Library Filters: What’s The Big Deal?

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
published in the Central Oregonian, August 2003

A recent 6-3 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court’s to uphold the right of the federal government to require filtering of library computers as a condition of receiving federal funds provoked screams of outrage from some segments of society. The American Library Association denounced the decision, warning that libraries will now have to make a choice between freedom and funding. The ACLU said the decision was akin to allowing the government to burn every 10th book at Barnes and Noble.

I say that sounds a lot like overreaction.

The Supreme Court’s decision will have no impact in Crook County, which made the decision a year ago to filter all of the computers in the library. To the best of our knowledge, that decision has had no resulting negative consequences for the reading public, mainly because even though library directors hate to admit it, censorship was a fact of life in libraries years before anyone ever heard of the internet.

In truth, librarians censor materials every day.

Last year, the library ordered 2,846 new items to stock library shelves. By contrast, just over 150,000 new books were published in 2002, according to the publisher’s bible, Books In Print. That means that for every two books Crook County library purchased in 2002, it chose not to purchase 98. Such selectivity—based on library staff’s knowledge of reader interest, the need to balance out weak areas of the collection, the ability of staff to process new material and yes, community values—is a form of benign censorship in and of itself.

Besides, when did public libraries acquire the responsibility to provide patrons with any type of literature or information they might desire, regardless of content? No library in the country allows children access to pornographic magazines. Nor do most libraries keep materials on hand which describe how to commit certain violent acts of political protest. Every library keeps a part of its collection—rare books and books likely to be stolen—behind locked doors and requires patrons to ask for the book by name and even (gasp!) show I.D. before they can obtain a copy.

The situation with filters on the internet is no different. Only certain content is available to the general public. By special request, unfiltered access to content can be made available if the purpose of such a request is legitimate research. To me that seems logical and a reasonable way to balance patrons’ need to know against community values and “fringe” interests.
To quote from the Supreme Court opinion authored by Chief Justice Rehnquist: “Public libraries pursue the worthy missions of facilitating learning and cultural enrichment…The librarian's responsibility ... is to separate out the gold from the garbage, not to preserve everything; it is the aim of the selector to give the public, not everything it wants, but the best that it will read or use to advantage.”
Well said. I couldn’t agree more.