LIBRARY SECURITY BOOSTED `INAPPROPRIATE' BEHAVIOR TARGETED AFTER INCIDENTS.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

Library officials in northern Los Angeles County have clamped down on inappropriate behavior in local branches, officials said Tuesday.

At the Valencia branch, one of the busiest in the system, there were four incidents, including a man believed to have exposed himself on Aug. 22, 2005, and a sex-related incident eight days later. In the first incident, library patrons who witnessed it disagreed over whether the act was intentional, Todd said.

Also, a new filtering program was installed recently to block children from accessing questionable content online, and within 60 days there will be more permissive filter technology on computers only adults use at the libraries. That move came after a complaint at the Valencia branch.

County library officials are trying to strike a balance between the right of library patrons to access information online, and the concerns of those who don't want to see offensive content on library computers.

``I think it depends on the community you serve,'' said Margaret Donnellan Todd, the county librarian. ``Our problem is, L.A. County is so diverse. It's hard to find the right fit. So we think this is the right fit.''

As part of its $384,000 initiative to reconfigure computers to block potentially offensive content, the library system is also installing monitors with special technology that only allows the person directly in front of the screen to see an image.

The filtering software the libraries are using for children prevents them from accessing sexually explicit sites, terrorist sites, hate sites and the controversial MySpace Web site. The filter for adults is more permissive, and if an adult wants to see a site that is blocked, he or she can ask a librarian to unblock it.

In Lancaster, full-time security was added after a series of complaints, and incidents have decreased.

Before the library got a security guard and a video monitoring system in May 2005, the library had several incidents of inappropriate sexual behavior, including a report that a man propositioned a juvenile.

``It was unusual,'' said Todd. ``The minute we started to see those incidents, we said, this is very strange. Normally, Lancaster is very quiet, very peaceful.''

County librarians asked the Sheriff's Department and the county Office of Public Safety to look into the matter, and they determined that many of the people causing problems at the library came from homeless centers that had recently opened in the area, Todd said. A mental health agency also opened in the area.

The only other library among the 84 branches the county operates that has full-time security is the Compton branch; that branch has had problems with inappropriate sexual behavior as well.

But the Lancaster branch had a dozen incidents going back to May 31, 2003, whereas most other libraries had no more than two incidents over the same period.

At the Lancaster branch, library officials supplemented their one security guard with another guard in September 2005, so now there are always two guards on duty for every hour the library is open. Since the library has added security, there has been only one report of inappropriate sexual behavior, in April.

``I really think we saw the problem and addressed it,'' said Fred Hungerford, assistant director of the library system.

Providing the extra security at the Lancaster branch costs $150,000 a year.

The county librarian was questioned about security arrangements at various county libraries at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich wanted to know if convicted sex offenders could be barred from the libraries, but Todd answered that she has no way of knowing if a library patron is a sex offender.

``It's shocking,'' Antonovich said. ``And you would think that if you're going to have state law that precludes them from being around young children, and then they have the library that allows them to escape that, then perhaps we ought to look at having legislation to include libraries under those types of specifications that prohibit pedophiles from being in contact with younger people.''

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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