LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / September 13, 2000

LULING – A recent incident of obscene behavior in a public library has prompted St. Charles Parish Councilman G. “Ram” Ramchandran to take ahand at heading off the problem locally.

“I got calls from citizens in St. Charles Parish, asking us to protect ourchildren,” Ramchandran commented.

In Jefferson Parish recently, a man was allegedly found viewing obscene material on a public access library internet computer, while fondling himself in view of children. The incident is still unresolved, according to a libraryspokesman.

In St. Charles Parish, according to library director Mary desBordes, suchincidents have not been such a problem, and she sees Ramchandran’s ordinance as not only unnecessary but likely unconstitutional and beyond the authority of the parish council.

Ramchandran, in his proposed ordinance, said such incidents are “prompting a nationwide request to public officials to completely eliminate access to selected web sites.”The ordinance, up for consideration at the council’s Sept. 18 meeting, likelyflies in the face of the U.S. Constitution, according to information providedby the library director. DesBordes provided council members a packet ofmaterial including a review of an incident in another state. There, a localjudge found that installing filters on all computers would impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech.

Closer to home, an opinion from the Louisiana Attorney General’s office to the Louisiana State Librarian adds, “The library board and not the parish police jury is the proper entity to set specific policies regulating information access and flow within the library.”Finally, desBordes added, the St. Charles Parish Library is an agencyseparate from the parish government, administered by the Library Board of Control.

In Jefferson Parish, filters are to be installed on computers accessible to children, according to library spokesman Todd Schouest. However, in thatparish, the library is a full department of the parish government, and the library board there only operates in an advisory capacity.

DesBordes said the issue is very complex, but she points out that in the two years the library has had full-internet access computers there have been perhaps 10 to 12 incidents of logging onto pornography websites.

“There was immediate, swift and successful action in every case,” desBordes said. The computers are in full view of the checkout desks andthe staff is trained to monitor the use of the computers.

“If we see someone using a computer inappropriately, we step in and tell them it’s not an acceptable use,” she continued.

Only repeated violations of the common-sense policy would result in revocation of privileges, and that has only happened once.

“A computer is stupid,” desBordes said, pointing out the ineffectiveness of screening technology by pointing out a NASA website on the Mars Explorer found itself blocked because the site, www.marsexpl.gov, had the word “sex”imbedded in the address. Even a website for Super Bowl XXX was blockedbecause of the X’s.

Ramchandran said the proposed ordinance will give librarians more authority to deal with violations, and commented, “We have to remind people that there is something call responsibility. Children use our public libraries, and wehave to protect them.”DesBordes cautioned, “It needs to be considered very carefully.”

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