June 26th, 2008 Brian Herzog
This isn’t a new issue, but it’s happen three times this week, so I thought I’d mention it: people using the library for storage.
I don’t mean the library collection. I mean patrons using the friendly and easy-going atmosphere of the library as a safe place to either leave things, store things, or transfer things to someone else.
So far this week, I have been involved in the following situations:
- A patron who routinely leaves her notebook and text books at the library. She knows we clean up each night and hold things like this at the lost-and-found at the desk, in case someone comes to claim them. She said she knows they are safe, and it’s easier than her lugging it all home each night
- A patron who emailed me important files from his home computer, because he was sending it out for service and didn’t want to lose them (I won’t even try to explain that he could have emailed them to himself instead of me, not to mention backing up to disk)
- A patron who uses the library as a drop-off point: for instance, if she needs to get some documents to someone else, and they can’t meet personally, she’ll leave them at the desk with that person’s name on them and tell the other person to pick them up at the library
It says a lot that people not only trust the library like this, but also think of us in these situations. That’s being an important part of the community.
But it’s also annoying, you know? The library cannot take responsibility for these items, so it worries me that people rely on good natures and good fortunes. I could understand if we had public lockers for these purposes, but we don’t (then there are the stories of library lockers being used for drug deals and who knows what all).
All of these exchanges involve staff time, which is another concern. A few times a month is no big deal, but if more people routinely use the library to store their personal property, or to pass along items to other people - or worse, as daycare until their child can be picked up by someone else - this kind of thing could easily get overwhelming.
Or am I wrong? Should libraries do whatever patrons ask of us, and make it part of our mission to offer this kind of service? I fully support the idea of library as community center, so perhaps. It just seems something like this needs to be decided deliberately, and not just be some patrons getting special treatment on the sly.
Tags: drop-off, libraries, Library, Personal, pick-up, private, public, Service, storage, transfer, use See Also
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April 29th, 2008 Brian Herzog
In addition to updating our Circulation policy, we also recently revised a few different areas of our Library Use policy.
For the last ten months or so, we’ve had a trial period of not enforcing our “No Cell Phones” policy, to see how much of a problem it was. During that time, we learned two things:
- Cell phones aren’t the problem: loud ringers and loud talking are
- People who do get a call are usually pretty good about removing themselves to a quieter area to speak, without us asking them to
Since two people sitting at a table having an overly-loud conversation is just as disruptive as someone having an overly-loud cell phone conversation, we wanted to reword our policy to permit non-disruptive use. Our goals were:
- Promote behavior that is courteous to other patrons
- Provide areas and circumstances where cell phone use is allowed
- Use wording that does not target a specific technology, so it doesn’t get outdated as technology evolves
So in the end, we went from this:
Cellular phones may not be used inside library buildings.
to this:
Mobile devices such as cellular phones and hand-held computers should be set to “silent” mode. Use of a mobile device in the library should be brief and quiet. Out of respect to other library patrons, prolonged conversations should be moved to a less public area, such as the foyer, the courtyard or the parking lot.
Wordier, I know, but hopefully clear and more in line with modern patron needs (though still a bit short of a cell phone lounge).
For our Food and Drink policy, we wanted to change it to permit drinks in covered containers, so we went from this:
Food and/or drink are not permitted.
to this:
Food is permitted only in the meeting room during special events and in the outdoor seating areas. Food is not permitted in any other public area of the library. Drinks are allowed throughout the building, but only in covered containers. Care must be taken to avoid spills, and patrons should notify staff if any spills occur. Beverages and waste should be disposed of properly and containers should be recycled whenever possible.
And we expanded our Smoking Policy from this:
Smoking is not allowed.
to this:
The use of tobacco products and alcoholic beverages are not allowed.
Funny how specific you have to be when writing policies. “The use of” was added at the last minute, because without it, we realized the policy forbid people from even having cigarettes in their purse, and Library staff is certainly not going to be checking bags.
We had input from our Board of Trustees on these changes, so although they won’t be officially approved until their May meeting, we’ve already got them posted on our website.
A patron may never notice something like this, but hopefully it’ll go a long way towards making everyone’s (patrons and staff) library experience better.
See Also
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