CENSORSHIP WATCH.(public libraries)(Brief Article)

Mom Loses Livermore Appeal.

The California Court of Appeal agreed March 6 with a lower-court decision that the Livermore (Calif.) Public Library is not constitutionally obligated to offer blocking software on its public-access Internet terminals.

Plaintiff Kathleen R. is the mother of a boy who had downloaded sexually explicit images at the library on several occasions and printed them out at a relative's home (AL, Mar. 1999, p. 17).

"There is a crucial distinction between providing minors with harmful matter on the one hand, and maintaining computers where minors may obtain such matter, however easily, on the other," the three-judge panel stated. "Provision of computer-transmitted obscenity …