The Safe Library - Service, Safety, & Security with Dr. Steve Albrecht

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

One of the hardest jobs I ever held was working as a Ramp Agent for a major airline at a small airport. I loaded and unloaded passenger bags, which meant operating conveyor belts, and crawling into baggage compartments on regional jets that were freezing in the winter, broiling in the summer, and not tall enough to stand up in. I walked planes out to the taxiways and waved arriving planes into the parking position, using the fun orange wands. I drove trucks known as tugs, hooked up planes--using heavy tow bars--for departure pushback, and picked up FOD (Foreign Object Debris) off the tarmac before the planes arrived.

A lot of this work was driven by the use of a checklist, which every employee carried on a lanyard around his or her neck. This two-sided laminated card (for arriving planes and departing planes) was referred to by all ground employees, from the newest to the most senior. We went through both verbal checklists every single time before a plane arrived or as we prepared it to leave. You might say, “I’m sure the longtime employees didn’t even have to read the card out loud. They knew it backward and forward.” No and yes; they did have it fully memorized but they also read it to the whole group, and got a verbal response as to who was going to do what, every single flight. Safety First. Nothing Left to Chance. Step by Step Matters.

Lots of important jobs use checklists: pilots during takeoffs and landings; chefs and cooks in restaurants, to make sure the ingredients are included and the preparation process gets followed; and especially surgeons, as was so well-captured by Dr. Atul Gawande, a physician and surgeon, in his bestseller, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (Picador Books, 2011).

Does your library use a printed checklist for closing time procedures? You might think your facility is too small, or too well-organized to need such a device. “We don’t need a written checklist. We all know what to do. The staff always gets it right. We’ve never left a child locked in the building! Well, there was that one time when we found the kid who managed to get into our break room and fell asleep on our couch after eating all our snacks.”

We can assume ourselves right into a lawsuit or a local or national media event. The bigger your library, the more floors, the more nooks and crannies, stairwells, elevators, media rooms, classrooms, storage rooms, break rooms, and public and staff restrooms you have, the more you have to be thorough in your end-of-the-day/night closing procedures.

Let’s consider what should be on your staff checklist. Some of these you may already do; others need to get added to a written form, kept on a clipboard, and checked by the PIC, so that all staff completes them at the end of each shift.

• Create a systematic process. If you have multiple floors, have some staff start at the top and work down to the bottom floor and some staff work from the bottom to the top floor.
• Walk through every room that needs to be locked and fully verify it’s empty. This includes looking into closets, storage rooms, and cabinets, where a child could hide. (Think like a kid or a developmentally-disabled young adult and consider where you would play hide if you were trying to avoid an adult: toy boxes, large empty storage boxes, unused/unlocked rooms.)
• Make certain every closet, storage room, under-sink, break room, or utility room with any HazMat in it (cleaning supplies, chemicals, glues, paints, bug spray, etc.) is closed, preferably locked, and secured.
• All rooms that house the library server or any telephone or electrical equipment need to be checked and re-locked.
• Make certain all public computers, laptops, or tablets are logged off. If possible, store the portable electronics in a lockable room, like the PC lab.
• If applicable, position any elevators on the ground floor and turn them off.
• Check to see no students or children remain in any rooms designed for their use.
• Verify that all public, children’s, and employee restrooms are completely empty. This means opening the stall doors too.
• If possible, secure and lock the employee break room. Make sure all coffee pots, microwave ovens, or stoves are off and any refrigerator and freezer doors are checked and then tightly closed.
• Make certain all office equipment is turned off: laminators, printers, copiers, postage meters, etc.
• If your library is large enough to have a loading dock or warehouse area, walk through to make certain all vehicle keys are secured, all theft prevention cages are locked, and no one is hiding in the vicinity. (Look up to make certain no one has climbed the access ladder to the roof and is waiting until you leave. Rare, but possible.)
• If your library collects cash or credit card data, make certain all monies, petty cash, or checks are placed into a floor safe before leaving. If you use a cash drawer, place it empty on the counter.
• If your library uses portable security radios, store them in their battery chargers.
• Check the security camera monitor(s) to see that all the interior and exterior camera views are operable and visible, especially in the darkness around the building.
• Check that any installed fire alarm systems are in operation.
• Turn off all non-essential lights.
• Arm the burglar alarm system, if applicable. It can’t help if it’s not on. (For some burglar alarm systems, it’s possible to lock the facility with the staff inside and then activate the “Intrusion Alarm Only” function of the alarm, meaning it will ring audibly and/or notify the police or the alarm motoring company if some breaks in while staff is still inside. The system can be re-armed as staff leaves the building.)
• Leave as a group; walk each other to your cars or ask the library security officer to do that, if applicable. (If sketchy people loiter in the parking lot after closing time, ask the local police to have an officer sit in the lot for a few minutes each night until all staff has left. This step is possible if it’s requested on a nightly basis and they aren’t busy.)
• Report any exterior lighting outages along the building perimeter, walkways, sidewalks, and in the parking lots. This includes testing the emergency lighting system occasionally as well.
• (If applicable, make certain the Library Cat is found, fed, watered, and given a clean litter box before leaving.)

When speaking about the Russians during the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan said, “Trust but verify.” Be thorough when you close the library.