[Michlib-l] Question re: patron privacy within the library building - no results

[Ostrom, Kriss]

Teresa - 

Sorry not to reply.

Our procedure is to tell the caller that  we cannot page unless the situation is critical enough that our campus police are willing to come walk the building to look for the person. We refer the caller to our campus police.

Sadly, the police usually call us back without any understanding and ask us to do the page.  At this point, my staffer calls me at home and I call the police to explain again that we will only do that IF the police will come walk the building (10 floors in two wings) to look for the person.  

Once I am convinced that the campus police understand our policy and if they then ask us to do a PA announcement, we will.

So I am telling you that our policy is virtually never understood by our campus police (in spite of many many meetings), so I need to get involved every time.

Thanks for bringing up the privacy concern.  I am ASTONISHED that in all these years, I had never thought about that!!  I will ponder that aspect now.

  -- Kriss
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Kriss Ostrom, Head, Circulation Services (23)
Michigan State University Libraries
366 W. Circle Dr
East Lansing, MI 48824

517.884.1943      FAX  517.355.5005

kriss at mail.lib.msu.edu
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-----Original Message-----
From: michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org [mailto:michlib-l-bounces at mcls.org] On Behalf Of Teresa Stannard
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 4:05 PM
To: michlib-l at mcls.org
Subject: [Michlib-l] Question re: patron privacy within the library building - no results

Last week I posted a question to Michlib, asking how libraries respond 
to callers who want to know if a certain person is in the building.   I 
received many requests to share the results of my post from librarians who had the same question!  I received just one response, from a university library, whose librarians tell the caller that the library 
does not provide a messaging or paging service.   I didn't hear from any 
libraries who had inserted language governing the privacy of patrons who are using the facility into their patron privacy policy.

--
Teresa Stannard, Library Director

Parchment Community Library
401 S Riverview Dr.
Parchment, MI  49004

Ph. 269.343.7747 x203
Fax 269.343.7749

Library Hours:  M-Th 10-8; F 10-6; Sat 10-4


Teresa Stannard, Director
Parchment Community Library
401 S Riverview Dr.
Parchment, MI  49004
Ph. 269.343.7747 x203
Fax 269.343.7749
www.parchmentlibrary.org

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