LibraryLaw Blog

Hooray - I figured out how to use tags instead of categories in this blog

As I suspected, it's much easier and more flexible.  So if any of you are looking for new posts based on categories, you may not find them. Use the technorati tags at the bottom of a post instead. If it works like I think it will, I'll probably stop using categories altogether.

Update: It looks as if users who click on a technorati tag below will get everyone in the world's posts with those tags. That's useful, but it would be nice to have an option to limit it to this blog, the way flickr does.  Well, there's always the search button in the blog...

What can and should libraries do about MySpace.com?

Francisco Pinneli, City Librarian at Santa Maria Public Library writes:

Can you direct me to any resources about how libraries are dealing with MySpace?

Anyone?

Surveillance tapes catching someone in the act in a library ?

A TV show contacted me to ask for stories and especially surveillance tapes of library patrons caught in the act.  If anyone has some, please let me know.

Can you get arrested for selling your library's discarded National Geographics on eBay?

Yes, if you violate state law by doing so, as a young new librarian found out. 

The facts of his case are jaw-dropping. 

According to the court: A 24-year-old high school librarian in Pennsylvania had the idea to sell discarded National Geographics on eBay to raise money to buy computers. His mentor told him the idea was "creative" and did not warn him against pursuing it.  He raised about $350, then contributed $300 of his own money and bought six used computers for the school library.

He was then charged with theft and misapplication of entrusted property.  He resigned from his job in exchange for getting the charges dropped. He asked the court to wipe the arrest off his record, and was initially denied.

He pursued his request, and on November 30, 2005, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the state must present some evidence that societal interest in retaining the arrest record outweighed the clear harm to the librarian.

Lesson: You're on your own if you sell discarded government property in violation of state law, even if your mentor tells you your idea is "creative."  Don't do it without checking with a lawyer.

Pennsylvania v. Romanik, 2005 Pa. Super. 398 (November 30, 2005) http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/a11026_05.pdf

Judge bans man from DuPage County library computers after guilty plea to public indecency - from Crime in the Library blog

Crime in the Library's latest blog entry is about a man who pleaded guilty last week to public indecency in a library in DuPage County, IL. According to a news report (below), he must perform 50 hours of public service and is banned from library computer use and from children's sections at the library for a two year period.

Anbolyn has been blogging Crime in the Library since September, but I just found it.  The blog is filled with similar cases, plus theft, fights, employee embezzlement, vandalism etc.   It's rather depressing to read through the blog, but I'm glad Anbolyn (profile says: librarian in Arizona) is tracking this.  Knowledge is power, and the more we know about what's going on, the better we can work to prevent it.

For more on the DuPage library incident...

More on libraries as dangerous places - a vile and malicious lawsuit

Calling the lawsuit vile and malicious, Judge Allen Sharp threw out a case Dec. 6 that had been filed by a child molester against a library facilities manager and the library's security company.

The molester claimed that the library should have prevented him from harming the child.  He said the security company and its supervisor should have called the police when they saw him trying to open doors on the third floor of the library.  Because they did not stop him while he was casing the library, "an innocent boy was victimized as well as the State of Indiana, St. Joseph County, and myself Ladell Alexander," he claimed.

The court wrote:

...Ladell Alexander, by his own admission, molested an innocent boy. Though every decent and moral person wishes that he had been prevented from committing this hideous crime, no one owes Mr. Alexander anything for having not done so.

Alexander v. DBS Security and Ralph Takach, NO. 3:04-CV-703 AS, U.S. Dist. Ct. for the NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA, SOUTH BEND DIVISION 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24748, December 6, 2004, Decided

Minow comment: I think Judge Sharp expressed it well - every decent person wants to prevent this.  Should the security company have noticed the suspicious behavior?  Was the perpetrator acting any more suspiciously than the countless other odd library patrons we see? In any event, it would be crazy to hold the library liable to the perpetrator. (I can't find a way to write that last sentence without understating it.)

Public libraries are not safe places.  Yes of course we should make them safe.  We should make the parks and streets safe too. When you're open to the public, anyone can walk in. Should you close if you don't have enough staff to view all corners of the library? Virtually all libraries would need to close. Security guards are great (tho definitely .. not always) when a library can afford them, but even then there's no guarantee of safety, as in the Alexander case.

Again I ask, what is the library's responsibility in letting the public know that these horrible incidents occur in their beloved public libraries?  What will stop parents from sending latchkey kids to the library for hours and hours?

Added later: I googled Ralph Takach (named in the lawsuit). According to Michael Stephens, Tame the Web (May 10th), Takach is a Crisis Prevention Institute Certified Trainer and recently gave a successful program on Preventing Violence in the Library - recognizing early warning signs of anger, keeping behavior from escalating. To me that looks like a library that takes security issues very seriously.

What should libraries tell the public after a case like this one?

Libraries are not safe places.  They aren't really any safer than the public park or any other public place.  Click the continuation for details of a lewd and lascivious act that took place at a branch library in West Sacramento, even though the 11 year old's uncle and brother were in the library.

Minow question: What is the library responsibility to the public in letting them know about such risks?  Should libraries ever post "safe place" placards ? Should libraries engage in educational efforts to show that libraries are not safe?  Will this scare patrons away?

People v. Lloyd Russell Dawkins, C045164, COURT OF APPEAL OF CALIFORNIA, THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT, 2004 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 10120, November 5, 2004, Filed

Is a deputy commissioner at the Chicago Public Library a public official, protected from threats?

Apparently not.  An Illinois Appellate Court ruled in favor of ex-library employee  Edwardo Muniz who had previously been found guilty by the trial court of "threatening a public official."  He had been sentenced to 6 months in the Cook County Jail (time actually served) and 30 months of probation.  The conviction was overturned since the state law against threatening a public official was not written broadly enough to include a deputy library commissioner.

Practice Tip: Don't rip pages out of library books

The Hawaii Supreme Court suspended attorney William E.H. Tagupa for six months from practicing law. He had willfully torn out pages from a library's documents for personal use, and had already been suspended by the U.S. District Court for Hawaii for mutilation of the same "public property." The documents were owned by the Martin Pence Court Library. The State Court's ruling was a reciprocal discipline notice pursuant to RSCH Rule 2.15

Office of Disciplinary Counsel v. Tagupa, NO. 26762 , SUPREME COURT OF HAWAII , September 2, 2004

Libraries should check criminal histories before hiring staff

Simmons v. Philadelphia, NO. 03-840, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10201 (E.D. Pa. 2004)

On June 1, 2004, a federal district court in Pennsylvania said a patron lawsuit may go forward against Gloria Arrington (Human Resources) and the city of Philadelphia.

The patron, Carolyn Simmons, says that in 1998, when she was 15, a library security guard sexually assaulted her at the Frankford Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. She said he followed her to the downstairs restroom area of the library, seized her, and began kissing and fondling her.

Curtis Sharp, the guard, was charged with Indecent Assault and Corrupting the Morals of a Minor but died during the prosecution.

Simmons sued the city after she found out that Sharp had pled guilty to Indecent Assault upon his fourteen-year-old niece. He had left this question blank on his employment application: "Have you ever been convicted of any law violation ... other than minor traffic offenses?" Nevertheless, he was hired and assigned to the Richmond branch of the Free Library.

It did not appear that any effort was made to look into Sharp's criminal history before the assault upon Simmons.

A number of incidents occurred during Sharp's time with the Richmond library. First, a librarian claimed that Sharp's "volatile outburst" during an altercation left her frightened and unwilling to work alone with him. Memorandum from Margaret Bernardi. The next year, allegations were made that Sharp had tried to kiss a teenaged girl and made sexually inappropriate remarks to another girl. Memorandum from Matt Beatty, Library Supervisor. A month later, Sharp was transferred to the Frankford Branch.

Click below to read what the Court said Simmons must show to ultimately win her case.