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GREENSBORO After nearly 90 people were caught viewing porn on its public computers this year, the Greensboro Public Library is fighting back.
The News & Record of Greensboro reported 89 violators were caught in the Central Library in the first half of 2009, leading library officials to buy a device that identifies porn sites and makes them load so slowly they are difficult to view on the city's public computers.
Under the library's policy for using its computers, anyone caught breaking the rules is told to stop. If that warning is ignored, the penalty is a one-day ban, then a 30-day ban for the next infraction, and finally, a trespassing charge.
Kimberly Romie, whose Piedmont Homeschoolers Association members have increasingly complained, said some parents have stopped taking children to the library.
"My total issue is that it should not be allowed. Someone cannot stand over them the whole time," Romie said. A child or a mom is going to end up walking in on this. And once you see it, you've seen it."
Neerman says Internet filters don't work, and that a large part of objectionable material derives from popular social networking sites such as YouTube or Facebook, or attachments to e-mail, which would not be practical for the library to block.
So until recently, the Greensboro system relied solely on monitoring by staff and its private security guards to combat pornography use.
A device called a "bandwidth shaper" is designed to identify Web sites by categories - including pornography - and allow the library to slow down access.
"It's not filtering it," said Tommy Joseph, manager of technology and reference at the library. "It's discouraging it."
