Testimony of Robert Croneberger -- director, Carnegie
Library
March 22, 1996
16 MS. KAPPLER: Good morning, your Honor, it's Ann
17 Kappler from Jenner and Block for the ALA plaintiffs. Please
18 excuse my voice, I have a little cold. At this time the
19 plaintiffs would like to call Robert Croneberger.
20 THE COURT CLERK: Good morning, sir. Would you
21 please state and spell your name?
22 THE WITNESS: Robert, R-o-b-e-r-t, B., Croneberger,
23 C-r-o-n-e-b-e-r-g-e-r.
24 THE COURT CLERK: Please raise your right hand.
25 ROBERT B. CRONEBERGER, Plaintiffs' Witness, Sworn.
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1 THE COURT CLERK: Thank you. Please be seated.
2 MS. KAPPLER: At this time plaintiffs move into
3 evidence the supplemental declaration of Mr. Croneberger as
4 his direct trial testimony. Mr. Croneberger executed the
5 supplemental declaration on March 19th and it was previously
6 submitted to this Court.
7 JUDGE SLOVITER: Is there any objection?
8 MS. RUSSOTTO: No objection.
9 JUDGE SLOVITER: Then it will be accepted.
10 MS. KAPPLER: Thank you, your Honor. I would like
11 to make one correction, if I might, in Mr. Croneberger's
12 declaration, and this is a clerical error on the part of my
13 office. In Paragraph 21 there is a reference to Plaintiffs'
14 Exhibit 203, this is his discussion of the RIM study as it
15 appears on their server, that should be a reference to
16 Exhibits 203 and 204.
17 JUDGE DALZELL: Okay.
18 JUDGE SLOVITER: Okay.
19 MS. KAPPLER: Thank you. The Government has
20 previously --
21 JUDGE SLOVITER: Does the Government have that
22 change?
23 MS. RUSSOTTO: Yes, thank you.
24 JUDGE SLOVITER: Okay, thank you.
25 MS. KAPPLER: The Government has previously
96
1 indicated that they did not have any cross-examination for
2 Mr. Croneberger, so we are presenting Mr. Croneberger for the
3 Courts' questions.
4 JUDGE SLOVITER: Okay, but we're going to give the
5 Government a chance to say that.
6 MS. RUSSOTTO: Actually the Government will have
7 cross-examination.
8 JUDGE DALZELL: There you go.
9 CROSS-EXAMINATION
10 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
11 Q Good morning, Mr. Croneberger, how are you?
12 A Good morning. Fine, thank you.
13 JUDGE SLOVITER: Are you on the tape today?
14 MS. RUSSOTTO: I will reintroduce myself.
15 JUDGE SLOVITER: Okay.
16 MS. RUSSOTTO: My name is Patricia Russotto, I'm an
17 attorney at the Department of Justice, representing the
18 Department of Justice in this action.
19 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
20 Q Now, Dr. Croneberger, you are director of the Carnegie
21 Library, correct?
22 A That's correct.
23 Q In Pittsburgh?
24 A Yes.
25 (Laughter.)
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1 JUDGE SLOVITER: We'll never forget it.
2 THE WITNESS: But not Carnegie Mellon Library.
3 MS. RUSSOTTO: Yes, I understand.
4 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
5 Q Now, the Carnegie Library has available on line a variety
6 of materials, is that right?
7 A Correct.
8 Q And included in the on-line materials that are available
9 you have a computerized card catalogue system, right?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Which has all of the materials that are available in the
12 Carnegie Library collection -- well, I'll back off on that,
13 we went through this in your deposition.
14 A Yes.
15 Q It has about two million of the items that are available
16 in your collection, correct?
17 A That's right, yes.
18 Q And you also have available on line some of the full
19 texts of journal articles that the library subscribes to,
20 correct?
21 A Yes.
22 Q And would that also include -- do you also have some
23 books available in full text as well on line?
24 A No, except through the Internet.
25 Q Right, okay. Now, your electronic card catalogue
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1 contains information about these two million -- some two
2 million of the items that you have in your collection, right?
3 A Yes.
4 Q And some of the catalogue entries do contain references
5 to sex, right?
6 A Yes.
7 Q And some of them contain four-letter words, correct?
8 A Correct.
9 Q And what we would characterize as the seven dirty words,
10 for purposes of this examination, right?
11 A Correct.
12 Q And when these references to sex or these references to
13 the seven dirty words do appear in your card catalogue those
14 words are a part of the title of the work or part of a
15 content description of the work, is that right?
16 A Yes. It could possibly be headings or subject headings
17 or cross-references or footnotes that the cataloguers have
18 added, yes.
19 Q Okay. But some of these, for example, if we're talking
20 about the title of a book that appears in your card
21 catalogue, perhaps The Joy of Sex would be one where sex
22 comes up, right?
23 A Correct.
24 Q And I believe you also have in your collection
25 videotapes, right?
99
1 A Correct.
2 Q So, perhaps "Sex, Lies and Videotape" would be one of the
3 titles that would come up in your card catalogue, right?
4 A Correct.
5 Q And when we're talking about music, you have a collection
6 of CD's as well, correct?
7 A Yes.
8 Q And I believe you've gone through in your declaration
9 some examples of the types of CD's that would have some of
10 the seven dirty words either in the title or in the
11 description of the contents of the CD, correct?
12 A Correct.
13 Q But these all appear in a card catalogue, right?
14 A That's right.
15 Q And after finding a reference to these works in the card
16 catalogue the library patron generally has to then go
17 physically to your stacks and either select the book or pick
18 out the CD or take the videotape off the shelf to take it
19 home, right?
20 A Yes.
21 Q They don't just go directly from your electronic
22 catalogue to the text of whatever it is that they have
23 selected that they would like to take a look at, right?
24 A Except in the case of on-line journals of course, yes.
25 Q Right, okay. Now, the catalogue entries themselves are
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1 not actually prepared by Carnegie Library for the most part,
2 are they?
3 A Not for the most part.
4 Q For the most part you get them from the Library of
5 Congress, is that right?
6 A Yes, we get them electronically through the Ohio Center
7 for Library Cataloguing, and they're downloaded that way
8 electronically. Most of -- the majority of those entries, at
9 least the popular ones come directly from cataloguing from
10 the Library of Congress, which is loaded electronically into
11 the OCLC center.
12 Q So, you get it electronically, it's already been prepared
13 and you get it electronically and simply insert it into your
14 catalogue system?
15 A That's correct.
16 Q Now --
17 JUDGE DALZELL: Excuse me a second. Is it your
18 testimony that the Library of Congress gives the information
19 to this Ohio center and then the Ohio center puts it in
20 machine-readable form or --
21 THE WITNESS: No --
22 JUDGE DALZELL: -- in electronic form?
23 THE WITNESS: No, the Library of Congress puts it--
24 transfers it electronically. All -- many large libraries,
25 even I understand Harvard --
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1 (Laughter.)
2 THE WITNESS: -- contribute, as does the Carnegie
3 Library of Pittsburgh, to this electronic data base that's
4 gathered and collected in Ohio, and we all download, for a
5 fee, through this center electronically.
6 JUDGE DALZELL: So, the Library of Congress, as well
7 as --
8 THE WITNESS: They're one of the partners --
9 JUDGE DALZELL: -- other providers --
10 THE WITNESS: -- yes.
11 JUDGE DALZELL: -- that's the central source is this
12 Ohio center?
13 THE WITNESS: Correct.
14 JUDGE DALZELL: Is that Ohio University or
15 something, or University of Ohio?
16 THE WITNESS: It started at Ohio University, but it
17 has now split off into an independent organization and it
18 split off to provide that kind of electronic services.
19 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
20 Q Now, your card catalogue that you have on line, that can
21 be searched by key words, can't it?
22 A Yes.
23 Q And I believe that in Paragraph 32 of your declaration
24 you have indicated that you would have to hire some 180
25 additional staff in order to search all two million items
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1 that are in your catalogue, correct?
2 MR. MORRIS: Could I give a copy of --
3 MS. RUSSOTTO: Oh, I'm sorry.
4 MR. MORRIS: -- this declaration --
5 JUDGE DALZELL: Sure.
6 JUDGE SLOVITER: Oh, by all means.
7 JUDGE DALZELL: And could you give a paragraph
8 citation?
9 MS. RUSSOTTO: It's Paragraph 32.
10 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
11 (Pause.)
12 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
13 Q So, you have said that you would have to hire about 180
14 additional staff in order to search all two million items in
15 your card catalogue, is that right?
16 A Yes. If we had to search them manually and if we had to
17 employ professionals or paraprofessionals, yes, that's
18 correct, of our current -- just of our current collections.
19 Q Right, but you did say that you could do a key-word
20 search though through the card catalogue for words related to
21 sex or the seven dirty words, isn't that right?
22 A That's correct.
23 Q And if you do a key-word search then not all two million
24 of your catalogue entries are going to contain any reference
25 to sex or to the seven dirty words, are they?
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1 A Well, it entirely depends, certainly that's one of our
2 confusions under the Act, it entirely depends on what one
3 means by indecent or how it is described or what terminology
4 is being used or, indeed, to what level of extent the search
5 might be, that is, whether it's on content pages or whether
6 it's on chapters, it would be very difficult to know.
7 Q Well, for example then a key-word search on the topic of
8 sex, for example, for everything that's in your card
9 catalogue, all the entries in your card catalogue that have
10 the word sex in them, a key-word search like that is not
11 likely, do you think, to turn up books about gardening, for
12 example?
13 A I certainly wouldn't know, but I would doubt it.
14 Q You do have books about gardening at the Carnegie
15 Library, right?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And a key-word search for the term sex isn't going to
18 turn up books about physics?
19 A Excuse me --
20 Q Not very likely anyway?
21 A Yes.
22 Q You agree with that, that it's not likely to turn up
23 books about physics?
24 A Well, it's likely to turn up -- obviously plants
25 proliferate and flowers grow, and it depends entirely upon
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1 the kind of terminology you're using, sure.
2 Q Okay. Well, what about a biography of Abraham Lincoln,
3 do you think that would turn up in a key-word search using
4 the word sex?
5 A I certainly have written -- I mean I certainly have read
6 some articles and some journal entries about Abraham
7 Lincoln's supposed or lack of sex life, yes.
8 Q Okay. What about books about travel, would they turn up,
9 do you think, in a book about -- in a key-word search for the
10 word sex?
11 A Certainly possibly, but not likely.
12 Q What about books about geology, for example, would they
13 turn up in a key-word search for the word sex?
14 A Probably only if the rock is put together with roll and,
15 in that case, yes.
16 (Laughter.)
17 Q Okay.
18 A I'm sorry, your Honors, I apologize. Probably not.
19 Q Probably not, thank you.
20 (Laughter.)
21 Q Well, would you agree that a key-word search for the word
22 sex is likely to turn up something less than all two million
23 of your card catalogue entries?
24 A Yes, if that three-letter word were the only key word
25 being used, of course, yes.
105
1 Q Well, would you agree also that a key-word search for the
2 seven dirty words are also likely to turn up something less
3 than all two million entries at the Carnegie Library?
4 A Indeed.
5 Q Now, I think you have also said, and I'm referring to
6 Paragraph 22 of your declaration, that you have the full text
7 of some magazine articles on line as well, correct?
8 A Correct.
9 Q And I believe the specific examples that you gave in your
10 declaration were Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and Playboy. The
11 Cosmopolitan magazine that you have on line I'm assuming is
12 the same Cosmopolitan magazine that one can buy at the
13 grocery store check-out counter, is that right?
14 A That's correct.
15 Q And the same Vanity Fair is the same Vanity Fair that you
16 can pick up at the newsstand, right?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And Playboy is the same Playboy you would pick up
19 anywhere, I assume?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Do you carry the pictures from Playboy as well?
22 A Not at the present time, the -- all of these on-line
23 magazines come through a commercial vendor called the
24 information access corporation and at the present time only
25 the abstracts and indexes for Playboy is part of that
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1 licensing agreement that they have with IAC.
2 Q I see. So, someone who is accessing or trying to get on
3 line and get the text of a Playboy article wouldn't find the
4 pictures then?
5 A Not through our on-line magazine access, correct.
6 Q Now, referring to Paragraph 11 of your declaration, you
7 said that it is one of the missions of the Carnegie Library
8 to provide, quote, "the widest array of information to the
9 widest possible audience, both adults and minors," correct?
10 A Yes.
11 Q But you don't provide your library patrons with every
12 type of information that might be available in the world, do
13 you?
14 A No, of course not.
15 Q You do exercise some discretion over what is selected to
16 become part of the collection at the Carnegie Library?
17 A Yes. And then those discretionary things are made up a
18 lot of different reasons and parameters, yes --
19 Q Yes.
20 A -- one of them is economics and one of them is -- all
21 different kinds of things, sure.
22 Q And we talked about some of those when we took your
23 deposition on I believe it was Saturday, correct?
24 A Right.
25 Q And I believe that during your deposition you identified
107
1 some of those selection criteria as community standards and
2 value of the material, right?
3 A Correct.
4 Q And in fact I believe that you told me in your deposition
5 that you, quote, "try to" -- I will show you the page
6 reference actually before I quote this.
7 MS. RUSSOTTO: May I approach, your Honor?
8 JUDGE DALZELL: Yes, you may.
9 (Pause.)
10 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
11 Q Well, let me ask you it a different way, since I do not
12 seem to have a copy --
13 MR. MORRIS: We have a copy of it.
14 MS. RUSSOTTO: Do you have a copy of it? Oh, thank
15 you.
16 JUDGE DALZELL: Thank you.
17 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
18 MS. RUSSOTTO: I apologize.
19 JUDGE SLOVITER: No, it's consistent with the
20 relationship that we've noted throughout.
21 JUDGE DALZELL: And commend.
22 BY MS. RUSSOTTO:
23 Q I was referring to Page 35 of your deposition and it is
24 the end of one of your responses where you had said, quote,
25 that in fact when you select these materials you try to
108
1 reflect what you perceive to be the community standards of
2 your community, is that right?
3 A Correct.
4 Q So, that is a correct statement of one of the criteria
5 that you would use in selecting materials?
6 A Yes. And I think if I -- that I say in addition to that
7 statement right at the same time that it's not -- it isn't
8 and cannot ever be the only criteria and that -- I go on to
9 say that I have an informal definition of a public library as
10 a place with material that offends every one and that's our
11 task, our job.
12 Q Right, I understand that, thank you.
13 A Sure.
14 Q But you don't have Penthouse and Playboy in your
15 collection, do you?
16 A Well, we have Playboy, yes.
17 Q But you don't have the magazine available in hard copy,
18 do you?
19 A That's correct, we do not.
20 Q You don't have Penthouse, right?
21 A That's correct.
22 Q And you don't have Hustler, correct?
23 A That is correct.
24 Q And among your video selections you don't have sexually
25 explicit adult films either, do you?
109
1 A That's right, we do not.
2 MS. RUSSOTTO: I don't have anything further, your
3 Honor.
4 JUDGE SLOVITER: Thank you. Any redirect?
5 MS. KAPPLER: Thank you, your Honor, yes.
6 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
7 BY MS. KAPPLER:
8 Q Mr. Croneberger, you mentioned that as currently now
9 provided Playboy appears in simply an abstract form that you
10 put it on line?
11 A Correct.
12 Q If the commercial provider who provided this information,
13 these journals to you were to provide Playboy in full text
14 would you post that magazine on line in full text?
15 A Of course, certainly.
16 Q And if it included Playboy magazine, delivered it to you
17 in full text including pictures, would you post it in that
18 form on line?
19 A Yes, we would.
20 Q Have you made a determination with your computer staff as
21 to whether you could use a simple key-word search in order to
22 ferret out the material that you post on line that might be
23 subject to the Act?
24 A Yes, we have certainly discussed it at some length and we
25 think it's not feasible, it's simply not possible to do given
110
1 the nature of communication and the nature of words and the
2 difficulty of coming up with all of the parameters that seem
3 to be, at least to us, a part of this Act, it would be
4 extremely difficult to do, impossible to do.
5 Q And I'd like --
6 A Because we're talking -- I'm sorry, we're talking not
7 only about tables of contents, but we're also talking about
8 each edition of each magazine, each edition of each
9 periodical.
10 Q And am I correct that if you were to devise some kind of
11 a key-word search do you feel you could assure yourself that
12 you had located every item that you posted on line that might
13 be subject to the Act?
14 A No, we could not.
15 MS. KAPPLER: I have no further questions, your
16 Honor.
17 JUDGE SLOVITER: Judge Dalzell?
18 JUDGE DALZELL: Any recross, Ms. Russotto?
19 JUDGE SLOVITER: Oh, I'm sorry.
20 MS. RUSSOTTO: None, your Honor.
21 JUDGE DALZELL: Yes, a few questions. You say that
22 about a third of the cardholders of your library are minors?
23 THE WITNESS: Yes.
24 JUDGE DALZELL: And you also say that you have no
25 limitations in the library, those who actually go to the
111
1 library physically, that anyone of whatever age can go
2 anywhere?
3 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
4 JUDGE DALZELL: There is no restrictions based on
5 age?
6 THE WITNESS: Many libraries have different library
7 cards, one type of card for a minor and other for adults, we
8 do not do that and many libraries do not. In a way it's very
9 deliberately -- taking a look at society as it evolves and as
10 it changes, on the one hand there's a great need for easy-to-
11 read material on the part of adults and so, in order to
12 promote access to that material for adults, many libraries,
13 particularly in branch libraries in urban areas are
14 interfiling adult and juvenile material together, so that
15 there is no stigma attached to the adult who wants to get
16 some easy-to-read information. Conversely, the same thing
17 happens in the sense that many children are far more mature
18 in their reading levels than in the past and we openly
19 provide access to anything that that child wants. We feel
20 very strongly that it's the parent's decision on what reading
21 level is available for a child. So, if a child comes into
22 our library and wants to take out a seven-million-page legal
23 text that even adults can't understand, if that child -- we
24 certainly will try to steer that child to something far more
25 appropriate, but if that's not successful, if the child says
112
1 that's what he or she wants we certainly would give it to
2 them, yes.
3 JUDGE DALZELL: Okay. And you say in Paragraph 16,
4 you list, shall we say, some colorful titles, and at the end
5 you say in the carryover from Page 6 to 7 that these are
6 popular titles in our collection, how do you know?
7 THE WITNESS: Well, we certainly can electronically
8 just know how many times a particular book is checked out or
9 how many times a CD is checked out; we don't know who has
10 checked that out, but we know --
11 JUDGE DALZELL: Right, okay. So, these -- for
12 example, these music titles, these are each CD's?
13 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
14 JUDGE DALZELL: So that's -- you're just keeping
15 track that way?
16 THE WITNESS: Right.
17 JUDGE DALZELL: And how do you know the next
18 sentence, "In fact the book by Ice T and the rap music CD's
19 are particular popular with teenagers," how do you know that?
20 THE WITNESS: Well, there are two methods I guess,
21 one is the popularity in terms of waiting lists. When we
22 don't have enough copies of material people sign up on a
23 reserve kind of basis and they're waiting to know. It's
24 simply our experience -- those particular books or that
25 particular book was written with teenagers in mind and it has
113
1 a great deal to do with race relations in inner city areas
2 and it's a popular item among teenagers. We have some staff
3 particularly at the main library who are called young adult
4 librarians and it's their task specifically to relate both in
5 terms of programs and collections to that population.
6 JUDGE DALZELL: All right. And Paragraph 18,
7 talking about contemporary community standards, which Ms.
8 Russotto was getting at with you.
9 THE WITNESS: Yes.
10 JUDGE DALZELL: You say, "I have no clear
11 understanding of what materials would be considered indecent
12 or patently offensive for minors by some communities." Isn't
13 the only community you have to worry about the Three Rivers
14 area?
15 THE WITNESS: No, I don't think so for a couple of
16 reasons. In the first place, the -- we know that a city like
17 PIttsburgh -- well, that Pittsburgh has many different
18 communities within it, ethnic groups that have lived in a
19 particular neighborhood, third and fourth generations in the
20 same homes, we know that there's stability about those ethnic
21 neighborhoods. We know that there are many different levels
22 of communities within the public housing communities, for
23 instance, in Pittsburgh. We know that there are religious
24 organizations and religious groups who have one level of
25 standard which is terribly, terribly different from another
114
1 level of standard which also might be religious. So, when we
2 talk about community standards, we serve communities. But
3 even more so with the electronic information, and this is
4 precisely why I'm concerned about this Act, because our
5 material is now simply available around the world at any
6 time, both the on-line journals, the RIM study, the kinds of
7 projects that we're putting on line, like the early
8 photographs of Pittsburgh we're putting all on line linking
9 them with text, historic text, and then we're even adding
10 audio tapes, we're adding oral history tapes into that
11 segment, so that an old-time resident talks about the way a
12 neighborhood has changed over that period of time. Now,
13 that's material that we're producing ourselves, so that we
14 become an on-line provider, a content provider, a distributor
15 and all of those kinds of things, that's happening more and
16 more with libraries. And the kinds of things that we have in
17 our collections that we're making available to the world's
18 population, we for instance have that one exhibit I think
19 that we have about the RIM study, we have the number of
20 specific domains that have contacted that study over a
21 certain period of time. So, it's not just our community or
22 the local folks. For whatever reason, this Act specifically
23 says that -- libraries are mentioned in it as content
24 providers or as information providers and that gives me great
25 pause, because our collections are now available worldwide.
115
1 JUDGE DALZELL: Two other -- two last questions.
2 First of all, you are active, I surmise from your vitae, in
3 the American Library Association?
4 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
5 JUDGE DALZELL: Are you in a position to answer this
6 question, therefore: Is the use of on-line card catalogues
7 superseding the hard copy that I grew up with and --
8 THE WITNESS: Right, me too.
9 JUDGE DALZELL: -- I suspect you grew up with --
10 THE WITNESS: Certainly.
11 JUDGE DALZELL: -- is that the trend in public
12 libraries?
13 THE WITNESS: Yes, indeed, it is.
14 JUDGE DALZELL: And is it also a trend in public
15 libraries that where you have no copyright problems, e.g.
16 plays of Shakespeare, are those going full text on line in
17 libraries?
18 THE WITNESS: Yes, they're on -- what was happening
19 is that there are providers on the Internet putting specific
20 titles like the works of Shakespeare on, so that not every
21 library does that individually, so that we all link
22 immediately to those kinds of things, those texts, and we all
23 can share them and all have them.
24 JUDGE DALZELL: So, you can hyperlink to that?
25 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
116
1 JUDGE DALZELL: Okay, thank you.
2 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: My question, Mr. Croneberger, is,
3 as I understand your 18-page declaration, the two problems
4 you have with the Act -- and maybe you have more than that,
5 but two of them are that first of all it's technically
6 impossible to comply with it and, even if it were technically
7 possible, it would be financially impossible to comply with
8 it; and, secondly, the definitions are simply impossible, I
9 mean, you just can't ascertain what patently offensive and
10 indecent mean. If you had all the money that you needed and
11 had -- that you wanted and if there were definitions of
12 indecent and patently offensive could you devise a system
13 that would prevent access to people under 18, given those
14 two --
15 THE WITNESS: You mean provide --
16 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: Could you provide a system that
17 would prevent access for people under 18 of indecent and
18 patently offensive material?
19 THE WITNESS: No, I don't think we could.
20 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: Because why?
21 THE WITNESS: Because our definition of what that
22 might be -- I mean even --
23 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: No, no, no, no, I'm just --
24 THE WITNESS: Yes, you've given me the definition.
25 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: -- giving you a hypothesis, I
117
1 just want to know if it's possible given the --
2 THE WITNESS: Given the world's --
3 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: -- I mean, given that you have
4 all of the money you need and, secondly, given a definition
5 that we all agreed upon, could you devise a system then that
6 would prevent people under 18 from getting what we have
7 defined and agreed upon as indecent and patently offensive
8 material?
9 THE WITNESS: Certainly I could not, because I'm not
10 an expert of anything, but I think it could be done, but it
11 certainly would contradict the mission of public libraries in
12 the country.
13 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: Oh, I agree, I agree with you, I
14 was just trying to find out whether you felt a system could
15 be --
16 THE WITNESS: Oh, sure, I would think so.
17 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: -- it is possible to do that.
18 JUDGE SLOVITER: You don't mean you necessarily
19 agree with him that -- well, on the bottom line?
20 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: No, right.
21 JUDGE SLOVITER: Okay, I wanted to make that clear,
22 that still hasn't been decided.
23 JUDGE BUCKWALTER: Yes, that hasn't been decided,
24 absolutely.
25 (Laughter.)
118
1 THE WITNESS: I think part of our problem, if I may,
2 with that is simply that we have parents who are very
3 concerned about a child, a young child looking at a picture
4 book which may show a dog urinating against a fire hydrant
5 and to them that signifies the term indecent, or at the same
6 time another picture book, a very famous one called 'Twas the
7 Night Before Christmas, which at the end of the whole thing,
8 when Santa has gone around the world and done all of the
9 marvelous work he has done he is exhausted and takes a nip of
10 brandy before he crawls into bed for a long sleep, and
11 certainly we have parental objections to that sort of thing.
12 So that we're -- you know, we're concerned about a lot of
13 different levels of stuff here.
14 JUDGE SLOVITER: Let me -- Judge Buckwalter tells me
15 he's done, so I wanted to follow up, because that was my
16 question also. And you'll have to bear with me on this
17 because I didn't expect to ask it, but late last night when I
18 was working here and reading some of this material, in
19 something that I read last night there was listed seven --
20 and I can't remember now whether it was -- and I can't bring
21 it up, so -- on the computer quickly, it was seven categories
22 of material and what I can't remember is whether this
23 material was the kind of thing that groups like Surf Watch
24 would get out or whether it came up in some other category,
25 but one of them was alcoholism and it dealt with where -- and
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1 it made it -- it was kind of where you could get that. And
2 at the same time it just happened to come to my mind that
3 what would Ray Milland and "The Lost Weekend" be, would you
4 feel that if that -- would you -- as a librarian feel that a
5 movie like that would then have to be removed from
6 availability to people under 18?
7 THE WITNESS: I think that's one of my primary
8 concerns, because we don't know, we would certainly be afraid
9 so. We would be afraid that the parameters of the
10 terminology that might be searched if we're going into slang,
11 if we're going into who knows, foreign languages, if we're
12 going into visual images, our concern I think that library
13 feels and feel pretty strongly is that there is a great deal
14 of information that's terribly valuable. If for instance we
15 removed everything under the word sex we miss all of the sex-
16 education material that's terribly important that teenagers
17 have access to, because that's who it was written for, or
18 that kind of material.
19 JUDGE SLOVITER: But going back to my question, on
20 the other hand there are materials -- well, are there
21 materials that deal with excessive alcoholism which you think
22 would be pretty clearly on the other side of the line like,
23 for example, "Leaving Las Vegas," or maybe you don't think
24 that that is on that side of the line?
25 THE WITNESS: I guess I don't -- the librarian part
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1 of me doesn't want that line to exist, you see, because I
2 think that it's a parental decision. I certainly know what
3 affects my 11-year-old and I know how to steer him, but I
4 think that if we as libraries are put in the position of
5 having to make those decisions for other people's children we
6 will fail miserably, we will not do well.
7 JUDGE SLOVITER: And if you were -- or felt obliged
8 to use something like Surf Watch or another group or
9 mechanism like that to exclude from availability to children
10 under 18 books or material that had, I think she said, the
11 hundred -- the list of hundred words, would that exclude much
12 of Shakespeare or some of Shakespeare?
13 THE WITNESS: And the Bible and on and on, I think.
14 Public libraries would love to have net-blocker software
15 available, so that we could loan them to parents free of
16 charge and have the parental responsibilities there. It's
17 something that we do not think we can do, physically do or
18 legally do or technically do, inside a library.
19 JUDGE SLOVITER: But as an expert you agree that
20 net-blockers are available?
21 THE WITNESS: Absolutely, absolutely, and --
22 JUDGE SLOVITER: And feasible?
23 THE WITNESS: And a wonderful parental-supervise
24 tool, absolutely.
25 JUDGE SLOVITER: Okay, I understand. Thank you.
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1 Did that evoke any more questions, any of ours?
2 MS. KAPPLER: No, your Honor.
3 MS. RUSSOTTO: No, your Honor.
4 JUDGE SLOVITER: All right.
5 (Witness excused.)
6 (Discussion held off the record.)
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