A good place to start is the opening statement made by the local ACLU representative, something like, "What is the difference between viewing adult sites and (viewing and) reading ‘The Catcher in the Rye"'? An answer to this question could literally be seen by hooking this guy up to a Functional MRI brain-imaging unit while he first viewed text from "The Catcher in the Rye" and then viewed porn images from an adult site. Comment could then be provided by a neurologist.

From there some general observations on the effects of sexual imagery could be provided. In an April 10 article about research on sexual desire, Natalie Angier writes: "In a series of studies at the University of Amsterdam, Ellen Laan, Stephanie Both and Mark Spiering demonstrated that the body's entire motor system is activated almost instantly by exposure to sexual images, and that the more intensely sexual the visuals, the stronger the electrical signals emitted by the participants' so-called spinal tendious reflexes. By the looks of it, Dr. Laan said, the body is primed for sex before the mind has had a moment to leer."

These add up to substantial scientific bolstering of existing (self-evident) arguments against the presence of porn in the library (even behind screens and even without consideration of children). This would be consistent with the prohibition of many other behaviors in a library.

The flip side is, is there any evidence that the filters would block library-kosher usage? Not empty ACLU speculation, but empirical evidence from the library staff. For starters, have any females requested the filters to be dropped? (Attraction to erotic imagery is an evolutionary given in human males, akin to head-butting in big horn sheep.) With such information, a meaningful pro-versus-con debate could ensue.

I visit and enjoy the library (really libraries) weekly and also note that the traditional usage of a library - the whole book-lending (and reading) thing - is a small and shrinking part of the library scene. As consistent with society's drift ever deeper into visual opiate-dom, internet access and secondarily video lending appear to be the main lines of business. I wonder if the library staff worries about losing a significant portion of its internet users (patrons) via fixed-filtering.

The separate-room solution is perhaps a good route, although realistically you may made need two - porn-viewing and regular un-filtered.

Ted Christopher, Lilac Drive, Brighton