DALLAS - City staff plans to brief council members on the prevalence of Internet pornography viewing in public libraries, according to a memorandum from Interim Assistant City Manager David Brown.
The Feb. 11 briefing, to be given to the council's quality of life and government services committee, comes in response to a Dallas Morning News analysis indicating that library patrons view thousands of pornographic Web pages on public computers each day.
"The presentation will cover current practices and procedures of the Dallas Public Library, information about Internet use practices at other libraries and possible methodologies to address concerns that have been raised during this discussion," Brown wrote to council members.
Many council members, including Mayor Tom Leppert, have called on city staff to remedy what they consider a serious problem, perhaps with pornography filters installed on public library computers.
However, the American Library Association and American Civil Liberties Union argue that Dallas should resist installing pornography filters because of pitfalls such as the risk of filtering out medical or artistic content.
