On the third floor of the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch, a man sits at one of the public computers, accessing the internet. He has more than one browser window open and is shifting his focus from one to the other. The man clicks on one of them and a movie comes to the forefront.
On the screen, two men are engaged in hardcore sex.
For some, it is hard to believe that someone would use a public space to view sexually explicit material, but librarians acknowledge that it does happen.
How frequently this occurs depends on the librarian’s experience and if offended visitors bring it to their attention.
Some say it is a daily occurrence and some say it happens weekly. While others say they are only aware of it once or twice a year.
One of the main challenges is defying what pornography is.
“What is illegal and what isn’t...those of us who aren’t lawyers can’t necessarily make that distinction.” said the library’s central branch director Shelagh Flaherty.
“There is no real societal consensus, except on extremes like child pornography, of what the definition is,” she said.
“It is a difficult question and very nuanced. We have literally thousands of internet sessions in a day, the percentage of people looking at something pornographic is a small portion of that,” said Flaherty.
The Canadian Criminal Code also does not explicitly define what pornography is.
Rather, it uses the word obscenity in section 163 (8). It states that “for the purposes of this Act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed to be obscene.”
The concept of undue exploitation is determined by reference to community standards. Therefore, there is no standard definition. The only time the word pornography is used is in section 163.1 that defines child pornography.
The main debate in libraries is about finding a balance between people’s right to access information in a free, open and democratic society on the one hand, and respecting that other people might be offended by someone accessing it in a public space.
The library subscribes to the Canadian Library Association’s Position Statement on Intellectual Freedom.
“It is the responsibility of libraries to guarantee and facilitate access to all expressions of knowledge and intellectual activity, including those which some elements of society may consider to be unconventional, unpopular or unacceptable,” the statement instructs.
“Libraries should resist all efforts to limit the exercise of these responsibilities while recognizing the right of criticism by individuals and groups,” it outlines.
The central library, which has 265 workstations for internet access and sees almost 6,5000 visitors a day, has tried to tackle this issue in several ways without infringing on people’s freedom to information.
If a visitor complaints to library staff that they are offended or uncomfortable by someone accessingsuch material, the staff member would approach them, Flaherty said.
They are reminded that they are in a public space and encouraged to respect other people’s sensibilities.
In the library, where the children’s section is on a separate level, the children’s computers have filtering systems installed, Flaherty said. In smaller libraries computers close to areas frequented by children have filters on them as well.
Furthermore, the computers have a refreshing system so that if someone leaves anything open on the screen, it is closed after a certain period of inactivity. This ensures that the next user will be protected.
The West Vancouver Memorial Library also subscribes to the Canadian Library Association’s stance.
“We try to set up the situation where people can do what they have the absolute right to do and where other people can feel like they are not having to look at something they don’t have to look at,” stated the library’s Deputy Director and Head of Technology and Technical Services, Deb Koep.
They have installed privacy screens on their 21 computers that provide access to public internet, she said.
These screens make it hard for others to see what users are accessing except if they are standing directly behind them and staring into the screen over their shoulder, she said.
The dilemma has come to the forefront in the United States as well, with recent incidents in New York and Los Angeles. They have dealt with it in similar ways to libraries in Vancouver.
To Koep, this issue is a part of living in a multicultural and democratic country such as Canada.
“A society that values critical thinking, citizenship, engagement, debate and diversity has to allow and trust its community members to access all kinds of information and judge it for themselves and use it in the way they need to use it,” she said.
“Life isn’t always comfortable, things aren’t always easy, sometimes its good to be confronted with difficult questions.”