whose librarians and board members testified in this case to start using Internet filtering software.  The testimony of the Chairman of the Board of the Greenville Public Library is illustrative.  In December 1999, there was considerable local press coverage in Greenville concerning adult patrons who routinely used the library to surf the Web for pornography.  In response to public outcry stemming from the newspaper report, the Board of Trustees held a special board meeting to obtain information and to communicate with the public concerning the library’s provision of Internet access.  At this meeting, the Board learned for the first time of complaints about children being exposed to pornography that was displayed on the library’s Internet terminals.

In late January to early February of 2000, the library installed privacy screens and recessed terminals in an effort to restrict the display of sexually explicit Web sites at the library.  In February, 2000, the Board informed the library staff that they were expected to be familiar with the South Carolina obscenity statute and to enforce the policy prohibition on access to obscene materials, child pornography, or other materials prohibited under applicable local, state, and federal laws.  Staff were told that they were to enforce the policy by means of a “tap on the shoulder.”  Prior to adopting its current Internet Use Policy, the Board adopted an “Addendum to Current Internet Use Policy.”  Under the policy, the Board temporarily instituted a two-hour time limit per day for Internet use; reduced substantially the number of computers with Internet access in the library; reconfigured the location of the computers so that librarians had visual contact with all Internet-accessible terminals; and removed the privacy screens from terminals with Internet access.  Even after the Board implemented the privacy screens and later the “tap-on-the-shoulder” policy combined with placing terminals in view of librarians, the library experienced a high turnover rate among reference librarians who worked in view of Internet terminals.  Finding that the policies that it had tried did not prevent the viewing of sexually explicit materials in the library, the Board at one point considered discontinuing Internet access in the library.  The Board finally concluded that the methods that it had used to regulate Internet use were not sufficient to stem the behavioral problems that it thought were linked to the availability of pornographic materials in the library.  As a result, it implemented a mandatory filtering policy.

We note, however, that none of the libraries proffered by the defendants presented any systematic records or quantitative comparison of the amount of criminal or otherwise inappropriate behavior that occurred in their libraries before they began using Internet filtering software compared to the amount that happened after they installed the software.  The plaintiffs’ witnesses also testified that because public libraries