for per­son­ally cap­tured videos.

Since sex is on the Berke­ley Pub­lic Library’s list as one of  “the 5 big no-nos in the library” — that should tell us some­thing.  At a branch library one day, I left because a man was thus occu­pied and there was no staff avail­able to deal with the prob­lem­atic behavior.

A librar­ian I know had to tell a patron who was engaged in such activ­ity that it was not allowed at the library. His angry response was “I was not! Who said that? Where are they?”  This respon­si­bil­ity — that the librar­ian has to inter­act with such peo­ple in order to main­tain pro­pri­ety -  is actu­ally a job for the police. The per­pe­tra­tor of such activ­ity knows that most likely the police will not be called and that there will be no arrests or  inci­dent reports. It is a case of “the less the pub­lic knows, the better.”

Since all of us have dif­fer­ent stan­dards of behav­ior, this will con­tinue. Pornog­ra­phy sex­u­ally excites, there­fore, this will con­tinue. As long as no arrests hap­pen, this will con­tinue. As long as we keep silent about it, this will continue.

 

 

Posted in Children, Obscenity, Pornography Tagged

January 5, 2013
11:44 pm
by: Thomas Lynch

Duplicity at the Berkeley Public Library

 

The Berke­ley Pub­lic Library is try­ing to serve two mas­ters by obfus­cat­ing: it espouses free speech while putting a cover over it.

Pri­vacy screens are used on their com­puter mon­i­tors.  Pri­vacy screens are dark­ened screens that cover the com­puter mon­i­tor for the pur­pose of block­ing expo­sure of the visual con­tent to any­one from a dis­tance. They started out as screens that patrons could place over their mon­i­tor when they wanted pri­vacy. Orig­i­nally, there was only one or two avail­able. As time went on, more and more pri­vacy screens were added. They are now built in to the new mon­i­tors. Orig­i­nally, young adults (ages 13–17) and chil­dren did not have these screens. That has changed. These screens are now on the young adult com­put­ers. Are the children’s com­put­ers the next to receive pri­vacy screens?

When I worked there, pri­vacy screens were uti­lized to mask the pornog­ra­phy that many peo­ple found offen­sive. The library’s con­cern for free­dom of speech was para­mount and all types of pornog­ra­phy were allowed. Later, they decided that sites that catered to pornog­ra­phy with chil­dren were pro­hib­ited. One might ask, how is this achieved on their unfil­tered internet?

Pri­vacy screens are anti­thet­i­cal to the library pol­icy, which chal­lenges cen­sor­ship. The osten­si­ble rea­son for their place­ment is that the library is cen­sor­ing what bystanders might see. How­ever, depend­ing on the angle, a passerby can eas­ily see what is on the screen. This duplic­ity proves that pri­vacy in a pub­lic place is basi­cally delu­sional. It makes the library seem like a family-friendly place to be at while encour­ag­ing prob­lem­atic view­ing. Pri­vacy screens are an admis­sion that some­thing is being cov­ered up.

All com­put­ers at the library are unfil­tered, despite the com­puter labels of “Chil­dren” and “Young Adult.” There are com­put­ers in a sep­a­rate area for chil­dren and oth­ers in the area for the young adults. Chil­dren and young adults are also issued “age spe­cific” library cards allow­ing them to access the com­put­ers in their “areas.” Adults can­not use the com­put­ers in those areas because their library cards are blocked on those com­put­ers. All com­put­ers in the rest of the library are acces­si­ble to all age groups. Chil­dren and young adults are not pro­hib­ited from using them.

Com­put­ers are not indi­vid­u­als with inalien­able rights to dis­pense all infor­ma­tion to all ages. The library is a pub­lic place and yet the library is set­ting up sup­posed pri­vacy spaces with pri­vacy screens. Peo­ple using a pub­lic space can­not rely on the place to give them their desired extra privacy.

 

Posted in Children, Duplicity, Privacy Screens Tagged , , ,