LJWorld.com

Kansas City, Mo. — Many Kansas public libraries will find that installing Internet filters on their computers would cost as much or more than what they would lose in government funds if they refuse to install them.

Despite that, libraries across the state are making plans for installing the filters following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this month that upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act.

Under the 2001 law, libraries that receive federal funding must install the filters to keep young Internet surfers away from pornography or lose the money. The law says libraries cannot use federal funds to pay for the filtering and must ensure the filters can be quickly and easily turned off for adults who request it.

State Librarian Duane Johnson said most libraries would install the filters because they were told to, and the prospect of losing federal funds didn't have much to do with it.

"It's a mistake to think the decision will be made on the small amount of money involved," he said. "For many libraries, they're looking at it as a Supreme Court endorsement of a federal law. A lot of boards are looking at this as a matter identified as a law of the land."

Others consider the high court's ruling a violation of the First Amendment and will give up federal funds instead of installing filters. The Hays Public Library, for instance, doesn't plan to install the filters anytime soon -- if ever.

Hays library director Melanie Miller has recommended that her board give up the roughly $5,000 it gets in federal funds, rather than infringe on the free-speech rights of the library's patrons.

"It's our responsibility to the public that's causing us to continue to provide unfiltered access," Miller said. "I think it's deceitful to reassure the public that filters will keep pornography out."

Many other librarians opposed to the filters share her concern that filters aren't reliable and can't be counted on to only block out objectionable material.

"More than the money, the technical problems that the computer system administrators are going to have to deal with will be huge," said Roseanne Goble, executive director of the Kansas Library Assn. "Such as, how are they going to place filters on computers used by the Spanish-speaking community? I'm really hoping that software companies become more competitive and refine the technology."

At the Topeka-Shawnee County Library, users of filtered computers even were barred access earlier this year to discussion of a bill in the Kansas House that would require Internet filters on computers in public libraries, said John Opgaard, manager of the library's automation department. The bill narrowly passed through committee but never made it to a full House vote.

Opgaard said the problem with filters was that they reacted to text instead of images, and the images were mostly what adults were trying to prevent children from accessing. Filtering puts legitimate materials off-limits while giving access to obscene materials that found a way around the filters, he said.

He budgeted $25,000 next year to put new filters on all 170 of the computers the library has for public use. About 50 of the computers have filters now, he said.

Encouraged by the Supreme Court's ruling, Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline said he would seek legislation again next year requiring all public libraries in the state to install Internet filters.