The following letters were written by three women who have worked in libraries for many years. I felt they merited placement on our safety page.
I do not have any children but have worked with them off and on for many years in the library setting. First in a Public Library children's room and lately in a University Library (we still get a few.)
My comment that I would like for you to spread far and wide is that "It is not safe to take your children to the local library and let them loose." We wish it were but think about it. We are a public institution who has no control over who comes or goes. When the staff is busy helping the patrons, (a patron is anyone who comes in to use the library), we cannot watch children as they need to be watched.
9 times out of 10 your child will be safe at the library but it is the 10th time which frightens the library workers. We cannot even control who comes and goes from the children's room itself because any adult who has children (or says they have children) is allowed to check out books for that child whether the child is with them or not.
Another issue is that how many unsupervised children told to "stay in the children's room" will actually do it. Some will, but most will eventually go looking for Mom or Dad. Some even leave the library itself and then there is no telling what can happen.
So please, please, make parents, guardians and nannies aware of the fact that they have to
be just as careful in the library as you do in the grocery store.
Linda Rae Putnam - Library worker for 25 years.
I am currently working in the Virginia Historical Society, but I previously worked in the Richmond Public Library and I have some examples of the safety of children at the library.
The first concerns a school group. Several groups come to the library regularly. This one was a pre-school group that came weekly. One time I noticed that the children seemed to be gone, but there were two still wandering around in the children's area (visible from the circulation desk). What happened was that the teachers had herded the group out to the school van and started to drive off without counting heads to make sure that everyone was there. When I mentioned this to the branch librarian, she said that that particular group had done the same thing in the past. There were about ten children in the group, and I have childhood memories of taking car trips and my parents counting heads for just three of us.
The public library branch had a homework session every Wednesday and Monday evening. Quite a few latch key kids came to the sessions then had to call their parents for rides home. Frequently kids came to the library instead of going home. Whenever closing the library, we would always wait with the children until their parents showed up.
This is not about children, but there was at least one case where the caregiver for a
mentally challenged individual would leave him at the library during the afternoon to take a
break from caring for him. He
caused no trouble, but it was worrisome for the staff as we weren't sure what to do if there
was a problem.
Jeri Anne Townley
I work in an academic library in Australia. We have had a couple of cases of child safety in the last 8 years. In one case a young child was left in the library while his mother went to classes. She did not tell us this is what she was doing or where she was going. After 5pm our staff numbers reduce to 2 people so we were not aware the mother was not around. The child came up to the desk with a bleeding mouth, he was scared, in pain and did not know where his mother was. We sent a message to security and gave the child a tissue while we debated on giving him aspirin for the pain. Good thing we didn't as the child was allergic to it. It took security 30 minutes to locate the mother as they had to go to each and every lecture theatre on campus till they found her.
In another case we had a child abducted by the non-custodial parent. Again the mother assumed we would know her child was there unattended and that she was to collect the child. All we actually knew was the child was leaving with a man she kept calling daddy and was happy to be with. The father was caught accidentally in the car park when the child called out goodbye to mummy while being put in the car.
In too many cases parents assume that the library staff will look after their child and
attend to their needs. In reality, we have schedules to work to and child minding is not
considered to be part of them. There is
not one staff member I work with who would bring their child into their own work place for
the day unless they could be with the child all the time because of safety factors. When
you have a desk to work you cannot give
your child (or anyone else's) the attention they need to keep them safe. It only takes a
few minutes/seconds for a child to be abducted.
Sharron Zuodar
Cataloguing Officer
University of South Australia Library
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