The five panelists were: 

• Angela Bennett, Supervisor of Library and Information Services, Arlington Public Schools; 

• Lydia Patrick, Networking Coordinator, Fairfax County Public Library; 

• Chuck Anderson, Director, Chesapeake Public Library; 

• Tom Hehman, Director, Bedford Public Library System; and 

• Steve Helm, formerly of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library, now Technology Manager, McConnell Library, Radford University. 

     Arlington Public Schools is a system with 20 elementary schools, 5 middle schools, 3 high schools, and 1 secondary school and 
requires that an Internet Acceptable Use Policy be signed by each 
student and their parents before Internet access is given. Students are held responsible for their behavior under the student code of conduct whether the violation applies to the use of print or electronic media.  A clause in the acceptable use policy states that reasonable efforts will be made to provide guidance and to monitor student use.  This clause has been helpful knowing that it is physically impossible to guide and monitor students 100 percent of the time.  In order to encourage the efficient use of resources, the library staff has been ‘mining' for information, not ‘surfing.'  The decision to 
filter or not to filter is left up to each individual school. 
 

      Chuck Anderson, from Chesapeake Public, gave a little history of Internet access there.  The library did not have enough money to 
buy computers for public Internet access, so city council agreed 
to provide them.  The library immediately found that 10 machines 
were not enough.  The literacy tutor program brought in 30 
patrons/month and the Internet attracts 700.  Chesapeake decided 
to use filtering on the children's stations, while the adult 
stations have none.  Anderson acknowledges that this is not a 
perfect solution but by and large it works well.  Chesapeake has 
had some problems getting the VIRGINIA PILOT online but staff are able to go in and update sites.  They block for full nudity with 
the children's workstations.  There is no signage indicating that 
a workstation is filtered. 
 

      Lydia Patrick, Networking Coordinator for Fairfax County Public Library, reports that they serve a population of approximately 900,000 people with a variety of technical and Internet skills. 
FCPL has Internet service provided to 34 workstation's by Erol's 
and 3 of those are filtered by SurfWatch. 
 

      There is an acceptable use policy sheet that patrons must sign 
before using the computers.  FCPL has found it's own website blocked, probably due to adult recommended lists. They were able to go in and change the block. 
 

      The Montgomery-Floyd and Bedford systems do not use filtering software at all.  Bedford decided that their role could not be fulfilled without public access to the Internet and that filters were not adopted because they violate intellectual freedom principles. 
 

     According to the panelists, there have been very few problems or complaints from patrons regarding Internet access.  The most 
frequent complaint involves heavy patron demand for just a few 
workstations.  In Chesapeake, a patron wanted to know how 
children can be allowed to use the Internet when there are adults 
waiting.  In Fairfax, a gentleman brought to the attention of the 
librarian the fact that a child was looking at the National 
Basketball Association website.  In another instance, a woman 
came to the desk to complain about the lewdness that two students 
were viewing.  It turned out they were looking at an encyclopedia 
on CD-ROM.  Bennett has found that students do not deliberately 
find undesirable sites - they find them accidentally.  Some 
library media specialists use large screen monitors connected to 
the Internet station so that the library media specialists can 
monitor and help the children if necessary. 
 

      The most serious challenge was related by Hehman regarding an incident that took place at the Bedford Central Library.  A 
patron sitting between two Internet stations, with her husband to 
her right and a young male to the left, looked over to the left 
and saw ‘vulgar, filthy, disgusting pornography' being viewed 
by the child.  Later that day, she wrote a letter to the library 
director, mayor, a city council member, and the newspaper about 
it.  Hehman's response assured her that the library did not 
support, endorse, condone, or facilitate access to pornography 
but that filtering software was ineffective in blocking out all 
the objectionable sites while at the same time restricting access 
to those which may be useful or inoffensive.  Bedford decided to 
install privacy screens that effectively block side views of what 
is displayed on the screen. 
 

      Filtering software is not perfect.  Both Chesapeake and FCPL have found significant sites blocked but the filtering software allows 
weekly reviews of blocked sites and staff are able to update 
them.  Helm recommended visiting websites that demonstrate an 
output of what is censored by filtering programs, for example, 
www.peacefire.org and cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/spoofcentral/censored. 
 

      Helm concluded that the librarian should be very skeptical. We 
cannot have a software solution that is technological, because software does not have judgment.  Patrick added that this is a 
fluid, rapidly developing technology.  This may not be what we 
have 3 or 4 months from now.  She also expressed gratitude that 
the state library had provided VLIN access early in the process, 
allowing the staff to become adept at the Internet.  Bennett 
strongly recommended thoroughly preparing and training the staff 
then giving library board members individualized one-on-one 
instruction.  The more prepared and informed the staff is, the 
better the Internet challenges will be addressed.  Hehman stated 
that our mission is to provide access to materials, not to 
protect people from them.