In general, with the economic outlook so ominous, having the city go into bond indebtedness seems a singularly stupid idea. In 1996, the library asked for money for routine expenditures. At that time, my kids and I were avid library users. Therefore, even though I disapproved of tax increases in principle, I wrote no columns against Measure A.

I quietly voted no, and the measure passed without me. In Nov. 1996, the Internet was installed in county libraries. My friend Matthew expressed some uneasiness to me. "There's pornography on the Internet," he told me. "What if children get into it?" I scoffed, "Oh, Matthew, the librarians would never let that happen."

By Dec. 1996, we saw our first incidents of obvious minors accessing pornography in libraries. We were stunned when our trusted friends, the librarians, told us that it was a child's right to look at anything he wanted. "Please respect the privacy of the child."

We began to research. We found that California Penal Code 313 prohibits any person or entity from exhibiting, displaying, or distributing harmful matter to minors, or obscenity to anyone. In February, we wrote letters to the Gilroy and Morgan Hill libraries about the need to comply with state law. We were not specific as to means, because we thought the library could be trusted to find a solution. In March, the libraries responded, citing ALA Policy, that all library resources must be available to all library patrons, regardless of age.

We began to attend meetings. We circulated a petition. We responded to the library's letter. On May 18, 1997, we took a police officer to Gilroy Library to demonstrate that illegal material is available on children's terminals. The officer was shocked; he, like most other sane individuals, assumed that the library was using some sort of filtering technology. He took a report. Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu verified that material was illegal (obscene), but said: no victim, no crime. The library did nothing, so we began to research.

We came up with a multi-prong solution: filters or informed parental consent for minors, an introductory screen on Internet terminals that explains the law, and a policy that prohibits porn for minors. More meetings, 2,000 signatures, interviews with MSNBC, CNN, and the Jim Lehr News Hour. In July we picketed all nine member libraries and collected more signatures from aghast patrons. Still more meetings, packing them with 50 speakers, each allotted his three minutes of outrage.

Nov. 4, 1997: Election Day. Two JPA members who favored open access and were expected to be re-seated lost their respective elections, including Gilroy's Connie Rogers. At the next meeting, County Supervisor Joe Simitian looked at his colleagues and said, there is a cost here. We need to do something. After five more boring meetings, on Apr. 23, 1998, the JPA voted to filter the children's side. In June, they voted for an introductory screen on all terminals, which states that it is illegal to display pornography to minors. In July the filters were installed. In January 1999, we attended a JPA meeting to report an obscenity exposure on a children's terminal. We asked again for a policy prohibiting pornography.

Knowing by now that library staff would not lift a finger to help us, we even wrote a policy and procedures for implementing it, modeling our efforts on other libraries' policies and our library's existing policy and procedures manual. And in June 1999, the Board approved existing guidelines as "policy." Librarians will not monitor. Parental consent for minors is not required. Open access to all patrons, regardless of age. Consequently, if a patron complains that a child is viewing pornography, a librarian, at her discretion, may move the porn-surfing patron to another terminal or tell the offended patron that the porn-surfer has a right to privacy.

I will oppose all library taxes until the library either implements a policy prohibiting pornography, or as the Supreme Court allowed in the CIPA decision of 2002, filters all terminals. Preferably both.

Cynthia Walker Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every Friday.