EVANSDALE - People don't usually describe a trip to the public library as "obscene" or "violating." But that's the way Kelli Phillips described her recent visit to Evansdale's house of knowledge.

"I took my 4-year-old son to the library and I was sitting at a table behind the computers. I looked up and saw two men were looking at … pornographic materials, so I reported it to the librarian," Phillips said.

It was the first time anyone had complained about online porn at the Evansdale Public Library. But the library's no-censorship policy meant there was little they could do.

"I told the woman (Phillips) that I would speak to the patrons and speak to my director, but that's all I could do," said Anne Johnson, the librarian on hand that day. "We have to follow the guidelines set by our library board."

Johnson found herself where many American libraries and librarians find themselves, balancing some patrons' freedom of speech and other patrons' right to be free from potentially offensive material. American libraries can house anything that is legal in the "outside world," including pornography; but each library chooses what material it will make available. Most libraries work to serve as community-oriented learning centers for everyone.

Considering every library follows different guidelines for dealing with potentially offensive material on the Internet, the rules and grey areas can become confused quickly.

Judy Krug, director at the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom in Chicago, acknowledges the dilemma many local librarians face.

"You have your First Amendment rights in one of the last remaining places that respect that, but at the same time anybody can go to a library, mothers and children, people who think differently," Krug said. "This is not a right and wrong issue, there are a lot of sides to consider."

Flawed solutions

"I thought there was a block or filter or something," Phillips said. "I didn't realize this stuff is available in public."

But often it is available. Not only are there no laws against pornography in libraries, only libraries that receive federal funding are required to use Internet filters that block out material deemed inappropriate by the filtering companies. Few local libraries opt for that meager funding. Most librarians, as well as the American Library Association, oppose filters anyway due to the severe limitations of the technology.

"A computer program cannot filter pictures, it filters words" said Carol French Johnson, director of the Waterloo Public Library. She pointed out filtering programs can't keep up with evolving technology or block e-mail communication. In addition, French Johnson, whose library gave up federal funding in order to avoid mandatory filters, said trial filters have blindly blocked out legitimate Web sites about breast-feeding, nursing homes and the unfortunately named city of Essex.

"My main concern is that filters give the impression of safety for parents, when in reality there is no way they can catch everything," said Waverly Public Library director Sarah Meyer-Reyerson.

Filters may not be standard in most libraries, but that is not to say all local libraries take a no-censorship stance. Many have created their own policies in order to stop patrons from offending each other. Waterloo and Cedar Falls public libraries, along with those in most neighboring towns, use their own librarians as monitors.

"We try not to pay too much attention to what our patrons are looking at, but if we notice something inappropriate we use the 'tap-on-the-shoulder solution,'" said French Johnson. A request from a librarian to desist is usually all it takes to prevent a problem, French Johnson said.

But even such a simple solution carries negative implications.

Krug said the idea of librarians looking over a patron's shoulder and deeming sites obscene is a violation of patron privacy.

"What you look at at the library is your business as long as it's not illegal," Krug said.

Again, librarians are caught between keeping patrons like Phillips satisfied and not infringing on crucial rights.

"The difficulty with the computers is that they're a very visible media," Meyer-Reyerson said. "Certainly there are other items in other formats in the library that would have a similar kind of content, but it's the public nature of that screen that makes this hard to control."

Community standards

While blocking pornography may keep most patrons happy, such actions have never been tested against the First Amendment in court.

One thing local librarians agree on is that a library's policy needs to be determined not by outside legislation, but by community standards.

"Librarians need to make decisions about how they will handle this thing based on what feels right for their community," French Johnson said.

And as no two libraries have the same collection, no two communities have the same standards.

"The issue has to be thought through clearly," Krug said. "Libraries need to post their policies and procedures and realize that we have a lot of tools at our fingertips that we need to employ. But there is no easy answer."

Back in Evansdale, the public library board is looking at its no-censorship policy.

"You need to have a policy that's going to reflect the needs of your library," said Shannon Surly, director of the Evansdale Library. "Apparently our current policy is not reflecting those needs, and we are looking at new policies, as I'm sure a lot of libraries are doing."

Contact Cyrus Moussavi at (319) 291-1424 ext. 1424 or cmoussavi@yahoo.com