Our libraries have already started!

I thought being Republican

I thought being Republican equals wanting less government interference. Murphy wants the federal government to make decisions that are best left to local municipalities. I'm also from Suffolk County, NY, and luckily I go to a library where I CAN maintain my Myspace Music page and communicate with other people who make music around the world. What has Matt Murphy done for my life? Nothing. Politicians should watch their own kids, not ours.

lets be clear, there is a

lets be clear, there is a big difference between surfing to a porn site that someone can see and using MySpace. Clearly obscenity laws are one thing, censoring an entire site like My Space is another thing.

Look, as a parent I don't

Look, as a parent I don't see a problem with banning those sites in public places like the library. Just as you'd probably be uncomfortable if a guy (or gal) was reading a pornographic magazine in the aisle across from you on the train or bus in full view of surrounding passengers, other library patrons shouldn't have to be exposed either. Nevertheless, I think the important caveat here is that (at least for the time being) it seems as if patrons over the age of 18 can override the ban and get access to the sites. I'm not sure where that leaves the kid sitting next to him though!

Well it's pretty obvious

Well it's pretty obvious that there are both pros and cons to this legislation, however, I don't believe there is a solution here that can make both parties happy. Unless they somehow came up with two different library systems: a public one where anything is allowed, and a private one where "bad" content is prohibited. Then parents can choose which library to send their kids to. But this seems rather far-fetched...

If the root problem was that libraries were getting blamed for allowing this content, then this is a good legislation. Because all this legislation will do is take the libraries out of the battle going on between parents and their kids. However, that is not the root problem. The root problem is that kids are wanting to look at negative content and parents aren't helping them to channel this curiousity in a healthy manner.

I think that parents really need to take the time to talk to their children, maybe even send them through therapy of some sort to help them get over their obsession. Curiousity is natural and a scolding here or there may do it, or it might just be a phase. But it's not a matter of taking the libraries out of the picture, it's more about trying to help the child overcome this dangerous exposure.

Policies? Are you kidding?

Policies? Are you kidding? The incident that I saw involved two pre-teen kids neither of which read or understood the AU "policy" splash screen. They just logon and surf. Yes, believe it or not, some parents simply drop of their kids and then come back later to pick them up. Basically, these children were left on their own.

Most libraries have policies

Most libraries have policies in place about what can be viewed on terminals to avoid the sort of problem of seeing someone watch porn on another terminal, and some use privacy screens. The attempts to censor whole sites creates other problems, like the software that bans websites with the word "breast" and blocks kids from medical and health sites. Obviously there's a great deal of good in Myspace as well, and a policy that blocks it as a way to deal with any problems found in it is the wrong way to go about resolving the problem.

Hey Doug -- sorry, gotta

Hey Doug -- sorry, gotta agree with Alan on this one. First, it's not the library's job to enforce your standards on my kids, Alan's kids, or the adult population that uses the Net at public libraries. Second, if you can't trust your kids to abide by the standards and good practices you've taught them at home, how is it you trust them around the books, and why are you letting them roam the library unsupervised?

As a parent, you're welcome to block whatever you like at home, and feel free to take the television out of the house while you're at it. The library is a public space. Public spaces are more chaotic, because they're serving more people and meeting more needs than those of just the people under your roof. And that's the way it *should* be. As our parents did and their parents before them, you'll simply have to parent them the best you can at home and hope it sticks when they're out in the world, because the world can't, shouldn't and won't be protecting your kids from themselves.