[Publib] Boy raped in Boston library...NY Times --Continuation of discussion regarding adults in children's areas inpublic libraries

[Robert L. Balliot]

Greetings,

The incident could have been that someone was robbed, or
groped, or materials were damaged, or materials were
stolen, or someone perished because no one noticed them
in the stacks for eight minutes after they had a heart
attack.

To me, the umbrella issue is not children and adults -
it is security. If the stack area was visible to the
staff, would there have been an incident?  When thinking
about redesign and configuration of your services, put
manageable security on the list.  

If service points can see each other and service 
points can see down stacks, the opportunity for crime to go unoticed is
far less.  A staff member does not need to be able to
take down a perp, but if they can see something going
on from their service desk, they can certainly sound
the alarm.

I turned all of the stacks during a reconfiguration
so that all areas in the children's area were visible
by staff, the children's staff could see the circ staff -
who could see all of there area, and the circ staff
could see the reference staff - who could see all of
their area.  No only does this improve security, but
it also can improve service - what you point to is
not theoretical.

*************************************************
Robert L. Balliot
1-401-441-5763
Skype: RBalliot
Bristol, Rhode Island
http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm
*************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Paul Ericsson
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 1:01 PM
To: subs itoors; publib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Publib] Boy raped in Boston library...NY Times --Continuation
of discussion regarding adults in children's areas inpublic libraries 

Colleagues --

It goes without saying that this reported incident is horrific.

But back to the original question - I was one of 
the people that replied and was critical of the 
library policy that banned adults from the 
children's section of the library.  Even with 
this horrific incident as an example of what does 
happen in this world (probably more often than 
any of us know) - it is my experience that the 
policy in question still does little-to-nothing 
to prevent the incident from happening.


Paul Ericsson