The mission of the Florence County Library is to provide material and service to all citizens of Florence County and help them obtain information and materials to meet personal, educational, and professional needs. The Internet is an electronic tool for assisting in this mission. The library encourages public use of the Internet for personal, educational, professional and recreational needs.

The Internet offers World Wide Web access to many sources of information on a local, national, and international level. Some information may be inaccurate, incomplete, dated, or offensive to some individuals. The Library is not responsible for Internet content. Parents or legal guardians assume responsibility for deciding which library resources are appropriate for their children.

GUIDELINES

1. Persons using Internet computers in the library must click to agree to the Internet policy before using the Internet.


2. Users must present a library card issued by the Florence County Library for the initial signup to use the public computer terminals.



Anyone using library computers must follow all library policy and all applicable laws. Anyone found to be in violation of this library policy or of any applicable law will be subject to the following penalties:




1st Violation: The patron may not use library Internet computer terminals for 6 months.




2nd Violation: The patron may not use library Internet computer terminals for 1 year.




3rd Violation: The patron is banned indefinitely from using library Internet computers until the library director gives his/her expressed permission for the banned patron to resume use.




The library director may increase or decrease the length of any penalty at his/her discretion.



3. Parents or Legal Guardians of users age 13 and under must sign a parental permission agreement. Under normal operating conditions, children aged thirteen and under must use the designated Internet computers located in the children’s section of the library, and thus may be governed by additional policies. Adults and children age 14 and above are expected to use the computers in the adult computer area.


4. Children are allowed one continuous hour on the computer. If a child signs-off before the hour has expired, the child forfeits the remainder of the time. However, if patrons are not waiting for a computer, users may stay on longer as determined by the library staff.


5. The Internet computers and connected printers are managed by an electronic reservation system, and by staff persons on duty in order to fairly ensure access to library resources for all library patrons. This may result in limited use of computers, and in various charges for specific services such as printing.


6. In accordance with the South Carolina State Law on filtering (FY 02 APPROPRIATIONS ACT - Filtering PROVISO 72.95), and the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), all public Internet computers provided by the Florence County Library System are equipped with filtering software to prevent the viewing of pornographic material. Anyone who instructs or demonstrates to another person on how to bypass the web-filtering technology on any library computer will forfeit all future rights to use any computer within the Florence County Library System. This policy is effective June, 2001, and revised June 2004.



The Library will provide access to websites that have been blocked as follows:




(A) Should an adult patron (18 yrs. or older) desire to access a website that has been blocked by the filtering software, he or she can request that the filter be disabled. If the site appears to be in accord with the Library’s Internet Use Policy, a staff member will temporarily disable the filter to allow the adult patron access to the website for “bona fide research or other lawful purpose”.




(B) Any patron may request that a website be unblocked or blocked; and, depending on whether or not the site appears to be in accord with the Library’s Internet Use Policy after being reviewed by designated staff, the site will be unblocked or blocked.



7. If Library staff has reason to believe a user is accessing child pornography in violation of Section 16-15-405 Code of Laws of South Carolina (Second degree sexual exploitation of a minor), the user’s name will be turned over to law enforcement. Any other unlawful acts will be handled in accordance with local, state, and federal law.


8. Users may not download programs or modify library computers in any way without staff assistance.


9. No more than two users may gather at one workstation. Whoever has used their library account to log into a computer is responsible for anyone using the computer under their account.


10. Library computers will have updated anti-virus software configured to scan files on disks as they are accessed. Persons warned by the software that they may have a virus on their disk should stop work immediately and seek staff assistance.


11. Any computer left unattended will be automatically shut down after ten minutes.


12. On-line chatting and on-line games are not permitted.