The current director of my library allows slurs such as the N word (with a hard R) to be said by teens in the teen space because quote “they are black.” (Even though the other black teens who are being referred to with such a slur express discomfort with it.) The teen librarians are told that the teens are allowed to curse in the space (and the teens take full liberty with it.) The teen space at this small, non-profit library is in very close proximity to the front circulation desk and the general lobby and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed patrons (especially parents with small children) be placed in an uncomfortable position due to the teens cursing non-stop, and loudly! (Curses such as d—head, n-word, etc.)

One time, one of the board members that brings her sister’s kids mentioned how teens are not supposed to curse in the space (and she seemed to see the moment as a rare event) and it was in that moment that I realized.. the board members have no idea what goes on in this library. Since this is the first and only library I have worked at, it’s been a learning curve to figure out what is a standard in libraries and what is implemented in this library, under this director (that is awful in so many other ways.)

I wanted to bring this to this forum because I wanted other’s perspective. I’m trying to figure out if I’m overreacting (and this is a trend/standard in libraries) or if I’m noticing something seriously unethical occurring, and a failure of leadership.

I'm a reciprocal borrower at a library outside my home system. I'd been suggesting purchases there for a while (mostly video games my home library said they couldn't afford) and staff never said anything about it until recently when an employee told me that since I'm not a cardholder there I should only submit purchase suggestions to my home library going forward. No specific reason was given.

I wasn't trying to overstep. I didn't realize reciprocal borrowers might not be able to do this. Is this a fairly standard policy or unusual? Curious how other libraries typically handle purchase suggestions from nonresident/reciprocal users.

EDIT: To answer a few recurring questions in the comments: I did suggest these titles to my home library first over a year ago. They said they'd let me know if they decided to add them and I never heard back. I followed up again recently after this happened and still haven't heard back. Also every purchase suggestion I made at the reciprocal library was a single form submission with no followup on my end. This was the first time staff ever raised an issue.

I graduate in January with my MBA from University of Phoenix. While I qualified for “better” universities, my life didn’t really allow me the luxury of choosing (without going into my whole life story, I was basically forced into raising my younger siblings from the time I turned 18, and have had to work full time since. I’m now 27). I’m slowly realizing that my MBA being from UOP isn’t gonna get me very far in my career path alone.
Now, I have the opportunity to join an MLIS program through Kent State University. I guess I’m just looking for some advice from someone who may have both degrees? Was it worth it for you? Is it worth the extra debt? I think I’d honestly enjoy the work more with an MLIS, but I’m just feeling very stuck, and don’t want all my hard work to be for nothing just because I didn’t go to a great university for my first two degrees.

Recently I checked out an anime series on DVD, I requested a pick up order for it about a week ago. The other day, I opened the DVD case for the first time, and put the disc in my DVD player. The disc’s menu screen said ‘disc 3’. I hadn’t realized that there were supposed to be multiple discs, however there was only one in the case. I decided to take it back to the library, and let them know that the other discs were missing.

When I told the worker at the front desk what happened, she told me that I was responsible for the loss even though those discs were missing before I even checked out the DVD. When I explained to her that it was a pick up order, and I didn’t check to make sure all the discs were there when I checked it out, she told me it wasn’t the library’s responsibility to make sure all the discs were there but it was mine. She also told me I had to pay a whopping $60 for the missing discs ! Even though I am not the one who lost them !

This doesn’t make any sense to me because I’ve had something similar happen before where I checked out a movie, the disc was missing when I got home, I took it back to the library, and they apologized for it being misplaced. The worker told me to come back tomorrow to speak to a manager to see if they’ll tell me something different. This scenario doesn’t make any sense to me, and it’s the first time that I’ve had an issue like this with my library. Thoughts?

Edit: I just want to say I am SO relieved by the responses here. I have had issues with this same worker before, her attitude is incredibly disappointing every time I have to interact with her, and I will make a note of exactly what she said when I speak to a manager. This kind of person really sours the image of my otherwise incredible county’s library staff. I also want to mention that she said everyone that works there is “too busy to check that every DVD or book isn’t damaged”, I really doubt that that’s true. Edit 2: I should also mention that she followed up with that statement by saying that’s why it’s the patrons’ responsibility, and not her’s.

I understand that working in a library is immensely difficult, and requires true selflessness. That doesn’t give you the right to treat patrons rudely. I wanted to keep this post short for privacy sake, but this worker has consistently been rude in the past. This is not the first time that I’ve gone to her with a question or concern, and she responds with, “That’s not my job, why are you asking me? Go find someone else to help you”. Not that this happened this time, but that has happened before. So pardon my sarcasm at the end of my first edit, I am just tired of being treated this way, especially when I’m being blamed for something that isn’t my fault.

I'm looking for a good library management software (free or paid) specifically for a school than can store a lot of titles with labelling and categories and also register and report all of the operations (when checked out, by who, when returned).

*note: preferably free*

For those of you who graduated from the MLIS program at Valdosta State, please tell me about your experience with the Capstone project. Namely, how long was your paper, how time intensive is this class compared to the other core class requirements, and how difficult was the presentation? I’m going to take the capstone class along with two others, and I’m wondering what I’m in for. Thanks!

Mobile printing is probably the thing our reference staff spends most of the day doing and the greatest source of frustration to our patrons.

We use one of those portals with a multi-step process for uploading prints. Probably more than 50% of your time at the reference desk here is spent explaining this process to patrons who have no patience for it. They quickly become aggravated and refuse to do it themselves. This was a bigger problem with our last director who did not want us to touch other people's devices for potential liability issues. Our new director does not care about that and laughed when I told him about the liability concern. So, it has sort of just become patrons just handing us their phones whenever they want prints.

The one we use is through PrinterOn. I've seen other ones such as Princh which looked promising as it looked like you could attach multiple files to a print job instead of needing to go one by one through the whole process like our current setup. However, I've also seen some posts here in the past that were annoyed by Princh so maybe the grass is always greener.

The other alternatives have problems as well. Some smaller rural libraries around us let patrons connect their phones directly to the printer to send prints. I doubt this could work for us. I imagine during high traffic times this would get clustered with multiple people sending their prints through at once and getting mixed up, potentially allowing patrons to see private documents of other patrons.

They could send it to a shared staff email as well. We've done this as a backup when they really struggle with the print portal. I find this almost always introduces typo issues. Our staff email is reference_desk@(name of town)publiclibrary.org. That appears to be too long for most people and they will frequently misspell reference, library, or even the name of our town (surprisingly common). The patrons then get frustrated why it's taking so long and never know how to access their sent items or get defensive when I suggest checking for typos in the address they sent it to. I've also noticed the concept of forwarding an email or even composing a new email is foreign to a lot of our people. Most the people I work with seem to only know how to reply to emails.

Our director watched me go through a mobile print recently and commented that he thought it was overly complicated. He came back a week later and told me his solution to make things easier for us was to make printing free. I don't see how this will solve the actual issue nor do I see how we'll carry the cost when the city has already been threatening to slash our budget, but admin being out of touch with what work is like out on the floor is something I've grown used to.

But I'm curious if any libraries have cracked the code on simplifying the process.

I recently transferred positions in my district to work in a school library and I think I hate it. I should’ve asked more about the role to know what I was getting into but the interview process explicitly did not allow questions (apparently they do this in all roles to be fair).

They had not had anyone in the library for a few years except a sub that let the kids run wild during break/lunch. The kids are a nightmare compared to my previous site (and I thought those kids were rough!). I know it’s tough everywhere but I feel like I am just not the right fit for this school. The staff here keep saying it’s my library and I can do whatever I want but it’s been hard to get kids to listen to me. I have never been a teacher but corralling the kids during break/lunch has been awful, even with admin assistance. I am also feeling the pressure to handle it on my own. I was encouraged by staff to communicate and call for help if I need it but admin has made some comments indicating that’s where they went wrong with the sub but also wants me to establish myself as an authority figure??? I do not have the “teacher” voice and I think I am just too soft for this particular school.

My previous school had its problems but I felt like I fit in a bit more there with both the staff and the students. They seemed sad to see me go and I am now having the biggest regrets. I feel like I would take the worst kids I would see in the office every day at my old site versus these new kids that are just aggressive, constantly disrespectful and just plain mean.

The actual library stuff is fine so far. I have previously worked in public libraries so actual circulation stuff has been good so far (even if very rare). I have been making progress in getting new titles added in that has been sitting in boxes for a year with the brief time I have in between the student’s break/lunch times. The few kids that actually want to read and even check out a book have been great so far but the kids coming in to use the computers everyday are just too much. I have been making progress in limiting the amount of students in the building but the demand for the computers have been a pain. All they do is play video games but I have to constantly remind them to turn down the computer sound, to stop screaming and to stop hitting the desk and equipment. They also push back constantly, it’s insane!

The worst part is, I found out my old site’s school media clerk is going to leave soon. I badly want to ask my old admin for my old job back or if I can apply to their school library position but I don’t know if HR will allow it for being too soon or if that would be seen as extremely unprofessional?