[Publib] Latecomers to story hours

[Kevin M. Davis]

Though late arrivals can be rude and disruptive, they are to be  
expected, particularly with any program or service that involves  
children.

As a parent, when I discover an eruptive diaper just as I'm rushing  
out the door with my daughter to make it to story hour in time, would  
you prefer me to take the time to change her and end up running late,  
or to arrive on time and proceed to stink up the place?  I'm gonna bet  
the other patrons, at least, would prefer the diaper gets changed.

 From the harried parent's point of view, it seems the policy is one  
that is basically saying "we don't care what your reason is, you're  
late, go away!"  I gotta say, I'd be perturbed, too, if my library  
took that attitude with me.

Late arrivals are disruptive to the program and disrespectful of the  
presenter and others, but they are to be expected.  Unless there's a  
particular reason for locking down the story room, it would seem that  
the late arrival policy is one meant to enforce courtesy more than  
anything else and, if that's the case, that's a hard policy to defend.

It's always good to step back and think about who serves who in the  
library-patron relationship and to think about how a proposed policy  
fits into that dynamic.



Kevin Davis
Director of Libraries
City of South Portland, Maine





>
> From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org 
> ] On Behalf Of George Hazelton
> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 2:14 PM
> To: publib at webjunction.org
> Subject: [Publib] Latecomers to story hours
>
> How many of you folk in Library-Land will not admit kids and their  
> parents if they are late to a story hour?  Do you post a statement  
> to the effect that those more than X minutes late will not be  
> admitted?
>
> We’ve had a patron bring her toddler to a story hour TWENTY-FIVE  
> minutes late and become livid, enraged, when she was not admitted.   
> She called two county commissioners, and has just finished chewing  
> out the library Director, telling her that she ran the library like  
> a Nazi, and that she might be endangering her job.  She also  
> threatened to call the newspapers to view the offending sign.  I  
> wonder what she’d do with a real problem.
>
> George Hazelton
> Assistant Director
> Henry County Library System
> 1001 Florence McGarity Pkwy
> McDonough, GA  30252
> Phone:  770-954-2806
> FAX:    770-954-2808
> email:    ghazelton at mail.henry.public.lib.ga.us
>
> _______________________________________________
> Publib mailing list
> Publib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/mailman/listinfo/publib

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/attachments/20080519/a16211e5/attachment.htm