Library Wouldn't Help Police Identify Woman Pulled From River -- Legislation Needs Amending

NewsNet5 WEWS Cleveland, OH ^ | Feb. 4, 2007 | Unknown

[plan2succeed.org]

LANCASTER, Ohio — Police tried to identify a woman they pulled from an icy river by checking on her library card, but the library would not cooperate, citing a policy set by its board.

The woman, who was treated for unknown injuries, was carrying her library card on a key ring but had no other identification when a passer-by found her in the Hocking River on Thursday night, police said.

So a dispatcher, then an officer called the Fairfield County District Library and were told the library could not release the information without a court order. The woman later was identified as Sheila Springer, 51, by someone at the local hospital where she was taken.

The woman was later taken to Grant Medical Center in Columbus, where she would not allow information to be released on Friday. The hospital said Saturday they had no information on Springer. There was no telephone listing for her. Police did not know how she got in the river.

The library's board set the policy of withholding information about cardholders, library Director Marilyn Steiner said Saturday.

However, Steiner said that after being contacted about the police request, she told her staff they could release the information if they were sure the caller was a law enforcement officer and it was "a matter of life or death." Steiner said the library was prepared to release the woman's identity about 10 minutes after the first call by police, but was told it was no longer necessary.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. I CLAIM EXCEPTION UNDER COPYRIGHT FAIR USE PROVISIONS.

[plan2succeed.org]

Well, if you read the actual policy (appearing elsewhere a few times in this thread), it appears to state the librarians must help the police in cases such as this. But they did not. This has to be a problem.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Shows what happens when "unintended consequences" are not taken into consideration.
A lesson to all who make laws: think about what you are doing!

[plan2succeed.org]

All,

Google Groups just posted a link on this.

[plan2succeed.org]

Librarian Refused to ID Hurt Woman

LANCASTER POLICE
Librarian refused to ID hurt woman
Cardholder found struggling in river
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Mary Beth Lane
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

LANCASTER, Ohio — A woman who carried no identification except her public library card was plucked from the icy waters of the Hocking River on Thursday night.

Lancaster police were able to identify her as 51-year-old Sheila Springer, but no thanks to the Fairfield County District Library.

Police are considering referring a complaint of obstruction of official business to the Lancaster city prosecutor over library circulation manager Laura Gibson’s refusal to cooperate, Sgt. Randy Greenawalt said yesterday.

Springer remained at Grant Medical Center in Columbus yesterday, but her condition was not made public at her request, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Police got a call from a passer-by at 8:43 p.m. that a woman was in the water behind Carnival Foods along Memorial Drive, where a footbridge crosses the Hocking River.

The caller, 56-year-old Jimmy Willoughby, was walking across the bridge when he heard cries that he initially thought came from a cat in distress, he told police. Then he spotted a woman in the water directly under the bridge.

After he called police, he plunged into the water to help.

Police Officer Eric Eggleston found the man holding the woman’s head above the water. The water was about 1 foot deep, but the current was strong. The two men struggled trying to get her up a steep, slippery riverbank, and then Lancaster firefighters arrived and used ropes to drag her from the water.

She was fully clothed but bore no identification except for her library card on a key ring. A police dispatcher reached the library circulation manager and asked for help identifying the woman. Gibson refused.

Officer Matt Mullett then tried, explaining that it was an emergency and she was required to cooperate, and Gibson refused again, saying she could not release the information without a subpoena, according to the police report.

"I can’t comment," Gibson said yesterday, when reached at the library.

Meanwhile, the woman was identified after she was taken to Fairfield Medical Center, where someone recognized her. She was flown from there to Grant Medical Center.

The woman told Eggleston, who accompanied the rescue squad to Fairfield Medical Center, that she had gone to Carnival Foods to buy a Mountain Dew and was walking back across the footbridge when she wound up in the water. How she got there is still unclear, Eggleston said, because she gave varying accounts. She hurt her pelvis and leg, the officer said.

Police had not had any trouble with the library before, said Deputy Chief Dave Bailey. He said he had no comment about the librarian’s behavior Thursday night.

Orman Hall, president of the library’s board of trustees, said it was unfortunate that the librarian did not cooperate and suggested that she mistakenly erred on the side of conservatism in preserving the confidentiality of a library patron.

He was confident that library Director Marilyn Steiner would educate the employees on how to work with police.

"We need to do some work," Hall said. "I am confident that Marilyn and her staff will clarify the issues around confidentiality to make sure this doesn’t happen again."

Police plan to honor Willoughby for his efforts, Greenawalt said.

m...@dispatch.com

[Burkean]

I'm not sure how much reliability a "de facto" leader has, as much power I suppose as the ALA actually has over individual libraries--which is as much as the library's staff chooses to let it have.

I am a librarian and I'm also a member of the ALA. Even the most strident of ALA devotees do not follow every single thing the ALA endorses (though I do agree wholeheartedly that most librarians are decidedly liberal and the ALA promotes liberal agendas).

[CharlesWayneCT]

My card doesn't have my name on it, just my signature that attests that I will return stuff -- and it's pretty much unreadable.

There is a number on the card, and that number would identify me. I'm guessing that's how it's done in this county as well.

[saquin]

To be clear, a library "circulation manager" is not a librarian. They are clerks who check out books at the front desk. They have no library degree. Many are part-time employees. What this "circulation manager" should have done in this situation is bumped it up to a more senior person at the library (head librarian, library director...) to make a determination as to whether this was a legitimate request. I understand her reluctance to give information over the phone but this was above her pay grade.

[BuffaloJack]

I only know one librarian personally, she's a card carrying member of the ACLU. Nuff said.

[saquin]

I only know one librarian personally, she's a card carrying member of the ACLU. Nuff said.

Well, that's certainly enough empirical proof for me.

[plan2succeed.org]

This de facto leader has been there for 40 years:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA606394.html

[NCLaw441]

I did see the policy, and it had some sort of exception for "exigent" circumstances, I think. That wouldn't be the case here, since the woman had already been treated. I could see a situation where the woman was threatening suicide and her family needed to be contacted as "exigent" but this was not. The police were simply trying to inform her relatives. That isn't an emergency. It could wait 10 minutes, IMHO.

[plan2succeed.org]

ok

[Burkean]

I agree with a few things that the group on intellectual freedom touts, but for the most part I don't. My main point is that the ALA only controls what libraries or librarians do insofar as individual librarians choose to allow. The ALA is not going to close down a library that does not follow its guidelines.

The public library in Provo, Utah for instance is much different in the way it interprets intellectual freedom than the public library in New Haven, Connecticut--or at least the day to day practices are different. Yet both are in some manner allied with the ALA. At least that is my observation.

[plan2succeed.org]

You said, "My main point is that the ALA only controls what libraries or librarians do insofar as individual librarians choose to allow."

This is so wrong. SafeLibraries.org would not even be here in the first place if this were the case. The library refused to stop providing children with access to Playboy despite a citizen's request, then the request of hundreds of citizens, then the survey results of the entire town, then the formal request of the government of the town. And the ALA then joked about it and about the "censor" publicly, then the ALA president at that time joined in to trash the citizen, then the de facto leader of the ALA came in to say she's sick of people trying to make libraries into safe places for children. To this day that library still has Playboy available for children of all ages.

So please stop thinking the ALA is not directly involved in local communities, often forcing them to do what the ALA wants. Don't even go there. That is the very reason SafeLibraries came into existence. There's only so long the ALA can roll over the public before someone finally stands up and says something. SafeLibraries is saying something. Here is waht we are saying:

HELP US STOP THE ALA FROM ENSURING CHILDREN HAVE UNFETTERED ACCESS TO INAPPROPRIATE INFORMATION!!! SAFELIBRARY'S VERY OWN CHILDREN ARE STILL AT RISK BECAUSE THE LIBRARY REFUSES TO RESPOND TO THE COMMUNITY AND STOP THEM FROM ACCESSING PLAYBOY MAGAZINE AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE!

WAKE UP, MAN. STOP HOLDING THE ALA HARMLESS.

[plan2succeed.org]

Oops, the above post was meant for you. I accidently sent it to me.

[Burkean]

I am a member of ALA and have attended several national conferences and I am involved in several committees. I am positive that you are wrong about libraries being forced to abide by ALA rules. They only do that insofar as individual librarians or other local groups in charge choose to make it so. The ALA does not have the power to close down libraries or insist that libraries abide by anything.

Children's access to pornography is a hot issue in libraries. Many librarians resent children who can barely talk being dropped off by busy parents for unsupervised visits at the local library. It is true that the ALA's bill of patron rights does say something like "Any material in the library shall be available to any patron regardless of age, race, gender..." etc. I've never heard from anyone, even the most liberal, that they see this as a call to provide pornography to children. I have pressed this issue numerous times because I think it should be rewritten but nobody seems to think it is a problem.

The internet is what has made this a growing issue, because most libraries do not have Playboy (we have it at the university library where I work but it is on microfilm and microfiche). Libraries have been forced to deal with the issue of the internet and children because of CIPA, which trumps anything they might choose to follow about the ALA.

In fact though, libraries are full of books that most parents probably would not want their children to read. I'm not talking about just "The Joy of Gay Sex" or other controversial titles. There are things that most people would agree are okay for libraries to offer for adults that I would not want children to be reading. Most libraries believe it is the parents' responsibility to monitor what their children are reading.

[pepsionice]

All you have to do is find three bulky football players and just tell them to get the information (as necessary). The librarians will freak out and call the cops. The cops will stand at the door and smile...waiting for the bulky boys to get the info necessary. When you start treating these people in such a fashion...they start to realize they are part of the real world...and not some special protective society that they dream of.

[plan2succeed.org]

Burkean, you are very well spoken, and I agree with most of what you say.

For example, you are correct when you, and the ALA even, says parents are responsible for what children are reading. But, and it's a big but, that is not the whole story.

Parents being responsible is fine, but two things are very important. 1) The ALA creates a pool of books from which the children may choose that contain quite a lot of inappropriate material. Sometimes, for example, the ALA gives such books awards, such as Looking For Alaska. The ALA awards this for kids as young as 12. I personally got the award winning author to say he would not give his own award winning book to his own 12 year old if he had one -- he thought 14 would be more appropriate. This is like a hotel saying parents are responsible for children in the children's swimming pools but placing into the pools dangerous toys for children.

2) The other thing the ALA does is mislead the parents as to the contents of the books. Totally inappropriate books may be called "coming of age" books. mention of any controversial content is expunged from the material parents get to evaluate the books. The ALA even has contradictory pages on it own site sometimes recommending a book about sex with babies in Pampers and children performing oral sex on both parents and sometimes saying it is only for older students.

In other words, there is no informed consent. The ALA wins either way. If you are not informed, the ALA says you should be. If you get informed, and the ALA is the trusted source, you are misled about the inappropriate nature of the books. Either way, parents lose, children lose, and the ALA wins given the rules of the game are set up by the ALA and the full truth is never revealed.

This is like the hotel telling the parents the pools are perfectly safe and the children will enjoy the pools when there are actually materials unsafe for the children in the pool about which the hotel did not inform the parents. The parents are entitled to rely on the hotel managers. Similarly parents are entitled to rely on the recommendations of the ALA. But in either case, the parents were not informed, the children got harmed, and the hotel or the ALA can claim the children's safety is the parent's responsibility so no liability attaches. The hotel would lose that case. The ALA should lose as well.

That's more truthful. Now, knowing the ALA is recommending inappropriate books for children, and at the same time misleading the parents about the contents of those books, do you still feel the parents are at fault for their children reading highly recommended, award winning books about inappropriate sexual material and the like?

[Tamar1973]

We have to draw the line somewhere, and I think almost everyone would agree we are all better off if librarians do not act as public executioners.

The fact that the police didn't know her name for 10 minutes did not add one second or take one second away from her life.

The library's policy is a reasonable balance between the right of privacy and the right of law enforcement for assistance.

[Burkean]

I still think it is the parents' responsibility, and if they are not taking that initiative, if they are too busy in their own lives, then they are failing their role as parents. Even that scion of the Kennedy clan Jackie Kennedy realized that the parents' MOST important role was raising children--long before Hillary Clinton turned the responsibility over to an entire village.

The examples you cite about books makes me think about the MPAA's rating system. I long ago came to the realization that the MPAA's standards are not my standards, and I feel sorry for the 13 and 14 year old child whose parents blindly believe that every PG-13 movie is suitable for dropping their kids off for an unsupervised afternoon.