[Publib] RE: Security in School Library/Public Library

[TERRI PILATE]

Hi,

I am part of a county library system that has a number of joint-use 
libraries and they all operate differently.

I am a branch manager of a joint-use high school and public library.  We are 
open to the public and school all day, at the same time, in the same 
facility.  I work for the public library--a county library branch.  The 
library is located on campus with its own entrance and parking lot but the 
entrance also leads onto the high school campus.  The school provides campus 
supervisors/security during and after school time.  After they leave at 
4:30, we use the local police/sheriff.  Public are not allowed on campus via 
the library/theater hall entrance except now they are doing construction 
near the school office and it is blocking the public entrance onto the 
campus...next year they may need to route public access onto the campus 
another way.

This is a small city of 31,000.  The high school is experiencing some new 
gang activity and lots of tagging.  There have been some racially motivated 
problems but the school seems to have quelled that for the most part.  The 
public library activity within our library is less than I would hope for a 
community library since the public has a hard time wanting to be around 
large groups of teens.  We have only had a few situations that posed a 
threat to high school security.  As manager and with the help of staff I 
usually can pinpoint the problem characters and get help before anything 
adverse has happened.  Most of our problems come from middle school kids 
posing as thugs and high school teachers that cannot control their classes 
using the school's computer lab (housed in the library but is not separated 
out from the rest of the library).

Hope this helps,
Terri
Southern California