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

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Consider how much responsibility we place on the shoulders of a receptionist at an average public or private sector front counter. I'm not talking about the entrance desk to the Strategic Air Command or a Hollywood movie studio, where we expect security to be tight and access control is the phrase of the day. I mean an office, with a receptionist in a lobby, alone. We expect this person – with almost no training beyond just good common sense and intuition – to make safety, security, and admittance decisions every day. We expect this employee to be a combination of amateur psychologist, part-time Ninja, and a service-quality champion, all without much guidance beyond, "Check the person's ID. Have him or her sign the Visitor's Logbook. Issue a visitor's badge. Call the person he or she wants to see, to provide an escort to the back office. If this person refuses to follow our procedures, tell him or her they have to leave. Hopefully, all goes well after all that. If not, call Security or the police.” 

In some US states, becoming a uniformed security guard requires classroom training and even passing a Powers of Arrest test. Most security companies worth their salt provide at least a basic round of training to their new-hires, including: how to follow the Posted Orders for the site they are sent to; municipal and state civil, traffic, and criminal laws; basic first aid; and how, when, and why to make a citizen's arrest. Some states have no such training requirements; you get the guard we give you and let's hope that officer has some life skills, work experience, job knowledge, and enough sense not to cause us expensive problems.

Back in the Library World, consider an employee - often a part-timer, a student, or a retired person, paid at or near the bottom of our wage scale - who we ask to combine the skills of a receptionist and a security guard. Behold the Library Page.

We may position these staffers at various Circulation or Information Desks, to perform reception and service duties. But they're most often seen on the floor, shelving books, clearing work areas, cleaning up messes, walking amidst the stacks, and interacting with patrons. Some libraries assign security duties to Pages, asking them to handle disputes between patrons, intervene when staff members get accosted by certain patrons, manage problematic patron behaviors, escort those patrons out of the building, or call the police. 

In short, Pages perform many of the same service and security duties as receptionists and security guards, often for far less pay and more painfully, with not much respect for their efforts. While the patrons may not know who they are, some libraries have created an erstwhile ranking system, where the Pages--who may be substantially younger, older, or thought less-educated than their colleagues (even though some Pages have library degrees)--are not held with or given the same respect as full-time or library-degreed employees.

"Not at my library!" you say. Good for you. But review the following story sent to Library20.com and see how some Pages are treated and how they perceive their status in some library organizations. This is from a recent email sent to Steve Hargadon at www.Library20.com:  

Before the pandemic, I was employed as a Page at our Public Library. There were about 50 of us in the main branch, some of who've been Pages for over 20 years. I know this is prevalent in the public library universe, but I don't understand why Pages are largely considered as disposable low-value commodities, undeserving of benefits or union memberships, As a Page, even with an MLIS, there is no path to advancement; we were hired as Part-Time Temporary labor, restricted to 960 hours/year, which negates all possible benefits. I cannot fathom the reasoning behind labeling a worker as PT/Temp for 25 years. It makes no sense in any universe.

I have always felt that if we Pages disappeared for even a week, the library would descend into utter chaos. Librarians refuse to shelve. At the library where I interned, I was told that their union forbade them from doing it.

With your Library 2.0 blogs, podcasts, and webinars, you've discussed patrons and mental health issues. At our main branch, it was all Pages (again, technically part-time and temporary, even if you've been there for decades) who dealt with the objectively difficult homeless population, primarily in the computer area, where we had 45 computers that were generally 90% occupied by the large homeless population that is in our city. We received no training, other than a trouble/incident report spreadsheet. This is a volatile population and verbal abuse was prevalent, even knife drawing. The librarians wouldn't deal with them unless absolutely mandatory. It largely fell on the Pages and the Library Service Officers (LSOs, also Part-Time and Temporary and with no real authority other than the ability to call the local police).

The satellite branches had far fewer Pages, who were regularly called upon to cover Library Assistant II's responsibilities, which were quite literally above their pay grade, with no formal or informal recognition. When we were monitoring the computer commons, even when there were 45 stations that were generally always booked, there would be only one Page scheduled for the entire room, for two or two and-a-half shifts, except on Sundays which were a very short day and computers were actually fought over; then there would be two Pages assigned per shift.  

My co-Pages (technically classified as As-Needed/Part-Time) were probably the most dedicated, conscientious, and devoted cohort I've worked with in my 40+ years in the workforce, public or private sector.  

There's a lot more I can say, but I have to wonder - why is this discriminatory disparity accepted and so common in public libraries? It does nothing but inflict pain on us, though of course the libraries or the cities that control them save money. I have no idea why this is the tradition in American public libraries, and perhaps you do, or perhaps this is a suitable topic for a wider discussion."

I don't know the answer to this employee's painful question as to why this happens in some libraries. If you're a library leader, is it time for you to review the job description, duties, assignments, task orientations, and work culture status of your Pages? This may require help and support from your Human Resources colleagues, especially if you are in a union environment. It may be time for a new look at what appears to be an ongoing and long-running issue. All library employees - part-time, full-time, interns, or volunteers - deserve respectful treatment, inclusion into the work culture, support for what they do, and praise for how they do it.