Here is the question:

I am a security officer for a library. We are beside a large park with many homeless people that come into the Library. We do have security video cameras but they do not have audio. There are many blindspots inside and outside the building, the side of the building does not have cameras at all. We are required to patrol inside and outside the building and to patrol the park. 95% of the time I and the other security officer work alone. We overlap for a few hours one day a week. We currently do not have body cameras.

The previous two security companies I worked for each used body cameras so I am familiar with how they are used. I have requested a body camera several times. The Library Director has OK'ed the body camera but their boss has not. He says that "the cameras would hurt more than help." We have asked to sit down to discuss this with him but that has not happened yet.

As I am sure you are aware we get a lot of intoxicated, under the influence, or homeless people with mental problems. We are unarmed only carrying a radio. The police are called at least twice a week some weeks--every day if the person causing a disruption will not leave. When the police come it is sometimes a "he said she said" thing, my word against the person I called the police on (this is not always the case, it depends on the police officer that responds). The police have been called on us by patrons (homeless or not) multiple times for enforcing the rules in asking them to leave.

My questions to you, if you would be so kind as to answer. What is your opinion on body cameras? Would you please give pros and cons I can use when I speak to my supervisors?

Dr. Steve's Answer:

I have a trained at some libraries in your state. My best approach to getting body cameras would be to tell your Director that their primary use is to be able to document your interactions with patrons, to be able to defend any false accusations of harassment, discrimination, or bias.

Their secondary use is to fine-tune and improve all service interactions, because the Director can review specific encounters or do an occasional quality audit.

The third reason to use them is for security officer safety, to capture threats or actual violence, and assist in decisions to ban or prosecute patrons. Body cameras are not perfect deterrents (banks have cameras and still get robbed) but they can deter some problem people from acting out.

The two biggest downsides are the cost of the cameras and the cost of the storage software (the archived footage takes up a lot of space).

Hope that helps.

One of the features of Dr. Albrecht's "Service, Safety, and Security" section of Library 2.0 is "ASK DR. STEVE," where readers submit questions and he answers them. To submit a question for Dr. Steve, please email askdrsteve@library20.com.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

I've taught hundreds of Zoom sessions and thousands of live training programs and although I can come to many conclusions about success in life and business, three themes stand out.

I would argue the people who have the LEAST success in life demonstrate three issues when it comes to attending a training program, either live or online: 1) They show up late. 2) They look at their phones instead of the presenter, the slides, the handouts, or their colleagues. 3) They don't have a pen and a piece of paper to take notes. 

Let's start with being on time. With a few exceptions (they closed the freeway or your car has a dead battery) there is no excuse for being late. Logging on late could be a Zoom, GotoWebinar, or MS Teams issue, but usually it's laziness. Logging on at the exact moment the webinar starts and discovering you don't have the updated version of the platform or don't have the password or meeting number is on you, not your boss or certainly not me. People interrupt me online to say they cannot download a copy of my slides, which were attached to the original invite two weeks ago. Or they tell me they can't hear me - only to realize they don't have speakers attached to their PC or they have muted their sound (my first clue that they checked out of the last training class they went to).

When I taught public, week-long seminars for the American Management Association, I would be about 20 minutes into my program (which started at the reasonable hour of 0900) when the door would burst open and someone would come in, in a rush, and try to find a seat and a copy of the materials. As soon as this person got settled in (minus any apology for being late), he or she would dive into some deep cellphone use. There is a time and place to check your phone and the training environment - live or online - is not it.

Lastly, I've lost count of the number of times people have stopped me during a live program to ask for some paper and a pen. Are you telling me you're supposed to be a paid professional person and you did not bring at least two pens and a pad to a professional development program? (As the Navy SEALS say when it comes to having the necessary equipment to succeed, "Two is one and one is one.")

What does it say to me, as a presenter, or to your classmates, or to your boss, who may be in the group as well, when you don't bother to bring something to write with or write on?

I say all this, not to be the Village Crank, but to point out that the line between success and failure is as thin as a piece of paper and as thick as a ballpoint pen. Want to be seen as a true professional and not just an employee who shows up and expects to get paid? Want to move ahead in your job, which doesn't always mean getting promoted, but may mean you get exposed to new projects, different tasks, and additional responsibilities? Want your boss and colleagues to think you care about more than just yourself, but also about them and the success of your collected efforts?

Show up on time. Have a pen and paper (and download and print the training slides). Look at your phone on the breaks or lunch. That's it.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Do your staff meetings turn into idea-killing sessions? Or are they doing what they are supposed to do - create value in a group discussion, initiate plans, develop solutions, and hold people accountable for their tasks and responsibilities? What do you tend to say of a typical library staff meeting: “That was a good use of my time, that was a waste of my time, or we could have got the same results using email exchanges?"

One reason many staff meetings de-evolve into conflicts, strong differences of opinion, or worse--the silent treatment among employees--is that they turn negative early. Allowing staff meeting members to value-judge, criticize, and make sweeping generalizations about what they don’t like about a new idea, policy, plan, or proposal defeats the purpose of a collaborative, brainstorming staff meeting. It discourages other more-quiet employees from speaking at all, so they leave the meeting literally feeling not heard. It can create bad feelings between colleagues, especially if their fledgling idea was the one that got hammered in the meeting.

Here’s a tool for running meetings that keep people motivated to problem-solve, not idea-kill. It’s called the P.I.N. Tool and it stands for Positive-Interesting-Negative. It provides a simple framework to evaluate new ideas and it can help to keep the group’s notorious idea killers at bay, at least until the end of the discussion, which is where their negativity belongs.

The P.I.N. Tool can be used by anyone who is running the meeting, a library leader, a manager, a supervisor, or even an employee who asked for the meeting or is tasked with moving through the agenda. Here’s how it works and what the meeting-runner should say, at least for the first few meetings where the P.I.N. Tool is introduced:

“We’re going to talk about some new ideas in this meeting. We can use the P.I.N. Tool to make the best use of our collective time if we focus first on what’s Positive about the issue at hand, what we like about it, and what’s good about it. We’ll capture those Positive attributes first.

"Then we can look at what’s Interesting about the new idea, plan, or proposal. That could be the facts and figures, the deadlines or due dates for it, the obvious or hidden costs, or some legal or procedural questions we’ll need to answer at some point. Interesting means what we still need to discover.

"Then we can move to the third step - looking at the Negatives, or what we don’t like about the idea, plan, policy, or proposal. It might be too expensive, hard to implement, or just not a good fit for our work culture here.

"The steps to the P.I.N. Tool are there for a reason. We start with the Positive, move through Interesting, and End with the Negative, to make sure every point of view is heard. The order is important because it protects new ideas and our bosses who are implementing them or your colleagues who have suggested them. We can use it as a reaction gauge.”

One of the examples I often use in training classes where we discuss the value of The P.I.N. Tool is an exercise where I ask the group to consider putting a casino on an airplane. Without the P.I.N. Tool in place, the first, immediate, and most vocal reactions come from the Idea Killers in the room who say some person of “What? That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard! It would make the plane too heavy. What about turbulence and the roulette wheel? Who is going to fix the machines if they break?”

This no way, not gonna happen approach can sink the idea before it even gets a full hearing. Using the P.I.N. Tool we can make a useful list and then evaluate the idea in total at the end:

Positive - More revenue for the airline; fun for those passengers who like to gamble; a way to learn how to play new games en route to Las Vegas or Atlantic City; and it supports the gaming industry and its manufacturers and its employees.

Interesting - How much does it cost to retrofit the back of the plane? What are the associated legal issues, flying over all 50 states? Who will collect the money? Would we need a casino employee on each flight? What about technical or electronic repairs? Can they be hacked? Does it make the plane harder to fly?

Negative - Too much noise; the possibility of angry drunks or furious losers. Would it cut the airlines’ revenue because of the missing seats, so tickets would be more expensive? Security issues for the money? Does it set a bad moral example for kids to watch their parents gamble?

By deferring the Negative comments unit the end of the discussion, we give the idea a chance to grow, percolate, expand, and make more sense. Doing the tool backward, as we usually like to do in staff meetings - Negative-Interesting-Positive - means that we lose conversational momentum. With some human beings being as they are (chronic complainers), it’s easy to come up with a long list of don’t-likes early, which can make the list of likes much smaller.

Using the P.I.N. Tool, our list of Positives tends to be longer because it happens first. Holding the Negatives until the end gives those naysayers - who may make several valid points as to what’s wrong with the idea or why the new approach won’t work - their say, just at the point where it’s time for their input.

Try the P.I.N. Tool at your next staff meeting. Once you describe the ground rules, it should be easy for your colleagues to follow them.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Here’s a tweet I sent out on September 28, 2022, about several libraries in the US closing because of “unspecified threats.”

I work in threat assessment and workplace violence prevention. I’ve trained thousands of library employees for over 22 years. I always recommend not closing based on these types of threats, because it just encourages more. The threat makers need to learn they can’t control libraries.

That tweet led to my meeting library journalist Claire Woodcock. She wrote a piece for Motherboard Tech by VICE, which ran online on October 18, 2022: “Libraries Are Beefing Up Security After a Series of Violent Threats: Some librarians are trying to protect patrons without increasing the presence of police and security guards.” (https://bit.ly/3Bk9yym) 

Here’s my contribution to her story:

Although the ALA does not have a set of policies and procedures for library safety and security, the organization does work with a handful of consultants who specialize in library security. Steve Albrecht, according to many, is one of the only games in town. He says that the more detailed a threat, the more likely it is to be credible, but does not advocate for closing a facility if a threat is received. 

"We find out about bombs in this country after they go off and lots of people make bomb threats, where there are no bombs, and I think we overreact to bomb threats because we are conditioned to shut everything down," Albrecht, a former police officer, told Motherboard. "I don't mean we don't look for a real device or don't pay attention or don't call the police. But I'm saying it's not always our first option."

Albrecht advocates for librarians to undergo training that teaches them how to work with law enforcement. He says he advises the library director, security manager, facilities director, and a department head who needs to make decisions on behalf of the staff to know about and respond to an incident. "I'm trying to make it so that people want to feel safe and enjoy their jobs and feel like they have some tools," he added. "That their management has the facts and understands what they're trying to do."

In a recent Library 2.0 webinar, where I was speaking about so-called First Amendment “Auditors” (their own-self created title, don’t forget), I advised libraries to respond to these highly-disruptive people in their facilities or board meetings as follows.

Assess all threats, protests, angry confrontations, or other negative encounters with these individuals or groups, using a team-based approach. You should already have a team in place. Whether you call it a Threat Assessment Team, a Critical Incident Team, or a Safety and Security Team, the name doesn’t matter as much as the members.

You need to be able to gather together your safety and security stakeholders: the Library Director; his and her staff of other leaders; the HR Director/Manager; the Security Director/Manager (if that role exists in your library, system, or district); the Facilities and/or Maintenance Director/Manager; the IT Director/Manager; the library’s legal counsel; the person who provides public outreach or crisis communication; and any other department head, manager, or supervisor who can provide useful insight, experience, or information as to the threat being posed. The knowledge and skills of this group can create a more calming influence on the issue and make safer, legal, and more effective decisions and plans.

You should request a law enforcement response to all incidents from a ranking member of your local agency, preferably a lieutenant or above. The first one or two patrol officers or patrol deputies who respond initially may not know a lot about the tactics of these First Amendment “Auditors,” and may escalate the situation by arguing with them or trying to make an arrest that is not actually legal.

All staff needs awareness-building training and to be reminded to have “polite patience” and the confidence to say and do the right things when confronted by individuals or groups of protesters. These First Amendment “Auditors” (FAAs) will want to argue with them; question their motives and abilities; or debate the law, Code of Conduct, or library use or materials policies. (This is never a good idea, since there is no winning this debate.) All staff need to remember to be neutral while these FAAs are making a video record of their encounters for later posting on social media sites.

Lastly, “Stay Your Course.” Keep on doing the right thing, for your library, your staff, your patrons, and the various diverse communities you serve. One angry person with a sign or a cell phone or a group with a video camera and loud tones shouldn’t be able to speak as though they represent the views of every citizen. Many of your supporters don’t agree with the intimidating and rude tactics of these First Amendment “Auditors.” Continue to be the shepherds for your facilities, your collections, your employees, and your patrons.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

The number of fatal overdoses due to opiate use (heroin, fentanyl, pain pills) continues to surge in the US, as does the record amounts of fentanyl powder and pills seized at the southern border. A recent arrest in Arizona revealed the driver was transporting 340 packages of fentanyl pills, weighing 187 pounds, and worth an estimated $4.3 million. (A fatal dose - injected, swallowed, or inhaled - can be as small as a dozen grains of sand.)

A news release from the Biden White House on August 26, 2022 echoes this grim tale: 

“As the overdose epidemic has evolved, synthetic opioids – particularly illicitly manufactured fentanyl — now drive the majority of overdose deaths. In 2021, more than 100,000 people died from an overdose, an approximate 15 percent increase from the previous year. Every loss is a painful reminder that, now more than ever, we must address our Nation’s overdose epidemic.”

The number of overdoses leading to death averages about 275 people per day. The majority of these people are young and many are POC. According to a CDC report: 

“Drug overdose data show troubling trends and widening disparities between different population groups. In just one year, overdose death rates (number of drug overdose deaths per 100,000 people) increased 44% for Black people and 39% for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people. Most people who died by overdose had no evidence of substance use treatment before their deaths. In fact, a lower proportion of people from racial and ethnic minority groups received treatment, compared with White people. Some conditions in the places where people live, work, and play can widen these disparities. For instance, areas with greater income inequality—a larger income gap between the rich and the poor—have higher rates of overdose deaths. Comprehensive, community-based prevention and response efforts should incorporate proven, culturally responsive actions that address disparities in drug overdose deaths and the inequities that contribute to them.” (https://bit.ly/3BmNvaG)

Since libraries are public places, the likelihood of opiate drug users coming to the facility to either use drugs, buy or sell drugs, or rest while under the influence, means that the possibility of a medical emergency due to their overdose is a reality.

A patron who appears to be “just sleeping” could really be in respiratory failure and on the way to passing out. It’s important for all library employees to recognizer the warning signs of a possible overdose. The person may:

• appear “asleep on his/her feet” (known as “opiate narcosis”);
• stand and sway, having trouble with balance and coordination;
• have problems breathing or stop breathing (and a low pulse);
• have slurred or low speech, with a raspy voice;
• have trouble swallowing;
• have cold, clammy skin;
• have blue lips or nails or hands/feet;
• have a noticeable nasal drip;
• show excessive scratching;
• have pin dot/very small pupils;
• actually pass out and fall forward in a chair (which constricts their breathing even more) or onto the ground.

Anytime a person starts to or actually loses consciousness, it’s a real medical emergency that requires you or other staffers to call 9-1-1 and get paramedics en route. If they suspect an opiate overdose, they will give the person a nasal spray injection (or less commonly, a thigh injection using a small needle) of Narcan (naloxone). They may also begin CPR or rescue breathing to help the person survive. Narcan works in one to two minutes and last for about 90 minutes, long enough to get the person to the hospital for further treatment. If the person is not under the influence of an opiate, the Narcan spray or shot will have no effect. It’s an opiate antagonist, meaning it seeks out opiate molecules to destroy them. No opiates on board; no harm to the person.

While no one needs an “official Narcan training program certification” to give Narcan, it can help to watch many of the training videos on YouTube that describe the process when someone is down on the ground and in what looks like an opiate overdose emergency. The official site for Narcan - www.narcan.com - is a good place to start for more information. (Their “Peel - Place - Press” instructions can walk you through the process of safe and effective Narcan nasal spray use.)

Many state health agencies and local county health departments offer online training and advice about opiate overdoses. All 50 states allow people to buy Narcan at their local pharmacy, without a prescription. Many people who have family members, loved ones, or partners who are opiate users, now buy and carry Narcan for that “just in case moment.”
While no library employee should be required to give first aid and/or administer Narcan to an overdosing patron, two facts make their move to voluntarily get involved more likely: 1) there are good faith/Good Samaritan laws in all 50 States, meaning you cannot be sued or faulted for trying to save a life, as long as you acted reasonably; and 2) no one wants to have a patron die in their library from drug use.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

The details are chilling. On Monday, August 28, 2017, at about 4:15 pm, 16-year-old high school student Nathaniel Jouett went into the Clovis-Carver, New Mexico library branch in downtown Clovis with a gun inside his backpack. He went into the library restroom and when he came out, he started shooting randomly. He shot and killed two female library employees and wounded another library employee and three patrons, one of whom was a 10-year-old-boy.

During the shootings, he was reported to have smiled, laughed, and said, "Run! Why aren't you running? I'm shooting at you! Run!" Clovis Police responded immediately and arrested Jouett without a struggle. Just after the shooting, his father called the police to tell them he believed his son had taken two handguns and ammunition from the father's safe at home (allegedly left unlocked). Jouett later told police he was planning to shoot up his high school and then kill himself.

Jouett's girlfriend told CNN that he was upset over a bullying incident that had happened at his high school the previous Friday. He has gotten into a fight and was given a two-day suspension. Jouett, a sophomore, told police investigators he didn't know anyone at the library and didn't know why he chose it. He said he was "kind of mad," mostly at his school. Police found suicide notes in his bedroom.

Jouett pled guilty to all 30 felony counts he was charged with (as an adult). He was sentenced to two life terms, with the possibility of parole, plus 40 years. The judge in Jouett's sentencing hearing referenced what the court-appointed psychologist said in his report to him:

"What Dr. Kavanaugh testified to, is that studies have shown even the presence of peers, such as through social media, can lead to more risk-taking behaviors. Nathanial posted the [Snapchat] photo of the backpack holding the weapons and ammunition on social media while he was in the library, with the caption, 'It begins,'" said Judge James Hudson.

In August 2019, a lawsuit was filed by two of the wounded patrons, which named Jouett's father, grandfather, and a therapist who was treating the young man before the incident. The suit alleges that his therapist allegedly knew Nathaniel Jouett was "suicidal, violent towards others, had access to weapons and drugs, and had reported hearing auditory hallucinations in the days and weeks before the shootings."

One of my claims to fame is that I have personally interviewed three workplace violence murderers in their California prisons. One man killed his boss and the HR manager that was handling his termination. One man killed two of the senior executives from the firm that had terminated him a few months prior. One man killed his ex-wife and seven other people inside the beauty salon where she worked. Their reasons for why these killers did what they did can be boiled down to a phrase: the desire for revenge. They wanted "payback" from the people they believed had wronged them.

I have written to Nathan Jouett twice now, where he is housed in the New Mexico State Prison system. I've asked him to let me interview him as to why he did what he did, as I have done with the other three shooters I met. I have prepared a detailed list of questions. Certain NM state prisoners, like him, have no phone or email privileges, so I'm assuming if he agrees, we will talk by letter. I'll let you know in this space if he answers and wants to cooperate. I want to learn what I can from him, and share with you, what we can all do to keep libraries safe from mass shooters.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Food for thought time: Have we recently considered the value of putting library employees into a work uniform? There are pros and cons for both sides of this issue, including costs, the need for a more specific dress code policy, and getting employee buy-in. But there are some service and security benefits that can help move the decision toward a more formal look.

Many years ago, I had a polo shirt that was the exact color blue as the ones worn by the employees at Best Buy. I can recall three times I made the mistake of wearing that royal blue shirt into my local Best Buy store, only to be swamped with people, all with the same question, "Do you work here? I had a question about my computer…" Their irritation upon learning that I did not, in fact, work there was equally matched by my embarrassment from having to explain each time that I did not know where the computer cables or the new DVDs were. I learned my lesson and donated the shirt to a thrift store.

For the sake of this discussion, let's say your library employees wear whatever clothing they like - and except for their name tags - look like everyone else who comes into the building. Now let's imagine that we put our library employees - including the directors, managers, and supervisors - into polo shirts or long sleeve dress shirts (they could still wear whatever shoes and pants, shorts, skirts, capris, etc., they wanted). The shirts would have your library logo and/or the name of your city or county on them. Sending them out onto the library floor dressed like this, what might be the reaction from the patrons and the benefits to the employees?

Some patrons may not notice or care, others would certainly like the enhanced visibility, and a tiny few would complain that this is just another example of how they "miss the old days" at the library.

The advantages: it tells our patrons immediately who works there (and who does not, which could also be helpful to our police, fire, and medical first responders who enter the library); it tells our patrons and co-workers who is who in an emergency situation (where some people can get stress-created tunnel vision and not recognize an employee); and it suggests to our patrons a bit of professionalism that they are already used to seeing elsewhere. Most public contact jobs have a standard "uniform" for their employees: fast food and sit-down restaurants, bank tellers, hotel workers, repair people, airline crew members, car rental counters, and retail stores, to name a few.

The disadvantages: there will be an additional budget expense to buy and provide at least four to five shirts per employee; employees may feel like wearing a shirt that everyone else wears takes away from some of their personality and feels blah, bland, or controlling; and you may have to enforce some dress code policy rules if some employees routinely forget their shirts, or come to work in shirts that are not clean or pressed.

It's certainly easier to know who is an employee at a certain place if that person is always behind a desk or a counter. But library folks move around a lot and if they removed their name tags, most patrons wouldn't know they were an employee unless they had had plenty of previous encounters (and even then I'm not so sure they would notice, like seeing your kid's teacher at the supermarket and it doesn't sink in).

When rolled out positively, work uniforms can build camaraderie and make people feel more included as members of the library working team. Even library staffers who only work behind the scenes want to feel noticed and connected to their colleagues too.

Might it just be possible that a professional library shirt for all employees would not only cut down on the confusion about who works there, but would also increase the respect patrons have for library employees? Might they see them as more professional, help the employees feel more assertive, and make them instantly more recognizable and approachable? (Haven't we all had that experience where we think a person works at a big box retail store or a supermarket, ask him or her a question, only to find out he or she is a delivery vendor for a company that provides products to that store? It can be hard to tell the players without a scorecard.)

If the managers and supervisors want additional identification, what if we put them in a different colored shirt, that indicates they are the Person in Charge (PIC), the floor supervisor, or a shift manager? Example: all employees wear burgundy polos or dress shirts and the supervisors and managers wear light blue. Again, it's all about how these ideas are presented to the employees. It's not about creating unnecessary separation, but more about helping employees and patrons identify who is the go-to person in an emergency or an escalating confrontation with a patron.

We know most employees who don't have uniform shirts appreciate the freedom to dress as they please, but perhaps knowing you only have to decide what to wear on the lower half of your body for work is just one less thing to have to consider as you leave home for the day.

To me, the pros outweigh the cons, with the cost being the biggest hindrance. Perhaps a local clothing company in town would donate the work shirts, printed with your library logo, in exchange for attaching their tiny logo on a sleeve? Consider the Nike swoosh is on every major league uniform, and every golfer and NASCAR racer is a walking billboard. There might be some creative ways you could cover the costs and outfit your staff in cool clothes that improve service and security at your library.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

I posted this Library 2.0 blog below in October 2020. What a difference two years has made in the intensity and frequency of workplace violence and school violence incidents. New attacks at an elementary school in Texas, a grocery store, and just recently, a factory in Maryland, show us this disturbing trend of mass shootings is continuing in the wrong direction.  

After 30 years as a security consultant in these areas, I feel as you probably do: defeated, angry, pessimistic, sad for the families of the lost, furious at the perpetrators, angry at the lack of solutions, and anxious about the death toll and location of the next event.

A few ideas to consider as we view recent attacks with an eye toward better protecting our staff, patrons, and facilities. There are no guarantees of safety and nothing is shooter-proof, but these concepts might make a life or death difference if you can consider them and/or put them in place at your library:

Access control matters. A lot.

Keep staff-only entrance doors locked at all times. Yes, it’s a hassle to fish out a door key or (better yet) a key card, but we should never trade security for convenience. Keep all non-employees on the other side of our locked doors.

Tourniquets, AED machines, CPR training, and fully-stocked first aid kits matter. 

For maximum effectiveness, we should stock our library first aid kits with enough tourniquets and clotting bandages for several dozen people. Mass injury events will need more than the usual one or two of everything found in most first aid kits. Get trained in AED use, basic CPR, and “stop the bleed” tourniquet use (www.BleedingControl.org).

Listening for leakage helps in threat assessment and management.

Bad people getting ready to do bad things often warn others. But the key is that they don’t warn their targets; they often tell people around their targets. This is known as “third-party leakage,” where the potential attacker threatens to do harm via someone near the target, not their actual intended target. The reasons for this are many, but we need to tell our safety and security stakeholders when we hear leaked threats. 

Social media postings and messages about our libraries or our employees need to be analyzed.

Some school districts, private-sector businesses, and public-sector agencies subscribe to social media monitoring services, who can tell them immediately if their organization is named on the usual social media sites in connection to a threat. It’s not a bad idea for the library to pay for similar oversight. 

Rapport-building, kindness, empathy, patience, and enhanced listening skills make a difference.

How we treat patrons and employees, especially during their most stressful moments, goes a long way toward either enhancing or decreasing their desire to come back to do harm by using revenge as their motivation. Fair, empathic, and patient treatment of patrons, even when they are none of these things back to us, and legal, empathic, and humane HR policies and practices for employees facing discipline or termination, can and has been shown to prevent violence. 

It’s still the “Lone Wolf Males” who are doing these attacks. 

It’s possible more than one shooter is at one site, but not very likely. There have been less than seven multiple-attacker events in the US, in the last 30 years. Violence is usually committed by young, angry, depressed, despondent, desperate, vengeful males (of all ages and races). Women have committed acts of violence at their work facilities and on college campuses, but certainly not to the extent of men. Pay attention to those males who seem to display what we could call “entitled disgruntlement.” They are angry at everybody and everything, all the time, and their pre-attack behaviors often draw our attention.

Cover and concealment matter.

Cover is steel, stone, or heavy wood bullet-stoppers. Concealment is curtains, drapes, blinds, tinting glass, masonry walls, and wooden or aluminum doors. Get behind cover first; hide behind concealment if cover is not close or safely accessible.  

Don’t speak to the media unless you are trained and designated by the library to do so.

As we have seen in the Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting, there is a lot of second-guessing going on in the media. Only give comments if you are the library’s media representative. Refer all requests for comments to that person or the Director. 

“Mass attacks of violence in libraries are quite rare. In the last few years, however, we have seen library directors, managers, staffers, and security guards injured or killed by armed perpetrators. As such, you need to have a plan for something that may never happen.

Active shooters and armed attackers coming into a workplace, K- 12 school, college or university, theater, or mall to kill people is devastating, horrific, chaotic, and fortunately, rarer than the media would like you to believe. There have certainly been more incidents in the last ten years, but the chances of you being injured or killed by a person with a gun are highly unlikely, especially if you don’t work in a retail environment, in a healthcare setting, or at night, all of which tend to have higher risks of violence. 

Besides following your library’s Workplace Violence Prevention Policy, the best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with the national protocol suggested by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) known as Run-Hide-Fight. Every law enforcement agency in the US knows this approach and most of their members have been trained to use it as their response to an armed perpetrator.

In order, the Run-Hide-Fight process means that if an armed attacker enters your library, your first best choice would be Run. Leave the building as safely and as quickly as possible, taking as many patrons and staff as you can, to avoid the shooter. This means leaving your work items and only taking what you can carry, quickly and safely, with you (purse, wallet, cell phone). If you’re on the ground floor and you’re trapped in your workspace, you may have to break a window and climb out. The key is to move out quickly and get away from the danger, taking as many co-workers or patrons with you. As you leave, if you encounter any first-responders (police, firefighters, paramedics), be sure to give them your hard keys or electronic access key cards so they can move about the building safely and not get trapped in a locked hallway.

If getting out is not possible or safe, for your second preferred choice, you’ll need to find a place to Hide out. This could be a break room, restroom, supervisor’s office, storage room, file room, or even a closet. The key is to stay away from the shooter, lock or barricade the door as best as you can, stay out of the doorway (otherwise known as the “fatal funnel”), and wait for the arrival of the police. If you can safely call the police, using your cell phone, or better yet, a landline in the room, do so. Otherwise, turn off the lights, put as many heavy items as you can in front of the door, and stay quiet and as calm as you can, behind the relative safety of a locked or barricaded windowless room. We know these shooters don’t shoot through a closed door to kill people or have ever impersonated the police from the other side of the door. The police response is forthcoming, with the national average within five to ten minutes.

Your third and final (and necessary choice) is to Fight back against the attacker, using whatever objects (a pot of hot coffee or heavy books thrown at the attacker’s face, chairs, desks, or tables carried by several people) or actual or improvised weapons (knives, OC pepper spray, a fire extinguisher) to stop the attacker if he makes entry into your safe room.

Some key points: if the room you are hiding in cannot be locked or it opens from the outside, try to use a belt or electrical cord to tie up the door closing mechanism at the top (or tie two double doors together). 

If you hear the fire alarm during a real active shooter situation, and you do not see flames or smell smoke, stay put. We have seen some attackers pull the fire alarm to get people into their kill zones. Scared employees or supervisors have pulled the fire alarm in their buildings in the mistaken belief that this will either expedite the police response or warn people to get out of the building. Pulling the fire alarm in a non-fire situation only creates more noise and adds to the chaos. Stay in your safe room until you’re notified by the police or other first-responders that it’s safe to evacuate.

If you choose to leave your building during a real active shooter event, you may be able to drive or run to alternative evacuation locations located near your library, like a church, store, mall, open government office, fire, police, or sheriff’s station. The key is to get away to wait in or near a safe location (you don’t necessarily have to go inside one of these buildings), so you can connect with co-workers and wait out the event in safety.

To help you reinforce the critical Run-Hide-Fight concepts, watch one or both of two useful videos connected to the subject. The first is the DHS-created “Run-Hide-Fight” video co-created with the City of Houston, Texas. 

It’s short and to the point. Here’s a link to the City of Houston YouTube version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcSwejU2D0

The second video option provides an even more effective message. It was created by the California State University system and it’s an animated version of the Run-Hide-Fight approach. It may appeal to younger library employees and is perhaps more empowering and less frightening than the DHS version. Both are useful and bear watching, at least once per year for yourself and then again as part of a staff meeting conversation about how to respond to an active shooter situation. Here’s a link to the California State YouTube version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUErkf3XEEs

Use recent or previous workplace, school-based, healthcare, or library-related violence incidents as a teaching tool for your employees. You don’t have to obsess over these events; use what happened as a way to stop the same thing from happening where you work.

Here is the question:

Greetings,

In the case of an active shooter shelter in place order from one's institution, is a given department/library serving the public obligated to prevent members of the public from exiting?

At any point is the department liable for the safety of a person who chooses not to shelter in place and instead exiting the department/library?

At any point if a person is prevented from leaving is the department illegally detaining a person?

Dr. Steve's Answer:

Good questions all. I'm not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice, but I think the short answers are no, no, and probably not.

Here's a parallel to your scenarios: Most states, cities, and counties - that interact with local or national media people - allow them to get close to a crime scene or large-scale emergency (as long as they won't destroy evidence, reveal parts of the investigation, or interfere with the incident). Some cops call this the "media's right to die" rule, which means they can get close to a house with a SWAT incident, where the bad guy is shooting at everyone, or stand 20 feet from a burning house as the firefighters use their hoses, or film some other harrowing event close up.

This closeness comes with the implied warning that the cops/fire aren't there to specifically protect them as they respond. If they want to film, it's completely at their own risk.

In your library situations, our duty of care for adults leaves the building once they leave the safety of our shelter-in-place advice. If they want to put themselves in harm's way, that's on them. If they ignore or decide against our safe harbor, that's their right and we cannot/should not stop them. Let's say they decide to leave a safe room and by doing so, bring attention to the shooter of its location. We can't force them to stay or be quiet, even if it puts the rest of us in peril.

The only exception I would make is for juveniles. I think we have a higher duty of care for those under 18 and we would be within our right to keep them from leaving a safe room, for example: a 12-year-old gets scared and tries to bolt through a locked door, we prevent that for his own good and ours.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, Dr. Steve

Follow-up from the Same Individual:

Thank you for taking time to answer. Unfortunately, it was a situation I was faced with several days ago when our institution had an active shooter shelter in place order. I was faced with either allowing persons to leave on their own volition or saying no they could not leave once inside the library. No one has complained at the decision--I suspect because they too don't know what the right answer was. However, we were sheltering in place for 3 hours before getting an all-clear from campus police. I've raised the questions with campus police and they too don't have an answer yet. So, I will continue to ponder what the best solution is.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. It's more than our campus police offered!

Dr. Steve Reply:

Ugh! Three hours! If it was a drill, it was done poorly. If it was not a drill, then there needed to be better communication with your facility. No drill should last three hours and no real event should go that long without an update as to what is happening, where, and why. Thanks for the conversation on it.

Three library scenarios, three different responses for you to consider:

Scene A). A six-year-old and his five-year-old brother begin to argue over a book each wants to read. They both are tugging on it and end up rolling on the ground. Their parents are not nearby. You walk over and _________.

Scene B). Two college students from different schools start arguing in the library. You’ve heard that they both play on their respective football teams. One is the size of a refrigerator with feet; the other is the size of the double doors at a convenience store. They begin to throw punches. Your library does not have a security officer, or if you do have one, he or she is not a Jiu-Jitsu expert. You walk over and ________.

Scene C). Two men who you know to be chronically homeless and longtime alcoholics start arguing in the library. Both men are sitting at different tables, about twenty feet apart. Their verbal disagreement has been going on for about 30 minutes. It started in low tones but by now they are screaming at each other. They each get up from their seats and begin to move closer to each other, slowly at first, but then picking up speed. You know them both by name. You walk over and ________.

As always, when discussing possible safe and secure solutions to Scenes A, B, and C, the acronym the kids like to use applies - YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary, meaning there is no perfect answer. (Wise consultants like me - and I have real scars on parts of my body to prove when I once wasn’t so wise - say things like, “Well, it depends…” when asked what they would do in library security situations with no easy answers.) But as in life, some answers are much better and more useful than others. Let’s take a quiz and then review:

Scene A: You walk over and . . .

1. tell the kids to stop fighting, stand up, apologize to each other, and agree to share the book.
2. grab each kid by the shoulders, pull them up on to their feet, and tell them they are in violation of library rules.
3. pull each kid apart, scold them about fighting in the library, and escort them to the library front door and tell them to leave.
4. watch for a bit and decide to ignore it. Boys will be boys. They will work it out. It’s not your job to break up fights.
5. make an announcement over the library PA, requesting the parents of these boys please come to the Reference Desk immediately.

Scene B: You walk over and . . .

1. watch the fight until one of them gets hurt. Then you go and call 9-1-1, requesting the police and ambulance.
2. from a safe distance, you start yelling, “Stop fighting in the library! Stop fighting in the library! Stop fighting! Stop!” When they do, tell them to leave, one at a time, and not continue the fight outside or you will call the police. Visually check both for serious injuries that may require paramedics.
3. get close enough to try and intervene by getting in the middle, between the two men. It’s your job to protect the library from damage and on your watch, this can’t continue.
4. assemble several of your co-workers into a group and tell them you are all going over to break up this fight. There is safety in numbers.
5. leave the area immediately, taking as many people as you can with you, moving to a safe place, to call the police, preferably behind a locked door.

Scene C: You walk over and . . .

1. Observe and monitor the argument. Make sure they see you standing nearby. Your non-verbal presence can de-escalate things without you having to say a word.
2. Ask them both to sit with you at a nearby table and you can all try to talk things out to a safe conclusion.
3. Call them by their names and tell them to stop arguing and that you won’t allow them to get into a fight and scare everyone. Remind them that you have the power to ban them both from the library, but you won’t if one leaves quietly and the other leaves a few minutes after that.
4. decide to just go about your business. They do this all the time and they won’t really fight this time, either.
5. watch and wait until they actually start hitting each other. Then you’ll either go over and try to break it up or call the police from your cellphone as you stand there.

Best Answers: Scene A: 1, Scene B: 2, Scene C: 3. Bonus: I’ll take 5 as a reasonable answer for Scene B as well.

Let’s go over why certain other answers are just dead wrong, foolish, and even dangerous for you or other staffers or patrons.

In Scene A, (2) is wrong because we don’t ever correctively touch people of any age, unless it’s to defend ourselves from an attack. (3) is wrong because we don’t put young children out on the street in front of the library. (4) is wrong because we don’t stand around and wait for one or both kids to get injured or injure themselves. And (5) is wrong because it takes too long, it’s potentially publicly embarrassing to the parent, they may not hear the page, or even be in the library at all.

In Scene B, (1) is wrong because both fighters can get hurt or their brawl can even spill over and hurt someone standing too close. Neither scrapper may want the police involved (it’s called “mutual combat” in many Penal Codes) and an ambulance may not be necessary. (3 and 4) are wrong because you and/or your colleagues could get seriously hurt trying to break up a fight between adults, which you or they should never do. In this scenario, you and your co-workers need to be “professional witnesses,” ready to help create a Security Incident Report and/or call the police if the situation continues to escalate.

In Scene C, (1) is not enough or a response action by you. They may not see you and they will definitely need your help to tell them to stop, back away, and get told not to fight, so as to save face without having to look weak in front of the other person. Too early for (2) since they are both angry enough to be able to fight, even if they really don’t want to. (4 and 5) are just wrong because we can’t fully predict their future behavior based on their past behavior. They probably won’t continue to fight if you verbally stop them, but they probably will if you do nothing.

If you haven't been to Hawaii, it's worth going. Each island offers something different in terms of land and water activities, great food, unspoiled vistas, casual dress, and beaches (covered with white sand or covered in black sand, making small waves or generating huge waves). It's all about the tropical scenery, volcanoes, fun shops, roadside seafood restaurants, leisure tanning, fruit cocktails, and of course, the temperate weather. I have been to Oahu, Maui, the Big Island, Lanai, Molokai, and Kauai; all lovely and peaceful in their own ways.

The Hawaiian people are long known for their warm hearts, their focus on the values of family and children, and their respect for the ocean, animals, plants, and islands. They are a nurturing culture, knowing that where they live is beautiful and deserves protection, respect, and constant care. And their culture is service-oriented, since they know the tourism industry on the islands is one lifeblood (with the US military bases the other) and an economic bedrock on which their past, current, and future success are built. You can't even imagine how tough the two-year pandemic was on the travel and tourism industry in Hawaii. Things are only now starting to get back to normal.

The Queen's Medical Center, or the Queen's Hospital, as it's known, was founded in 1859 by Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV, and is located in downtown Honolulu on Oahu. The mission of the hospital at its founding was to provide healthcare for all Hawaiians. Queen's former CEO Art Ushijima, who retired in 2018 after 30 years there, was the shepherd for many service quality introductions and improvements in this massive healthcare system. I know all this firsthand because my father, Dr. Karl Albrecht, and his training staff (including a young consultant named Steve Albrecht) worked at Queen's for several years, under Art's leadership, training to make service excellence a part of Queen's healthcare mission as well.

It was during this time, my dad coined the phrase at Queen's called "The Spirit of Service." This idea was created using a mix of the "Aloha Spirit" that is so much a part of Hawaiian culture and a service orientation that puts the patient (also called the "customer," internally at Queen's, and now at many other hospitals around the country) at the absolute center of the total hospital experience.

As I have mentioned in several Library 2.0 articles, podcasts, and paid webinars on customer service in the library environment, the Spirit of Service is defined by my father like this:

"An attitude, based on certain values and beliefs about people, life, and work, that leads a person to willingly serve others and take pride in his or her work."

This means you care about your job, your co-workers, your bosses, and our patrons, so you do work that you are proud of. The Hawaiians have taken ownership of this idea. Can you see how it would work in your library, with your colleagues? What steps will you need to take, at every level where you work, to make your library organization part of this spirit?

Did you know the concept of "Aloha Spirit" is actually statutorily mandated in Hawaii? Look at this government code for your proof of how Hawaiians are expected to function when engaging with taxpayers, tourists, other departments, their bosses, and each other:

From Chapter 5 of Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes:

5-7.5 "Aloha Spirit".

(a) "Aloha Spirit" is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. In the contemplation and presence of the life force, "Aloha", the following unuhi laulā loa may be used:

"Akahai", meaning kindness to be expressed with tenderness; 

"Lōkahi", meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony; 

"ʻOluʻolu" meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;

"Haʻahaʻa", meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty;

"Ahonui", meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.

These are traits of character that express the charm, warmth and sincerity of Hawaii's people. It was the working philosophy of native Hawaiians and was presented as a gift to the people of Hawaiʻi. ''Aloha'' is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation. ''Aloha'' means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return. "Aloha" is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. 

(b) In exercising their power on behalf of the people and in fulfillment of their responsibilities, obligations and service to the people, the legislature, governor, lieutenant governor, executive officers of each department, the chief justice, associate justices, and judges of the appellate, circuit, and district courts may contemplate and reside with the life force and give consideration to the "Aloha Spirit". [L 1986, c 202, § 1]

QUESTION:

The scenario that we get most often is a group of 4 to 10 youth tweens and/or teens taking over an area in the library, being loud and disruptive, play-fighting, yelling, and laughing loudly. What is the best way of dealing with this?

ANSWER:

Many thanks for your comments and for attending my Library 2.0 session yesterday. Here are my thoughts on your situation.

1). A lot of this seems like the usual attention-getting teen behavior, which is amplified when they are in their groups. I would guess one teenager sitting at a desk studying does none of those things. My suggestion would be to watch the group and try to determine who the pack leader is, that kid who the others seem to listen to. See if you can pull him or her aside one day and offer some choices, e.g., "When you all are in the library, we don't mind if you do A, B, or C, but you can't do X, Y, or Z here." (Pick the things you, the staff, and other patrons can most tolerate for A, B, C, and the things that hurt the library business the most as options X, Y, and Z.) This echoes a form of my usual phrase: "You can't do that if you want to stay here," which tries to guide patrons to make a behavioral choice that is of their own making.

2). A more ramped-up option is to kick out just one kid, who is the most troublesome, to "thin the herd," as it were. If you could kick him or her out for the day or week, especially without the others knowing you have done it, it can send a message to the group that they are individually vulnerable to being kicked out as well if they don't stay quieter. You can shortcut the usual group dynamics - with teenagers egging each other on to be more disrespectful to staff - by extracting one or two kids, so the rest of the group learns their usual loudness has consequences.

3). You could use guilt, saying to the group that the play fighting is "scaring the younger kids who see you and who don't realize you're just joking around and are frightened that you really are fighting."

Regards,

Dr. Steve

(ASK DR. STEVE is a new and regular feature of the Dr. Steve Albrecht blog on service, safety, and security at Library 2.0. To submit a question for Dr. Steve, please email askdrsteve@library20.com.)

A man has been arrested for the stabbing of two employees at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A security video shows a man jumping over a reception desk at the building and stabbing two workers last Saturday after he had been denied entry to the museum and had previously had his membership revoked.

In this short video, Dr. Albrecht breaks down what is known about the incident and gives thoughts on this parallels library safety and security concerns and lessons. If you are not a member of Library 2.0, please consider joining (free) for additional service, safety, and security content--as well as our mini-conferences and webinars, and the chance to network with over 47,000 community members.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

When it comes to thefts in your library, not everything may be as it first seems. It's certainly possible the patron who put that DVD or book into his or her backpack and walked out the front door with it may have meant to check it out but just forgot. People can be distracted by the complexities and urgencies of life and these things happen. It's also certainly plausible the patron who actually steals a book from the library may really want to read it, just doesn't have the time or inclination to get a library card, and may even return the book when finished. It's useful to give patrons the benefit of the doubt that the vast majority want to do the right thing.

As a crime, stealing is all about intent. Did the person mean to do it or was it an accident due to forgetfulness? Consider a similar scenario: A female patron goes into your women's restroom and uses the facilities. She stops to wash her hands at the sink and takes an expensive watch off her wrist and puts it on the counter as she does so. She leaves the library and drives home. In her driveway, she realizes she no longer has the watch and calls the library in a panic as she races back over there. A staffer checks the restroom - no watch is on the sink counter. She arrives and checks the whole restroom for her watch, but it's gone. The patron says, "Call the police! I was robbed!"

Was she robbed? No. That would involve someone using "a weapon or force or fear," like pointing a gun at her, or grabbing her wrist to get her to remove her watch and hand it over. Did someone steal her watch through a distraction, by covering it with a jacket as she washed her hands and then lifted it away? No; she was alone. Did she lose her watch? Yes. Sad but true. She can call the police all she wants; they aren't coming for a lost item. Additionally, the difference between a theft and a robbery is an important one in the library setting. If someone walks by and takes a patron's cell phone without him or her noticing, that's a theft. If there is a tug of war between the patron and the thief, that's a robbery. Losing that same cell phone is neither.

So, now let's consider some useful ideas for preventing thefts of library equipment, staff personal items, or patron's items.

Protecting Library Property:

Affix engraved or riveted asset tags on all high-dollar (pawnable) items. These labels should say "Property of XYZ Library" and be attached to library property that has high theft potential, like laptops or desktops from the PC lab; video game consoles; flatscreen TVs; tablets; or projectors. The presence of these tags, which should be hard for the thieves to remove, can help make these items less likely to be purchased by (legitimate) pawnshop dealers. There is a similar parallel in the automotive industry, as some parts dealers, car dealers, and repair shops are engraving expensive catalytic converters with "Property of [Owner's Name]," to make them less likely to be stolen and harder to sell to (legitimate) metal recyclers.

Continue to use cables and locks for all portable high-dollar electronics. Some libraries start out using these "anti-walk-away" devices and slowly stop, as staffers get tired of locking and unlocking them. This is an example of "not trading security for convenience," meaning keep on using security procedures and devices, even if there has never been a theft or loss. Once we start to feel like security tools are a waste of time, well, you can guess what occurs next: "What happened to our 36 laptops?"

Remind all staff to keep unused doors locked, including those leading to storage closets, utility rooms, IT server rooms, training rooms, conference rooms, staff-only rooms and offices, auditoriums, theaters, and warehouse-access areas. A thief who gains entry to an unlocked room only needs 30 seconds to walk in and out with a portable/pawnable target.

Always remember that thieves in the library don't fit a "profile." They could be any race, any age, and any gender. I have seen kids as small as 7 steal and adults as old as 85, male and female both. Don't be shy about assertively contacting patrons who appear to be stealing or getting ready to steal, if your eyes saw what they saw. Don't make false accusations, but don't rationalize theft behavior by thinking, "She must not have meant to do that" or "He probably did that by mistake."

Protecting Staff Property:

Remind all staff to keep careful track of their personal property while on the library floor. This includes their personal cellphones, car keys, purses, wallets, lunch boxes, or any other enticing item which is with them or near them (and not safely stored in the employee's locker, desk drawers, or staff-only access areas).

Remind all staff to keep track of portable library property, including (metal) building keys, key cards, library-issued cellphones, security radios, first aid kits (which may have Narcan injectors inside), and the above-mentioned electronic devices.

Helping Patrons Protect Their Property:

Many patrons place too much reliance on staff to babysit their stuff. Just like staff cannot watch patron's children at all times for them, they cannot babysit their personal possession either. We need to give gentle but constant reminders to patrons, to tell them to take their purses, backpacks, wallets, watches, or phones with them when they leave their tables. How many times have we heard the surprised complaint after a theft that, "I was just gone for a minute!" or "I only turned around for a second and it was gone!"

Watching for Thieves:

Some thieves steal to support a drug habit, others to feed themselves or their families, some steal on orders from their gang leaders, and still a small segment steal because they have a psychological compulsion to do so, even though they don't need the items to sell or to improve their lifestyles. Unlike professional thieves, who steal a warehouse full of iMacs or a semi-truck full of Sony Visios in the wee hours, most thieves in the library show noticeable pre-theft or "casing" behaviors as they stroll through your facility.

The most obvious pre-theft behavior is also not the best for a thief to do to get away unobserved: staring at what he or she wants to steal. They will often make at least two passes by a table, desk, display cabinet, or counter before they grab the item and either run out with it or hide it in their clothes or bag. Either while they are casing or just before they put their hands on it, is the perfect time for you to say, "Hello! What brings you into the library today?" or "What can I help you find today?" to knock them off their path from ideas to actions. You might be just in time to hear them mumble, "Oh, nothing, I'm good. See ya . . . " as they leave the library empty-handed.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

You’ve heard of “New Math?” How about “New Meth”?

Word on the street is that there is a new menace, a more powerful (and even cheaper version) of meth, that is chemically different than the previous meth. It's cheaper and more prevalent than cocaine, and it is the drug of choice of many people living on the streets in squalor, because it makes them feel energized (as opposed to depressed), hyper-aware, hyper-vigilant, and in control of their current situation because all of their neurons are on fire.

This newer version of powdered methamphetamine is either smoked or snorted and can make users unpredictable, confrontational, and all-too-often violent. All library staffers need to recognize the warning signs of what Emergency Room physicians call "meth psychosis." This is a set of irrational and intense behaviors that many chronic meth users will display.

The information about this new type of meth comes from my drug abuse training colleague, Keith Graves, a retired narcotics detective and patrol sergeant from a Northern California police department. Keith holds a unique training certification; he's known as a DRE or a Drug Recognition Expert. He was the Drug Investigator of the Year for the California Narcotics Officers Association (where I'm also a member), so he knows his stuff.

Here are some quotes from a recent blog Keith wrote on his website (www.gravesassociates.com) about the disturbing differences between new meth and old meth.

"You can't even call this methamphetamine anymore. The methamphetamine of today is made differently than it was just a few short years ago. With this change in manufacturing, there was a huge change in the way users reacted to this new meth and now methamphetamine is a major factor in police [contacts]. Simply put, methamphetamine is causing psychosis that is leading to paranoid behavior that leads to deadly interactions with law enforcement. Police [contacts] and methamphetamine go hand in hand. Methamphetamine addicts are often paranoid, suffering from meth psychosis, and can become extremely violent. This makes them a danger to both themselves and to the police officers who are trying to help them. Many times, when police officers are called to a scene where someone is high on methamphetamine, they are met with violence."

Let's begin with a description of what is out on the streets today, by hearing more from Keith:

"Methamphetamine is a powerful and highly addictive stimulant that can be smoked, snorted, or injected. Methamphetamine is now considered a serious public health threat due to its increased popularity and severe reactions to users. The drug is made in illegal labs in Mexico and then transported across the Mexico/US border. Methamphetamine is very potent and can be very addictive. In years past, methamphetamine was made with pseudoephedrine. To stop the manufacture of methamphetamine in the United States, the federal government clamped down on pseudoephedrine by restricting its sale. In a few short years, meth labs all but ceased to exist in the United States.

"However, Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (Cartels) started to make methamphetamine using phenyl-2-propanone ("P2P"). This is an old-school method of making meth taken from the 1980s. Unfortunately for meth users, this "new" P2P manufacturing method was causing severe psychosis in meth users. When people are high on methamphetamine, they can be very aggressive and violent. They may also act impulsively and make poor decisions, which can lead to dangerous situations. This psychosis is often called meth psychosis. 

"This a mental health condition that can occur when someone uses methamphetamine. It is a type of psychosis, which is a mental health condition in which people have distorted thoughts and perceptions. People with methamphetamine psychosis may experience hallucinations, which are seeing things that are not real. They may also have a heightened sense of awareness and feel like they are in a state of constant danger. When people are high on methamphetamine, they can be very aggressive and violent. They may also act impulsively and make poor decisions, which can lead to dangerous situations."

Here are Keith's suggestions as to how to safely talk to suspected meth users in your library:

"When you encounter someone that is experiencing meth psychosis, keep a social distance from them. Basically, a 7-to-10- foot radius. You should also not deal with a person experiencing meth psychosis by yourself." [Albrecht: As I have said on many of my training programs, change the "ratio of confrontation," by getting help from a co-worker, boss, or security officer - if your library is staffed with them. I hope it's obvious to all library employees, by this point, that if you think you need to call the police to get them to better deal with a meth user who is out of control, then call the police.]

"Talk to the person in a calm and soft voice. A meth user hears sounds at a fast pace and a high pitch. A side effect of a meth high is a constant buzzing sound in the background. Keep them talking. Silence can mean that the suspect's paranoid thoughts have taken over and anyone in the area can become part of the suspect's paranoid delusions.” [Albrecht: As I always say in my library trainings with any patron who is not in emotional self-control, stop saying, "Calm down!" to people who cannot calm themselves.]

”Move in a deliberate manner. This will lessen the chances that the person will misinterpret your actions. Keep your hands in sight. Because of the paranoia, your hands should be visible to the person. If your hands are not visible, the person might feel threatened and become violent."

Taken to an extreme, meth users can give themselves permanent brain injuries (and damage their eyes to where their pupils no longer open and close normally). They can develop schizophrenic tendencies, which can make them hard to manage and treat, even in a hospital setting. Meth is a bad-news drug and always has been. This new stuff is even worse.

My thanks to Keith Graves for his knowledge and safety suggestions.

Training Sidebar:

One way to help you more accurately identify meth users in your library is to remember that every day is "MOTHERS" Day.

• Mouth - Users can show a white, slimy coating around their lips and on their tongues. The drug causes their mucus membranes to work harder.
• Odor - Users can give off a chemical smell, mixed with dried sweat. Regular bathing and careful hygiene are not high on their to-do list. Imagine how you would smell if you stayed up for three nights, sweating, running around your neighborhood, and getting involved with other people, usually in an aggressive, intrusive, and impolite way, all while wearing your same clothes.
• Twitching - Users shift from foot to foot, touch things around them, and cannot stand still for even a short moment. They may constantly pick at or adjust their hair or clothing, twitch their hands, head, and shoulders, and generally act like someone who cannot control their movements (because they can't control their movements).
• Head - Users will have their heads on a constant swivel, mostly because since their nerves and senses are heightened abnormally, they are quite sensitive to background noises, loud inside sounds, and even distant outside sounds. It's not unusual to see meth users started by the sound of a passenger jet flying by.
• Eyes - Normal pupils, in regular room light, typically have a diameter of 3 mm to 6.5 mm. People whose pupils are dilated by stimulant drugs, like cocaine and meth, will have eyes that look like dinner plates (10 or 11 mm). The difference is not subtle. (Google the phrase "meth eyes" for many examples of "blown out" pupils.)
• Rapid Pulse - While we aren't taking the pulse rates of any of our patrons (even if they ask), we can know that the pulse rate of a meth user is often 100 to 140 beats per minute, far above the normal 60 to 90 bpm range most of us have.
• Speech (Rapid) - Users will use rapid, disconnected, erratic speech, often with themes of paranoia, hypervigilance, and their sense that someone (the police, the government) is "out to get them" and they need to fight back or flee. (Think of the phrase "word salad" when you're in contact with suspected meth users.)

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

In my earliest days watching library staff interact with patrons, I was always amazed at the power of those elderly female staffers, who I affectionately called the “Little Old Lady Librarians” or LOLs, for short. They just had an obvious knack for taking care of large and small behavioral issues with certain patrons. Why? If I had to guess, it was because even the most difficult, challenging, entitled, or rude patrons suddenly complied because the LOLs reminded them of their mom, grandma, auntie, or other older female relative who told them how to act, at home and out in public.

I had several encounters working as a library security consultant where staff would ask me to help them intervene with a particularly difficult patron, with mental health issues, who was angry, and under the influence of something. I asked this person to leave and he cursed me out. But when the LOL asked him to leave, he said, “Yes ma’am. Sorry to have been a problem” and he left. This happened more than once, with different patrons, and I was always pleased and amazed at their fortitude when dealing with patrons who wouldn’t comply for me or other staffers, but yet did, for them, every time.

Perhaps my usual demeanor was to blame for the challenging patrons’ replies back to me. I’m not a smiler by nature (bad teeth as a kid, all caps now) and my personality tends towards the direct command or abrupt request, especially when I’m stressed or tired. My approach with certain angry people has ranged from grudging compliance all the way to a challenge to fight. By contrast, the LOLs are always firm but pleasant, something their many years of life experience and skill in dealing with all kinds of people, in the many jobs they have held, certainly helps them. No civilized human beings want to put their hands on a LOL, no matter how many life problems they are carrying around. They see a compassionate person in front of them - who reminds them of someone older and kindly in their lives, either vaguely or quite directly, and because of this mostly positive influence - they go along with her requests.

The Little Old Lady Librarian could be described as a trope, a cliche, or a stereotype, but regardless of what we call her, her methods work with patrons who may not comply with other staffers or even when asked by library leaders. I have met LOLs who were part-timers, volunteers, longtime library workers, and even directors. They all shared the same tool: they have the “right touch” when it comes to getting recalcitrant patrons to go along or leave. They can align themselves with those patrons by being compassionate and assertive.

I speak of the concept of alignment often in my live training programs and recorded webinars. As a service and security tool, it suggests we get patrons to go along by being more like them. Maybe alignment is based on age, race, gender, or simply the style of dress matches the speaker and listener (or what body language experts call “mirroring”). There are many reasons why human beings align - or affiliate, as the social psychologists like to say - because most people want to be like others. The LOL asks them to stop doing something or leave and because of her non-threatening, non-authoritative demeanor, they can comply and save face in front of her, especially in public and in front of other strangers.

What skills can we learn from LOLs? They:

• Have a firm but fair hand.
• Provide equal treatment of all who follow or don’t follow our rules in the library.
• Are skilled at empathic listening.
• Offer a no-nonsense but also a kindly demeanor.
• Display a non-aggressive posture, coupled with an assertive request for compliance.

I’ll put it this way: If you have ever worked with or for or around a LOL in your library, you probably have more than one story that proves my point, where she rode to the rescue and saved the situation. LOLs are a treasured part of the library staff. Learn from yours.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Real life rarely imitates the training experience. Except when it does. There is much value to "practice makes perfect" and "perfect practice makes for perfect execution." In other words, what we do in training we can remember and use on the library floor.

One way and one place to get it right is by using role-play scenarios, for about 45 minutes or so, at staff meetings, to practice what to say and how to say it, for more challenging, complex conversations and service interactions with patrons. One employee plays the part of the staffer and another plays the part of the patron. They each can add their own approach (and twists and turns) to the following 12 scenarios here, with an eye toward improving, problem-solving, and perhaps most importantly, by creating a common response that is used staff-wide, in similar situations, so we show a consistency of message.

The role-plays should only take about five minutes. At the end, the group can give both role-players some feedback as to what they heard and saw (body language is a big part of our success with challenging patrons too) and what they liked and what they might say or do differently. The goal is to be supportive and informative for all in the room.

When I turn my live training library groups loose on these role-plays, I give them the obvious caveat that it's always easier to play the part of the patron, because you can go off in a dozen different directions (some that have little to do with the foundation of the role-play scenario but are just fun to be a bit wacky). All the while the patron is spinning, the employee is trying to listen empathically, come up with what seems like the best answers, stay within policy, follow the Code of Conduct, and provide good service.

I always tell my training groups to go easy on their co-workers and start to come around and comply once they realize the employee is using good de-escalation skills, customer service skills, and communications skills. No sense in beating up on a colleague who is trying his or her best. The group feedback should be supportive and forgiving. These scenarios are tough because there are no perfect answers, ideal solutions, or flawless words to use. Your best efforts may be thwarted by an eccentric, rude, stubborn, indifferent, or angry patron, who also happens to have poor listening skills, either in general or because of the situation in particular.

These 12 scenarios have come to me from library employees over the years. After 21 years as a library security consultant, I can make up my own, certainly, but I like getting these scenarios from staffers who have had to deal with them. Get to work on these at your next staff meeting and see what answers you can develop for your team.

1. A patron is using the Internet and soon goes over his one-hour time limit. Other patrons are lining up at your desk to use the Internet too. One patron says to you, "Hey! I'm next and he's hogging the computer. I need to get online now! Either you do something about him or I will!"
2. An adult comes to your desk and it's clear she's very angry. She's accompanied by her 13-year-old son. She says, "Yesterday, one of you people told my boy he had to leave because he was making too much noise. I want somebody to tell me why he was told this and I want to speak to the one who made him go!" (Yesterday was your day off and the employee in question is off today.)
3. An elderly gentleman is at the circulation desk trying to check out two DVDs. His borrowing privilege has been revoked due to overdue notices, big fines, and missing items that were never returned. He says to you, "You're just picking on me because I'm old! I know my rights! You have to let me have this stuff!"
4. During a summertime field trip sponsored by the local Day Camp, you see several children riding on the book carts, jumping on the tables, and pounding the computer keyboards. You approach the camp counselor, who tells you, in a defensive way, "What's the big deal? They're just letting off a little steam. Weren't you ever young once?"
5. Two teenage couples are in the library near closing time. It's clear from their physical behavior that each is highly interested in their dates. Both couples are making out quite visibly and other patrons are embarrassed. One of the boys stops his activity and says to you, "What are you looking at?" The other boy joins in and taunts you with the same question.
6. An older woman approaches you to complain about noise being made by several middle school students. "Libraries are supposed to be quiet places. What's wrong with parents these days? Those kids should be kicked out! What are you going to do about this?" You've been busy with another patron and haven't heard any more noise coming from the students than other adult users.
7. A man in his late 50s who frequents the Genealogy area almost daily is now seen with a young boy of about 10, playing video games on the man's laptop computer. It's clear they don't know each other too well. The man and the boy have both been seen in the library before but never together. Today, it looks like they're leaving together. You approach the man and he says, "Go away! My new friend and I are doing fine without your help."
8. Every Friday when the Library closes, a nine-year-old girl is out in front of the Library waiting for a ride. As the Person In Charge, you ask her if someone is coming for her; she tells you her mom was supposed to pick her up before closing time. She appears mature enough to take care of herself, but still has that look of unease. It's already 10 minutes past closing and other staff want to go home and get on with their evening plans.
9. A middle-aged man likes to dominate all conversations in the library. His voice is loud and other staff and patrons seem rattled or offended by his language and mannerisms. He comes into the library about once per week but doesn't seem to remember how to use the Internet, so he makes a lot of demands for staff time to explain the simplest things to him, over and over again. Staff are not sure if this is real or he is messing with them.
10. A big burly guy comes into the library and seems very intimidating. He always wants to use the exact same Internet computer each time and he gets visibly upset when another patron is using "his computer." He has confronted people who get too close to him or who ask when he will be done using the computer. Staff are afraid to speak with him because he seems angry, suspicious, and even a bit paranoid.
11. A first-grader comes in every Saturday morning with her grandmother for children's reading hour. The child seems happy playing with other kids but appears fearful of her grandmother. When it's time to leave, the child cries and doesn't want to go. The grandmother gets angry and pulls her roughly out the door.
12. A 30-year-old man who is developmentally disabled spends all his time on the Internet. He needs to be reminded of the Internet usage rules and not to make fun of other people or to stare at young women in the library. He gets dropped off by his caregiver, who rarely stays very long with him once he's inside. The female staff feels uncomfortable around him, because he stares at them, although he has never said or done anything inappropriate toward them.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

The scope of the criminal gang problem in this country is hard to measure accurately. We know from FBI, Department of Justice, and state and local police statistics that there are around 33,000 known gangs, with over 1 million active members. This includes people engaged in "criminal activity, using a gang name, insignia, colors, hand signs, initiation rites, a code of conduct, and other forms of affiliation that show an organized approach to their illegal activities." Examples include street or prison gangs, most often organized by race; motorcycle gangs; white supremacy gangs; or the more well-known organized crime gangs, like the Italian Mafia seen in the movies, but also consisting of multinational gang members from hundreds of countries around the world.

When it comes to street gangs, most of their activities center around drug sales; extorting "street tax" money from other gangs and business owners; burglarizing homes or businesses; robbing people or businesses; stealing cars; stealing large amounts of retail goods; protecting their territory/turf; and using retaliatory violence against each other. We see near-daily stories about drive-by shootings that leave ordinary innocent people, or their kids, dead from getting caught in the crossfire. In other words, you do not want a street gang to occupy your library. And yet, it happens.

Many gangs use a "rings of membership" model to signify who does what, based on their status. The "OGs" or "Original Gangsters" are either the founders or related to the past founders of the gang; some can range from 30 to 50 to even 70 years old. The "Shotcallers" are often the ones who organize most of the activities and keep the peace inside the gang. They report to the OGs. The "Prospects" are prospective members of the gang, who are trying to earn their way into full membership - through selling drugs, stealing, and harming rival gang members (or the responding police). The "Wannabes" are young people who may not ever rise to the level of full membership, but hang around the gang for status, protection, and support. Some gang members allow females as full members, but this is rare, and many young women never go past "Wannabe" status, even though they engage in just as many dangerous, illegal activities as the male full members. (Females often carry guns, drugs, and money for other gang members, knowing that the police are much less likely to search them.)

Some gang members may go to the library for the simple reason that they are in middle school or high school and need to do their homework. Some gang members attend school and graduate and go on to college. This path to an education makes it easier for them to leave the gang life, which as you can imagine, is not as easy as quitting a job at a local fast-food restaurant and walking away. (The phrase, "Blood In-Blood Out," signifies their usual entry and exit from the gang.)

More likely, gang members will meet at the library because it is perceived as a safe place, or is "neutral territory," a building in between gang neighborhood jurisdictional lines. Most often, gang members see the library as an easy place they can steal from; mark, tag, paint, etch, or scratch their gang name, street nicknames, colors, or monikers into the walls, restrooms, or into materials; sell drugs; recruit new members; or intimidate other kids or adults. Their usual interactions with library staff can range from neutral to polite, to harassing and threatening. (I worked on a threat assessment case in Los Angeles, where a female library employee was dropped off for work each day at the facility by her brother, a longtime prison gang member. He was shot and wounded by a rival gang, in front of the library, two separate times. She was a good person; he had some issues. Not an easy case to manage.)

Let's acknowledge that six kids sitting together is not a gang. But as quoted here by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry website, these are the warning signs for possible gang interest, activity, recruitment, exploitation, and potential membership. Library leaders and staffers should pay attention to these warning signs and potentially problematic behaviors in children, students, and young adults they see in their facilities:

"There are many signs that parents and guardians can use to tell if a child may be involved in gang activity. These include:

• Having unexplained money, expensive new items, or clothing.
• Wearing clothing of all one type, style, or color, or changing appearance with special haircuts, tattoos or other body markings.
• Using of hand signs, special slang or words with hidden messages, or having gang graffiti on walls or personal items.
• Associating with known gang members.
• Withdrawing from family, not obeying curfews, changing or worsening attitude with adults and peers.
• Using or possessing drugs.
• Carrying weapons."

Your first step, should you have fears and concerns about gang activity in your library, should be to set an in-person meeting with your local police or sheriff's department, preferably with an officer or deputy who has beat responsibility for your area; a School Resource Officer (SRO) from a nearby campus; or a detective with the Gang Unit. Explain the situation you're seeing and ask for their advice.

You may be able to get immediate (better) help and support from a local gang prevention social services agency. Most of these groups are founded and run by former hardcore gang members, who have made it their mission for the rest of their lives to promote an anti-gang message to the kids and young adults they encounter, especially those who are in the "Prospect" or "Wannabe" stage of involvement. These men can speak the language of the streets on your behalf, and talk to current or possible gang members about staying away from the library. Their guidance and wisdom for these types of interventions far exceed what the police could do. Seek them out.

Second, immediately remove any library materials that have been marked with gang signs. Have the janitorial, maintenance, Public Works, or Facilities staff paint over or repair parts of the library that have been marked. The reason is simple: tagging, left unremoved or unrepaired, just encourages more of the same. Worse yet, rival gangs will come into the library to paint, pen, or scratch over the first gang's marks. This type of escalating behavior among them often leads to retaliation violence.

(Best to do all repairs before or after business hours, so no one connected to the gang sees this activity being done. To them, painting over their gang marks is akin to painting over the Mona Lisa. The fact that they don't take kindly to it shouldn't stop you; just be discreet when making all repairs.)

Gang members are hypersensitive to being embarrassed or slighted, especially in front of their peers, their rivals, or their girlfriends. Be careful not to disrespect a male or female of any age, that you suspect may be a gang member or otherwise affiliated with a gang. They have long memories of any encounter where they felt talked down to or were treated in a dismissive or condescending manner. You can still be firm, fair, consistent, and reasonable as you apply library policy or your Code of Conduct, just keep your tone and body language neutral and professional. Choosing the right staff member or library supervisor to say what needs to be said can help a lot too.

I have heard some library directors use the bold step of having the police issue gang members a trespass warning or even getting a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against a group of known (or what are called "documented") gang members. This step is not without its real perils. Talk to the police in detail before you go in this direction, as it is an all-in, go-nuclear decision. (These people are not great rule-followers and don't like being told what to do or where to do it.)

Last, your highest-risk activity, in terms of solving the problem of gang activity in your library, would be to meet with the teenagers or adults you see or can determine are the leaders. I have seen this work in high-stress situations (one of my colleagues, who was the Security Chief for the Washington DC school system, did it safely and it led to a successful "peace treaty" between several school campuses and the gangs). The right person from the library is the key to this being a successful, useful, safe meeting. Explain your expectations, carefully, without threats, and ask for their help to get their crew to leave for good or comply with library rules.

Gangs have infiltrated every state, most cities, and even many small towns. Pay attention to what you see and get help to address it, safely and early.

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

One way to think about how to be a better library leader is to think about who was a good leader for you. A useful exercise in improving your leadership skills--especially in the area of being firm, fair, consistent, assertive, and reasonable--is to take a pen and a pad and make a list of the traits, behaviors, characteristics, and even eccentricities of the best bosses you ever worked for.

And don’t just consider your previous library bosses for this list; go back through every job you ever held and consider how you were treated, led, taught, praised, disciplined, and communicated to by your direct supervisors. Some current bosses say that their best boss was their first boss, or their best experience was in a fast-food job, or while working for a family-owned business, or that their best boss was their first library boss.

Of course, this list is not complete until you consider the dark side. If one side of your page contains what was so good about certain bosses, the other side must describe the truly horrible bosses you worked for, and how you survived their alleged leadership skills.

When I use this "Best Boss-Worst Boss" exercise in the basic HR/supervision classes I teach, I get quite a range of interesting replies. On the Best Boss list, the participants write traits like: great listener, mentored me, treated everyone fairly, used lots of praise, kept the group informed about issues, went to bat for us with senior management, gave out assignments fairly, taught me how to do my job better, gave me the freedom to learn and make mistakes, caught me doing things right, and was always available but didn’t micromanage me.

On the Worst Boss list, I often see comments like: alcoholic, liar, screamer, slept at his desk, stole money from me, timed my bathroom breaks, took credit for my ideas, couldn’t or didn’t want to communicate, was never satisfied with my work, never praised me or anyone else, never taught me anything, seemed bothered when I asked questions, didn’t make eye contact with me, threw us all down and blamed us in front of senior management, gone all the time, micromanaged me.

If you look at your list side by side, you can say that many of the Best Boss characteristics are the opposite of the Worst Boss characteristics, and vice-versa. The context of these work situations is a part of the comparison as well. What some employees think of as a "micromanager" might simply be a boss that sets the performance and behavior bars high and demands results. What some employees label "bosses as missing managers" might simply mean that they gave every employee the freedom to do their jobs without too much unnecessary over-the-shoulder scrutiny, thereby expressing confidence in their people.

As you consider the items on your "Best Boss – Worst Boss" list, ask yourself these questions: “Do my employees ever make their own lists? Do they compare me to the best boss or the worst boss they ever had in their careers? Do they talk with each other about my leadership style?” The answers are: yes, yes, and only on days that end in the letter “y.”

This list-making process can be eye-opening. What are the traits and behaviors you need to do more of and which ones should you stop doing? What are the things that the best bosses in your career did that you want to emulate and which ones from the worst bosses do you want to avoid? When it comes to supervising, leading, and disciplining your people in the library environment, which list do you want to end up on?

By Dr. Steve Albrecht

The American Management Association is the oldest training company in the US. It was founded in 1926 and has trained over 10 million people. Of the 160 business seminars it offers, for business owners, leaders, managers, and first-line supervisors, the most popular learning program is a two-day workshop called "Fundamentals of Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Managers." 

This program is not popular because it's the easiest to attend or the shortest (others don't require nightly homework like it does and are usually three or four days in length). It's popular because it's the most necessary training for business success for current and future leaders. To help you promote in your career as a library leader, you must be able to "speak the language of business," which is about understanding budgets, monitoring spending, understanding payroll costs for existing or future staffing levels, controlling costs, allocating assets, counting inventory, and knowing how to read and interpret the often interrelated financial reports.

As a library employee wanting to move into a supervisory, management, or leadership role, it's critical for your success to acquire a knowledge of basic financial statements; understand the "Accrual Process," the "Accounting Equation," and what "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" means; understand liquidity, leverage, and profitability through understanding cash flow; calculate fixed, variable, overhead costs, and a break-even analysis; be able to read, interpret, and explain a Balance Sheet and Income Statement; understand operating and capital expenditure budgets; understand employee and payroll tax reporting requirements; and know how and why to measure the Return on Investment for departments, projects, and strategic plans. 

And speaking of budgets and their importance, I contacted my (far wiser) colleagues for their advice on getting a better handle on public agency budgets:

"Get in good with your Finance Director and get some simple explanations of how your particular library's budget process works. Get their help to move money around if you've over/under spent in certain areas."

__________

"Budgets offer an opportunity to set goals for the organization with a spending plan. The budget is a guide. It doesn't mean there won't be exceptions. It has to be realistic from the beginning, i.e., because you want to spend $xxx, you can't just say revenue is going to be $xxx. It's a tool to help management understand both the revenues stream(s) and expenses of the organization, and which expenses are fixed and which are variable."

_______

"When we think of budgets or budgeting for work, we often think we must have some sort of financial background or that the `finance person' will or should be the one to set and monitor the budget. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Managers and supervisors need to know how to establish, use, and defend their budgets. Begin with the end in mind. I still love this phrase from Steven Covey and it applies to budgets: '1) Know where you want to go, 2) What you need to accomplish and 3) How much it will take to get you there.' In other words, a budget is that road map that you set in the beginning with the end in mind. Knowing this information, keeps your program running and your staff employed."

_______

"Understanding funding sources. It's likely the majority of funding comes from General Fund sources (versus Revenues) and therefore is subject to the approval of Public Officials (usually the City Manager or County Administrator, then the Mayor and Council). Does your city or county have a one-year or two-year budgeting process? There is not any latitude to change funding allocations throughout the budgeting cycle unless you're able to reallocate within your approved budget, so you have to anticipate needs. Think strategically and long-term. Big items like Capital Improvement projects must be planned for many years out. Foundation support (like the Friends of Library) is where special projects and discretion may provide additional funding to get non-budgeted items. Maintaining public support and having advocates who will fundraise from a non-profit perspective and people to write letters or speak at public comment during budget hearings can 'save' or raise the importance of library initiatives as a City Manager or County Administrator tries to balance the needs of all City or County departments. It's important for them to share the reality of the public budgeting process to encourage staff to be fiscally prudent. The majority of a budget will go to personnel-related expenses so there is little discretion 'to find extra money to spend.' Salary savings from open positions are usually available for departments to spend, depending on the spending philosophy of the City Manager or County Administrator."

_______

"Know your library's part of the overall budget expectation. How did the budget pan out for last year? On the nose, under, or over? How are budgets determined? Do you have a say in your budget needs? How is the budget matched to the department's needs? Once you determine your department needs have you involved your team in finding ways to improve the department? Once you've empowered the team to help drive the department goals, you can look for innovative ways to close the gaps. You can determine the costs of improvements and team investments and forecast by monthly milestones. Measure the team's success in milestones and forecasts and reassess and adjust by mentoring your team. The real key is to know the mission, assess the team's ability to get ahead of the mission, and determine the investment needed for team growth within the department's role in the overall mission. Success comes from the innovation of empowered employees that feel valued in the organization's mission."

_______

"Budgeting helps to track (and control) actual expenses and future expenses as well. Set a budget based upon fixed costs and revenue (income). Do it for each month, anticipating additional expenditures over and above fixed costs. Control your discretionary spending and live within your budget limits. Make staff additions with the budget in mind."

_______

"Budgets are a forecast and recognize that many expenses are variable and as such a function of revenue. Use the budget as a benchmark to measure variations from the forecast and expose potential problems. If revenues exceed the budget, then your variable expenses should follow suit. If revenues drop, variable expenses should drop also. Non-profits like libraries require budgets to provide blanket board approval for expenditures by the management. While we may also use the budget to benchmark performance, we're primarily using it as a preauthorization to spend funds within the limits of the budget. Budgets should be built around staffing requirements (how many people, of what job description/pay rate are required for each shift). Include adding hours to accommodate an unanticipated peak period or subtract hours during less peak hours. Another rookie mistake: accidental overtime. Overtime results in premium pay (1.5 to 2x the original rate of pay). Similarly, if breaks or lunches aren't taken on time, then premiums or penalties must be paid. All of these things create the potential to overspend the budget. Tight control of the  breaks and lunches, and careful scheduling can help avoid these penalties and premiums."

There are lots of approaches to improving your financial literacy, using either online courses from training companies that specialize in one-day or multi-day seminars; local or online college and university classes, extension courses, or certificate programs; or through self-study programs offered by financial education non-profits or associations. Ask for mentoring from the financial professionals in your library, city, or county. Get directions, a lesson plan, and supportive career guidance from your Chief Financial Officer, Finance Director, Finance Manager, Budget Director, or similar experts. They recognize the value of the data they create and interpret; they will want you to appreciate it just as much.