personnel visiting workspaces and service areas occurs more frequently in today’s public spaces as more events appear to be happening and as more individuals use social communication techniques which either summon assistance or identify situations where emergency personnel chose to arrive to assist. As always, care must be taken as workers are often instructed (when considering emergency personnel summoned for a wide variety of events) not to provide diagnostic or emergency health assistance to those having problems, because of safety, risk, and liability issues for the institution, workers, the individuals involved and other users in the area. The reality is, however, that
• many people do not want emergency workers to be summoned due to expenses incurred;
• many people do not want emergency workers to be summoned due to the nature of a status or because of their legal/criminal standing; and
• many workers are not aware of worker (and certainly not user) conditions due to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and—in the absence in knowing about conditions or situations—the default setting may be to call emergency personnel.
Note: This monograph content will not include information about those library and information organizations that have chosen to allow their workers to administer treatments to combat opioid issues. Instead, readers may reach out to their umbrella institution for legal information. Prior to reaching out, readers should inform themselves by consulting resources from the profession. (E.g., the New York State Library has extensive information including training materials and guidelines; OCLC provides content on and links to extensive materials including public library responses for case studies; and the American Library Association has information sheets which link to national resources including Center for Disease Control information.)
Recommended behaviors for calling emergency personnel always include managers establishing relationships with emergency personnel who support institutions or communities for the exchange of staffing levels, typical issues encountered by all entities, tips and techniques for handling, preferred methods of communication, code words for communicating under duress, typical/expectations of response times, tours of facilities to identify spaces, introductions of workers, and frequencies of emergency personnel communication devices. Other recommendations include the following plans, areas, and concerns. Differences among these recommendations may occur and be determined by the type of emergency personnel who include—but are not limited to—police, security or general emergency health personnel, and specific emergency health personnel such as mental health personnel:
• Adopt and adapt to guidelines available from the umbrella organization or governing authority for notifying emergency personnel.
• Identify the institution’s chain of communication for decision-making for notifying emergency personnel. (Note: include a master list of languages spoken by staff or nearby workers that may be needed for communicating with and for victims, family members (as allowable by HIPAA).
• Create an institutional list and refer to the institutional process owners for a “who-to-call-list,” why, and when.
• Stock approved safety kits and adopt umbrella organization guidelines or approved behaviors for using safety kits.
• Design scripts for workers to use when emergency personnel have been called, which include preidentified specific areas for entry and exiting the building (depending on events and depending on which emergency personnel are summoned).
• Stock items to use when assisting emergency personnel including stanchions to rope off areas, signage for maintaining distance, police tape or barricade tape for identifying/posting no entry spaces, and stationing people to
⚬ handle onlookers,
⚬ protect victims,
⚬ protect workers or users in the vicinity,
⚬ wait outside for emergency vehicles, and
⚬ open doors for emergency workers ease of entrance and exit.
• Design and regularly conduct drills for summoning and working with emergency personnel.
• Outline roles and responsibilities for managers with regard to emergency worker paperwork, follow up and clean up, including removing emergency signage, institutional and emergency personnel reportage and following up with staff with scripts on what they can and can’t share, and how management should work—post event—with victims, or family members (as allowable by HIPAA).
• Seek external training—as appropriate—for actions that require or appear to need unique training.
Finally, in some situations, institutions and public spaces have chosen to post signage that outlines the institution’s stance and conditions upon which workers will summon emergency personnel. This signage may include local ordinances or institutional policies or general information but should always include the reference(s) to the governing foundational guideline, law, ordinance, and so on.
Conflict/Strife
Definitions of “conflict” and “strife” often use the terms synonymously; however, conflict is more often used for situations determined to be not as serious and those that may be solved, while strife is often referred to as something more serious, something that is longer or long-standing and is less likely to be solved. An example of this might be “a conflict over a fine or fee amount between a workers and a user” and strife might be described by “issues between seniors and teens whose spaces in the library are contiguous” or “issues over bicycles or scooters consistently parked inappropriately outside the front door, falling over and causing a trip hazard” or “negative behaviors directed—inside workspaces—at users from other countries.”
Today’s workers are not pleased with but are seldom surprised by encountering conflict and strife in their spaces. It happens more frequently due to general issues:
• Societal pressures
• Individual pressures, issues, and problems
• Disagreement over values
• Conflict or strife between or among users over personal pressures, issues, or problems
It happens due to issues related to library policies or procedures:
• Individual pressures, issues, and problems related to library services and resources
• Individual pressures, issues, and problems related to library policies and procedures
• Disagreement over library versus user values
• Conflict or strife between or among users and workers over personal pressures, issues, or problems
Recommendations might be looked at as “solvable,” “possibly solvable,” and “manageable but not solvable.” And, in today’s environments there should be a fourth category of “not solvable, must be referred.” As always; however, great care must be taken to consistently review policies and procedures identified as “the reason for or related to conflicts or strife” and to provide users with appropriate signage and information (online, handouts, etc.) to inform them of the library’s position as well as to provide workers with the education and training (including unique communication and scripts) necessary to handle situations as they arise.
Note: Several other sections of this content
