Broke the security screen on the internet station I was using in the library. My hour was up and I was getting up so the next person could use the station, and when I grabbed my backpack it pulled the security screen off the front of the monitor. It landed on the chair I'd been sitting on and shattered. I didn't realize they were made of glass. Guess I hadn't thought about it. Makes sense, I guess it's some kind of polarizer. The stated purpose of having one installed is to protect the privacy of the person using the station. The real use though is to keep the other patrons from being offended by what some people are looking at. The porn in other words. It's been my experience that a great number of the people using these internet stations are using them to look at pornography. It's kind of an interesting dilemma that they face in the library.

They don't want to censure what the patrons are doing, and on the other hand they don't want to offend the other people (children among them) that are using the library for more conventional things. A tough situation. When I go in and ask for a station they take my name from my drivers license--I always ask for a station that's in the back cause it's quieter there (though it can get pretty rowdy back there as well) but I soon noticed that this is exactly what the people who are using them for looking at sexual material were doing. I was laughing to myself one morning as I approached the desk to signup--I was going to tell the librarian: "give me some internet love", but realized that this could be taken the wrong way, and might give them the idea that I was using the station for something other than what I was using it for.

Not that it would matter to them. I asked one of the librarians if they didn't see a lot of weird stuff working this internet station gig. He laughed and told me: "it comes with the teritory". Then I told him about the time that I noticed a guy looking at a beaver shot as I came into the department. He had had the security screen removed and his face was about an inch from the screen. Anybody walking into the library at this point would have had almost as good a view as he did. I asked the librarian if it wouldn't have been wiser for this chap to sit in the back where there was more privacy. He said: "if I was going to look at something like that, that's what I would do...".

Anyway, one can see the need for these "security screens". They _do_ get very annoying though. Depending on the monitor one uses they can make it quite difficult to see what you're viewing. Even when seated in the "sweetspot". Several times they have fallen off of the monitor of their own accord. A safety issue.

I felt bad about breaking the screen. I know everybody is kind of tapped out for funding (myself included). The head librarian gave me a hard time: "those cost a hundred dollars" she told me quite sternly. Then asked me how it happened. I forget everything she said though our conversation was brief it was clear that she was attempting to make it seem as though it had only happened because of my negligence. Clearly I'm at least partly to blame. I shouldn't have been in such a big hurry to clear out for the next patron, or I should have put my backpack in a better place. I'm a little worried about leaving it behind though when I leave and since it's got my laptop in it I sure don't want to do that.

I told the head librarian: "perhaps they should be fastened more securely..."

Her reply was that some patrons like to remove them, but everywhere there are signs that tell you not to. I feel bad about breaking the privacy screen. But I also feel like I have been the victim of a safety issue that they have at the library. I've had these screens fall off on my as I was using these computers. If I had realized that they were breakable I would have been a bit more careful. They're not labeled as such, and they are very poorly fastened.