What do you do when the police come to your library with a missing wallet and ask for the patron's phone number? Think real hard...

Now really, it's not that difficult, though apparently a librarian at the Johnson County Central Library didn't figure it out...not when he was approached by the police, and apparently not even by the time of this newspaper interview.

According to "Librarian fired for 'good deed' that violated confidentiality, Johnson County Sun (Feb 10), when a police officer asked librarian Steve Roberts for the phone number of a library patron whose wallet had been found in a supermarket, Roberts gave it out...despite training on the library's privacy policy.

"We talked about the issues," Roberts said. "The officer and I talked at length about the right to privacy and confidentiality. The policy not to share patron information, especially with the police, is sacrosanct."

But Roberts also knew that if it was his wallet that was lost, he would want it returned as quickly as possible.

Uh, is there no other solution?  Set aside, for the moment, that  Roberts apparently did not talk to his supervisor before giving out the number...

... Yes, you got it. It's not hard to figure out a solution ...

Go to the head of the class if you thought of this:

Call the patron yourself. Tell him his wallet's been found [with his library card in it] or ask him for permission to give his number to the police. 

Okay, granted that it can be hard to think on your feet when the police come to you with such a reasonable sounding request.  But later?  Plan ahead for handling such scenarios ... this type of thing comes up in any busy library. When I worked in libraries, we used to make this type of phone call from time to time.

Lesson:  If it's not already in there, add this scenario to your library training program.

           Thanks Crime in the Library for the link.

Comments

[TruthInAdvertising]

Actually, yes. If you can't learn how to follow applicable library policies and state law, then you need to find another job. That was the employee's offense - he was fired for violating library policy and state law. I don't know where you work but most places, that's plenty enough to get you canned, especially if your a probationary employee. I guess Jack thinks it's OK to violate library policies and state law so long as the employee decides that they have no problem with what they are doing.

[Jack Stephens]

The punishment seems harsh, but he does seem to be a slow study.

So, it's okay to fire someone for being a "slow study"?

As a matter of fact, though, it isn't a question of his being a "slow study" or his "figuring it out." What he says at the end of the article is "I have no problem with what I've done, and I would do it again."

In other words, he disagrees with your interpretation, as do at least three commenters to the article who self-identify as library workers.

Is it just that it's okay to fire people who disagree with Mary Minow and Karen G. Schneider?

[jayoval]

No mention of a drivers licence. Not everyone has one. The library card may have had the name on it and maybe the officer could have looked in a local phone directory.

Still no excuse for breaking privacy. Ring the patron rather than hand out the number. Roberts may have liked the idea of getting his own wallet back, but he didn't think of the other side of the coin - how would he like his privacy invaded?

Um, am I overly suspicious, or do others have alarm bells going off in their heads right now?

(1)Doesn't the driver's license have identifying information, like an address, so that the police officer could just go to the phone book and look up the number?

(2)O.K., assume the number is unlisted. Doesn't the agency that issued the driver's license have that kind of information, *available to police*?

I must be missing something here.

[K.G. Schneider]

That is the right answer. We did this all the time, and we explained to the police officer why we had to do this.

The punishment seems harsh, but he does seem to be a slow study. Among other problems, my radar would go off if a police officer came to me with that story. Sure, that could be the situation--but it could also be a set-up.