Internet filter edict spurs libraries to forgo funds

CONCORD, N.H. – Libraries that receive federal funds have until month’s end to install Internet filters on their computers, but many in New Hampshire are giving up the money without much regret.

The federal government offers libraries nearly $3 billion a year to help pay for Internet access and computer setups. In return, the computer systems must include filters designed to protect both children and adults from pornographic and other inappropriate Web sites.

The New Hampshire Library Association encouraged forgoing federal funds in a statement posted on its Web site. It said filters block valuable information like research on breast cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and even Super Bowl XXX, and give a false sense of security.

Local librarians have additional complaints. Many say the federal grants were often too small and the application too cumbersome to bother with.

The library in Laconia is giving up about $1,700 a year by choosing not to filter its Internet access.

Bob Selig, chairman of the library’s trustees, said the library would spend more money than it would get in grants to maintain the filter and comply with requests from library users to disconnect the filter.

Instead, the library filters only the two Internet stations in the children’s rooms, not the six elsewhere in the library.

Andrea Thorpe, president of the state library association and director of the Newport library, complained that filters keep harmless and useless information from the screen.

She said an innocent Web search for John Stark or Smuttynose Island would be hampered by a filter because Stark can be associated with stark naked and Smuttynose is too close to smut.

She and other librarians have heard of school nurses being unable to get information online about sexually transmitted diseases because body parts are mentioned. Also, the law says libraries must filter out images, not necessarily words, and filtering technology cannot yet assess pictures.

But Denise Jensen, director of the Berlin Public Library, said she can’t afford to fight the filtering because her library could not provide Internet access if not for the help it gets in federal money.

Last year, the grant totaled $201. This year, Jensen is expecting $890 because she discovered she had been using the wrong calculations in her application.

She said the library did have trouble with younger students looking at inappropriate sites before the filter was installed.