Training Notes: How to Respond to a Security Incident at Your Library

Hello,

I attended a training on library incidents, How to Respond to a Security Incident at Your Library, that took place at Central on May 7th. My notes are below.

Please let me know if you have any comments, questions, and/or concerns.

A link to the Power Point presentation is here: http://www.slideshare.net/ALATechSource/albrecht-workshop-how-to-respond-to-a-security-incident-at-your-library

Major Points:

• Recommended that all library locations have a poster-size print of the codes of conduct for customers.
• Stressed that staff should be firm, fair, consistent, and assertive when enforcing library rules and policies and handling challenging customers. Enforce consequences daily.
• Staff should nurture liaisons with other agencies such as mental health resources and police
• Meet with group leaders and ask for help
• Collaborate with homeless advocacy groups and agencies
• Use police to enforce trespass notices
• Call police for gangs and remove gang graffiti and tags immediately
• When dealing with challenging customers staff should focus on behaviors and promoting peace.
• When reporting an issue to 911, focus on describing behaviors not stereotypes (e.g., he is being loud and disruptive, she is stalking a boy and the library and won't stop following him, etc.)
• Use descriptive language for dispatcher and ignore labels such as "crazy"
• For some issues, staff do not need to follow the chain of command. Sometimes, staff need to be proactive and call 911 for serious issues and emergencies.
• If customers see that there are no consequences for their behavior, they will escalate in their behavior.
• Staff should practice turning on their "acting skills" when dealing with difficult customers.
• Recommended creating a "hangout environment" for police to stop by sporadically (have coffee or drinks for police). Would build relationship between library and local police, and customers would know that the library is a place visited often by police (might encourage positive behavior).
• Police can also conduct field interviews at the library.
• Police can question customers that are engaging in suspicious behavior
• Field interviews can aid police in identifying pedophiles violating parole/probation, find people out of registration or parole, people with warrants (selective enforcement)
• If a customer is engaging in suspicious behavior with child, police can question customer and ask kid about parent/parents and ask man/woman to leave premises
• Arrests can be made as well
• When dealing with a challenging customer or a customer violating library police, try to get his or her name and follow these rules: Introduce, Explain, Ask
• INTRODUCE yourself and try to get the customer's name.
• EXPLAIN the rule/policy: "I noticed that..." / "The reason I'm here..." / "I'm sure you already know this, but..." 
• ASK the customer to cease/change the behavior: "I need to ask you to..."
• Use SPACE as a barrier: don't place yourself to close to the customer, use proximity items (e.g., desk or chair), and place your body at a 45-degree angle (face-to-face can be seen as aggressive, angry, and challenging to some customers)
• For teens, particular gang members, show respect and courtesy. They are hypersensitive to being insulted and need respect from peers and adults. They do not like to be disrespected. 
• Separate teen from friends and speak privately and courteously to them.
• Be clear and precise, "You cannot do that if you want to stay here."
• Staff should use code words for situations, especially for calling supervisor or cops (e.g., "Go get Code Blue.") Able to effectively communicate with each other without notifying customer.
• Let customers vent. Have an empathetic response to their situation. 
• Align staff with customer (best customer service "alignment"). Oftentimes, it is a supervisor (i.e., getting a supervisor calms the customer), but aligning staff with a customer can also mean getting the staff person best able to connect with that customer (e.g., customer likes a staff person, can communicate better in a different language, similar in age, background, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
• Let customer know that you are willing to help them but that they have to cease their disruptive behavior. ("I can't help you if you don't stop yelling/threatening me.") Again, this is an example of an empathetic response: you want to help them but cannot at their current state.
• Staff should set boundaries but give customers space, distance, and humane treatment.
• Be creative when enforcing policy. (e.g., explain to sleeping customer that he or she should not fall asleep in library because someone might steal his or her stuff)
• Top ten tips for dealing with challenging customers/challenging situations:
• Trust your intuition
• Be assertively polite
• Use a lighter touch first
• Know when to change the ratios of confrontation
• Stay in condition yellow around the public (i.e., remain present and aware to monitor the situation and staff should work as a team to ensure the safety of the individual staff and customers - be a shepherd and protect 1. yourself, 2. staff, 3. customers)
• Change your position. Use space, distance, and proxemic barriers.
• Practice "If-Then" thinking
• Report every incident where you or others felt afraid
• Work as a team
• Be a shepherd

Thanks,

MR

Training Notes: Smart Money

Hello,

As of today, everyone should have scheduled themselves for a Smart Money training. (If you have not scheduled yourself for a training, please let me know so that you can be scheduled by the end of this week.)

Below are a few notes Jose and I took at our training. Please let us know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Also: if any of you attended a training at another location, please let me know if you received any new information so that it may be added to this post.

My goal is to make sure everyone is informed regarding the information presented at these trainings.

Major Points - Melissa:

• The 2nd signature on the cash drawer count needs to be either the manager or the person-in-charge (PIC). (Going forward, the PIC at the location will be scheduled to do deposit. - MR)
• Staff should always count the money in the morning prior to placing funds in the drawer.
• If a mistake is made during a transaction, make a note on the cash drawer form. For serious matters that need immediate attention, email or call Dimitri Revada in Financial Services.
• There is no need to do a daily reconciliation form or to submit a monthly deposit report.
• Refunds can be done on Telecheck, but only managers are allowed to process refunds. Refunds through Telecheck must be done on the same day the transaction happened. Anytime after that and refunds must be processed through Financial Services. 
• Staff can use the Miscellaneous Items description in Smart Money to take monies collected for doing print jobs at the CSD, but staff must also make a note on the cash drawer form/merchandise category report what the Miscellaneous Items were for. Please initial or sign next to the description.
• Staff are not to give change from the cash drawer for any reason. Staff are also not to take money from the drawer. (In other words, we do not give refunds from the drawer. That must go through Financial Services.)
• If a credit card is declined through Telecheck, staff can ask for another form of payment but do not re-swipe card. Refer customer to Telecheck. 
• In Smart Money, for credit card payments, the form does not and should not be filled in completely because HPL does not store customer information in Smart Money. The only fields that should be filled in are the Transaction ID field and the Card Type field (we do not accept American Express).
• When processing credit cards and/or checks, use Telecheck first and then Smart Money.
• Dimitri is checking to see if there is a minimum amount that customers need to pay prior to paying with check or credit card (staff at the meeting stated that some customers have paid $0.20 fines with a credit card), but the maximum amount that can be paid by card is $200.
• There are no refunds or voids done in Smart Money. There are no refunds handed out through the cash drawer.

Major Points - Jose:

• Telecheck is used for credit card and check payments. It will prompt user if there are not enough funds for the credit card/payment to be accepted, at which point staff should ask patron if he or she would like to use a different payment option.
• When using SMM and a staff member needs to step away from the station, the staff member needs to log off/out of the system so no one can conduct transactions under the user's ID.
• There is no voiding or waiving in SMM.
• Staff can delete items while on SMM (before processing a transaction) and are encouraged to do so if needed.
• Do not remove fines in Sirsi if patron paid fines online and payment is not yet reflected on customer's account. First, call Financial Services and have them approve the removal of fines. They are currently having issues with PayPal and that is causing a delay in payment processing.
• No refunds at all should be given out of the cash drawer. All refunds come from financial services in the form of a check from the City of Houston. Financial Services can be reached at 832-393-1344.
• It is okay to process any overage funds as booksale in SMM the next day.
• If checks are not inserted the proper way into Telecheck, they will not be processed. Just keep on inserting the check into SMM until the proper way is met.
• The screen will prompt the user for check number - type in the number of the check.
• It is okay to use "No Sale" in SMM but always enter 0 for the amount. Staff might use this to see if change is needed or to complete drawer count at end of the day.
• If there is not enough change to separate monies for the deposit at the end of the day, it is okay to send just one envelope with the un-separated monies, as long as the total deposit amount is sent.
• Do not sign any report unless you actually count the money at the end of the day. Printed name or legible signature on report is okay. If signature is illegible, then printed name is needed next to the signature.

Thank you,

MR

Resource: Programming for Children With Special Needs

Hello,

This is just an informative piece of information that was shared by Sandy Farmer last year regarding tips and ideas for developing and hosting programming for children with special needs. I figured this may come in handy for staff since SRP is here and summer is fast approaching.

There are five articles total in the series:

http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2009/06/programming-for-children-with-special-needs-part-two/

If you are responsible for developing children's programming, you should definitely check it out.

Thanks,

MR

Friends of Houston Public Library Announce the 2015 Friends' Scholarship

From Greg Simpson:

Good afternoon –

The Board of Directors of the Friends of the Houston Public Library has opened the application process for the 2015 Friends’ Scholarship.

The scholarship is intended to support the pursuit of a graduate degree in library and information science.  And new this year - the Board of Directors of the Friends recently voted to increase the award amount from $5,000 to $10,000!  Applications are due by Noon on Monday, July 6, 2015.

For more information about requirements, guidelines and access to the application, please visit https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/friends-scholarship.html.

Our thanks to the Friends for their continued support of librarianship and the Houston Public Library! 

Sincerely,

Greg

Catalog Display Change Coming

From Fred Schumacher:

Hello everyone.

I want to take a moment to make you aware of a display improvement that will be made to the online catalog soon.  Beginning Monday, 05/18/15, the extra content tabs on the item information screen will be changed so that they appear side-by-side under the bibliographic information on the title detail display screen, rather than stacked vertically at the bottom of the list of available items, as they currently do.  Below are two links to a title display.  The first shows the extra content tabs as they will display beginning Monday, 05/18.  The second shows the tabs as they currently display. 

New Display:

https://halan.sdp.sirsi.net/client/en_US/hou-test/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:739132/ada?qu=stephen+ambrose&rt=false%7C%7C%7CSUBJECT%7C%7C%7CSubject

Current Display:

https://halan.sdp.sirsi.net/client/en_US/hou/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:739132/ada?qu=ambrose%2C+personal+reflections+of

We hope that the new layout makes the extra content tabs more visible for customers.  If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Thanks.

Fred Schumacher

Unsolicited Donation: Federal Reserve Bank of KC Symposium

From Sara Karow:

If any other units besides Pleasantville NL have received a copy of Re-evaluating Labor Market Demographics, a collection of papers presented at the Federal Reserve Back of Kansas City's annual symposium, you can send it to Friends. It is well beyond the scope of the HPL collection.

Thanks,

MR

Unsolicited Donation: The Hope We Seek by Rich Shapero

From Sara Karow:

The adult book/CD set The Hope We Seek is not approved for addition to the collection. It may be added to your unit's booksale or sent to Friends.

Thank you,

MR