ASU police have seen a significant drop in calls related to pornography since filters were installed on many of the University's library computers last semester, officials said.
So far this school year, ASU Department of Public Safety has not handled any cases involving child pornography on a library computer, said Sgt. Jim Hardina, investigations unit supervisor for the department.
In spring 2005, the semester before the filters were installed, the department arrested two individuals for viewing child pornography, Hardina added.
DPS does not track calls related to the viewing of adult pornography, as it is not a criminal act, Hardina said.
However, Hardina said DPS still receives calls regarding adult pornography. Detectives investigate these calls to make sure there is no child pornography involved, he added.
The number of calls related to adult pornography seems to have decreased, Hardina said.
"Really, the only cases [of pornography] ... were mostly from Hayden Library, but once they put the filters on, those went down a lot," he said.
Vicki Coleman, associate dean for library services, agreed.
"I don't know of any incidents since we installed the filters," Coleman said.
The filters are ASU's solution to several complaints of people unaffiliated with ASU using library computers to view pornography, she added.
The filters prohibit users from visiting pornographic Web sites on computers that do not require an ASURITE ID to log in, she added.
These computers, the only ones available to the general public, make up about 10 percent of the libraries' computers, Coleman said.
The remaining 90 percent were left alone so filters would not inhibit ASU students or staff from doing legitimate research, she added.
"An image of, say, a nude painting could be offensive to someone, but to an art student it could be homework for a class," Coleman said.
Also, Coleman added, most pornography complaints to library staff involve people unaffiliated with ASU.
"I can't think of an incident where it was someone affiliated with the University [viewing pornography]," she said.
Coleman said when a student allegedly viewed pornography and masturbated in the library in January, the incident was handled only by police and not library staff.
Computers used by members of the University community also remained filter-less because activity can be tracked through users' ASURITE IDs, said Kirk Manegold, ASU technology support analyst.
"If inappropriate stuff is happening, we can easily track it," he said.
Reach the reporter at shea.drefs@asu.edu.
