As for CDs we have a patron who just wants to listen to the CDs in the library, we make him check them out so we have the stats even though he never leaves with them.

With your permission (see, I paid attention), I’d like to share w/ our training mgr for possible inclusion in training new reference staff.

@sharon: we get that too – patrons bring their laptops in and then sit at a table with a stack of CDs. At least they could check the CDs out to give us the circ stats – sheesh.

@Al: just wait until one of the invited kids’ parents happens to be a lawyer – that does sound risky.

@moonflowerdragon: thank you. We do still keep those at each desk, but I don’t know how often they’re handed out. For some reason though, I didn’t even think of it in this case, but it would have been perfect. But it looks like that bookmark could be reworded to include online resources too, not just library material – thanks for reminding me of this.

As for liability, I’m not expert, but my guess is that wouldn’t kick in unless library staff were either encouraging or performing illegal activity.

I had a patron who asked me repeatedly to show her how to copy our music CDs onto her Ipod. I tried to explain that I really couldn’t do that because of copyright restrictions, but that her teenager could probably show her. I suggested that she could just try popping a CD into her laptop to see what happens. We also went over buying music from iTunes and transferring it to the Ipod, so I think she finally put the pieces together herself. Anyway, she did stop asking.