Los Angeles- The county’s top librarian has proposed measures to keep children from inadvertently seeing Internet pornography while it is being viewed by adults in public libraries. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich said, however, that’s not good enough – and the goal is to eliminate pornography completely from the Los Angeles County libraries. “We will have a motion on the agenda Tuesday asking the librarian to come up with a way to eliminate pornography (from library computers),” said Tony Bell, spokesman for the supervisor, whose district includes the Santa Clarita Valley. Four weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors directed County Librarian Margaret Donnellan Todd to report on the issue of pornography in county libraries.

The situation came to the supervisors’ attention after a Canyon Country woman visited the local library with her 4-year-old daughter and noticed a man sitting next to them viewing pornography in plain sight of her child. Todd said in the report submitted to the board Tuesday, “… the library makes no attempt to determine which (Internet) sites meet the legal test of obscenity, library policy does require that law enforcement be called if an adult is viewing what appears to be child pornography.” Todd’s report said federal law allows parents to determine whether children receive unfiltered or filtered access to the Internet, and adults may choose. Todd said most public access computers have privacy screens that block the view from the left, right and from a distance of computer screens. The computer viewed by the Canyon Country woman did not have such a privacy screen. The report identified five steps that might be taken to ensure children are not viewing pornography, but banning pornographic sites from library computers was not among those steps. The steps include: *Permanently attached privacy screens on all computers.

*Filters on children’s computers to allow limited access to Internet sites. *A change of location for adult computers so they are not in the direct path of travel for children.

*Public signs informing people of unfiltered computers in use. *A requirement that any adult wishing to use a children’s computer first receive permission from library staff. Antonovich and his staff believe Todd’s recommendations are not enough. “The supervisor doesn’t feel these recommendations go far enough,” Bell said. Bell said Todd did her homework to configure floorplans and utilize the privacy screens. “We appreciate the work she’s done,” Bell said. “Furthermore, it does not behoove the taxpayer or library staff to go to such an extent to preserve the computers for porn users in a public place. We feel the most expeditious, fair, solution is to eliminate (pornography) altogether.”