Fremont County Library - Lander Branch

I was leaving my delicious lunch at the Methodist church when I saw a sign announcing the temporary location of the Fremont County Library - Lander Branch.

I always like to inquire about internet use policies, particularly pertaining to pornography viewing, at different libraries. Some day, I will get them all scanned and posted. The reason I do this started out just to see what libraries had policies and if there was one I considered really good. There was always a little shock-value too when a house mom asks about viewing pornography at public libraries. However, my policy-inquiring has evolved from a mere interest to a sincere quest to find answers and get decent policies on the books.

It is interesting that sometimes librarians get defensive when asked about the internet use policy. Sometimes I get asked "why". Usually, though, I'm told they'll need to find it, can I hold a minute, and then a little quiet talk in a back room followed by a copy of the policy. The latter scenario was the case with the Lander Branch. After I bought a copy, I walked to where the computers were and a DIFFERENT policy was posted, so I bought a copy of that, too.

I'm interested in seeing how libraries are going to deal with what I assume to be an increasing amount of pornography viewing at libraries. At the Fremont County Library - Lander Branch, I was told that sometimes there can be too many policies. Well, maybe. However, better to have good policy written even if you later have to defend it, than to have to fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants when questioned on a certain procedure.

Where I live, the policy is something like, "If what you are viewing is offensive to anyone at the library, then you must stop viewing what you are." When a known "pornographer-viewer" enters the library, regardless of who is in the library, a librarian almost immediately approaches them and announces the site to be offensive so they must shut it off. (Our town librarian told me this was what there policy was when I asked for a written copy.)

Although I do not agree with pornography (or pornography available in libraries in any form), I think without good written policy, it turns into "censorship" used in a way that has gotten people into trouble in the past.

So, I have another policy for my collection. It's interesting, the best written policy I've ever read came from a town in Montana and it actually allowed any use of a computer but there were time limits and also, computers for adults separate from computers for children.