When Rick Taplin, the head of the New England Library Association, was working in a local library recently he noticed a man looking at disturbing images on a library computer.
“He came right in and started surfing porn,” Taplin said. “He had no shame.”
The number of people recently caught doing the same in Quincy has caught the attention of Councilor Dan Raymondi, who asked for a list of violators that he said he wants to make public.
“I’d think it would make any parent nervous with any young kid to potentially walk by while one of these abusers is viewing pornographic material,” he said.
The council’s request is now in the hands of the mayor and is being reviewed by the city’s lawyers.
Taplin said policy on restricted material is usually up to the local libraries.
In Quincy, if a person is caught a third time viewing provocative sites, their name is put on a list and they are banned from using the computers.
Nancy Perlow, director of the Newton Free Library, said users are quick to close out a porn site once asked and the library has a strategy for minimizing chances of an online peep show: “We keep our computers in plain sight so it’s not conducive to ‘private’ work.”
