A College Library official said Sunday an incident involving a suspicious man using library computers to allegedly chat with a teenage girl last week lacks evidence to hold a case.

Several UW students reported the man was viewing photos of young-looking women and allegedly chatting with a teenage girl.

The library recovered a conversation transcript from that evening, a copy of which was obtained by The Badger Herald.

The transcript revealed the conversation in which the man discussed possible sexual encounters and encouraged the girl to move to Madison lasted more than four hours.

The students contacted library personnel, and a security officer asked the man to leave the library.

College Library Director Carrie Kruse said the security officer on duty followed library procedures by asking the man to leave the library.

She added the incident was not reported to the University of Wisconsin Police Department because the suspicious transcript was not initially reported as part of the original complaint.

"For us, the problem had been taken care of," Kruse said. "The person viewing inappropriate material was asked to leave."

Kruse said there is no evidence the man was involved in the chat, and as a librarian, it is difficult to always oversee how people use library facilities.

"We do not and cannot and probably should not be reading specifically what people are viewing on their computers," Kruse said. "We are very specific about users' privacies."

During the 2006-07 academic year, 20 to 30 patrons were asked to leave the premises due to similar problems, according to Kruse.

"We have not had a history of problems at the library — maybe because it's kind of difficult to get away with it," Kruse said. "You can walk in and almost with one glance see what's going on at the library."

Kruse said, had the problem reported last week persisted, library personnel would have proceeded to discuss the matter and potentially ban the man from all campus libraries.

College Library has a full-time security officer working most evenings of the week, and during late hours, the library is also patrolled by another officer shared with Memorial Library.

UW junior Tyler Gregory, a lead student consultant at the College InfoLab, said in his two years working at the lab, suspicious outsiders rarely come in to use library computers.

According to Gregory, the lab has recently switched to a different login system in which patrons are required to enter their NetID to have access to the computers.

"If they don't have an ID, they're not entitled to use the library," Gregory said.

Kruse, however, said it is important to remember that because UW is a public institution, the premises are open to public so long as people are using library resources for research purposes.

"I think in general, the libraries at this university all feel the obligation to serve the public as well as the students, staff and faculty," Kruse said. "We're not going to run over someone who has ESPN opened."

Gregory said the InfoLab has access to one guest account for the nonstudent public, and those may be used at the consultants' discretion.