In preparing to welcome our patrons back amid a statewide mask mandate, library leadership realized our existing behavior policy was inadequate. Our policy lacked the nuances needed during a pandemic and didn’t cover our expanded virtual services. It needed more consistent and empathetic oversight when we knew our community was dealing with polarized and heightened … Continue reading Behavior Policy Reboot
My study aimed to determine whether sampled policies had manifest messages of diversity and the degree of congruence between these policies and ALA’s “Diversity in Collection Development: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” adopted in 1982 and last amended in 2019. Given that diversity is one of the core values of librarianship and … Continue reading What Does Diversity Mean?
The incident and the recent efforts by the Texas-based nonprofit Defense Distributed to publish blueprints for manufacturing 3D-printed guns has libraries across the country working to establish policies to block individuals from printing the weapons. On July 31, US District Court Judge Robert Lasnik issued a temporary restraining order to block Defense Distributed from publishing … Continue reading A Patron Wants to Print a Gun: Now What?
Though his moniker is absent from modern headlines, there’s one harasser whose name is known to librarians everywhere: Melvil Dewey. In the #MeToo era, how should the library profession handle Dewey’s legacy, tainted as it is by sexism and racism? Dewey—who was, of course, a founder of the American Library Association (ALA) and the inventor … Continue reading Bringing Harassment Out of the History Books
Point: Jenny Paxson, readers’ advisory librarian, Webster (N.Y.) Public Library Does your library charge fines? We do charge fines at Webster Public Library. How are the collected funds used? We use the funds—$71,000 collected from fines annually—as part of our operating budget. Without them it would be difficult to run the library. Do fines discourage … Continue reading An Overdue Discussion
Safety and security are everyone’s jobs. This includes the library director, every department head, every supervisor, all full- and part-time employees, library board members, Friends of the library members, elected officials, and even patrons—who can and should tell us about safety or security concerns when using our branches. Safety and security themes Facility safety and … Continue reading Better Communication, Safer Facilities
