After catching community members using its library to look at inappropriate web sites, Winona State University has changed its public access rules.
As of Monday, community members who want to use the library must present a government issued I.D.
They also must be at least 17 years old, and anyone under 18 must have a parent or guardian with them when they are authorized.
The other main change is that each person can only use a computer for two hours each day.
According to Dr. Larry Hardesty, Dean of Library Services, people have been caught looking at pornography on at least three occasions.
He said two were registered sex offenders and one was arrested in the library for violating his parole.
Hardesty said after these incidences, they didn’t have much of a choice but to implement policies that would protect the students.
“It’s a shame because it’s just a few people doing it,” Hardesty said, “but we have to do it because those few people are disrupting and making it awkward and sometimes just uncomfortable for the majority.”
Aside from inappropriate computer usage, Hardesty said there is a problem with younger people coming in to play games and would bother others in the library.
“We had some middle school students coming in, playing games and taking up a lot of time,” Hardesty said. “They would get bored and run around the library being disruptive.”
With the new rules came new programs. Barracuda is a program that blocks certain sites, and Envision is a program that requires users to be authenticated and limits user’s time.
“We are an academic institution and there are certain things we can provide, and would like to provide,” Hardesty said. “That doesn’t mean we have to provide someone with a computer for 16 hours a day to play games or run a business.”
Hardesty said he hasn’t seen any opposition and he’s been thanked by students and staff who were feeling uncomfortable.
He also said the school wants to make sure their not involved in anything illegal, like child pornography.
“I’m sure with the time limits as we’ve implemented them, there will be a couple people who spend their waking hours here that might be disappointed,” Hardesty said.
While Hardesty said it is unfortunate this needed to be done, he added the public library has had the same problems, and that many of his colleagues at other universities have had to implement similar policies in their libraries.
“Last summer and early this fall we realized we were just being much too open and, for whatever reason, both the public library and us, we were having the same problems,” Hardesty said.
Hardesty also said the public access rules will not affect any of the computers in the information gallery or use by students and it is just the computers the public has access too.

Contact Courtney at CLZinter8738@winona.edu