Recently Asked Questions

Is the library at risk if a teen patron volunteers to share contents of a cell phone?

An adult patron recently called the library and said that her 11-year-old daughter reported being filmed outside the library (parking lot or backyard). The child reported that two teen patrons had been using cell phones to film her. No staff witnessed this, but all of the juveniles involved were known to library staff. The two teens had returned inside the library at the time the call came in, and staff asked them if what was reported was true. Both denied the claims, and one asked to “prove” that it wasn't true by showing the contents of his cellphone video library. Do we put ourselves at risk by allowing a patron (juvenile or otherwise) to show us such content? We can see a variety of ways that this might expose us to risk, but we also understand the teen’s impulse to defend himself.

Additional questions that came up (but maybe too much for a single query): If patrons do film each other without consent on library property, is that a further risk for us? If we were to explicitly state that filming others while on library property is against policy, how could we safely enforce that policy?

I’m assuming the age requirement for youth cards varies widely even among NYS libraries, but what are the key determining legal factors which inform how libraries settle on an age range for this policy? I can think of three factors, and libraries likely conflate all of them together. I’d like to extrapolate the real legal concerns so that I can more clearly determine our own library’s circulation policies regarding permission for youth cards.

1. Is the signature to allow for “parent permission” to access the library? Are public libraries legally obligated to obtain parent permission before a child of a certain age accesses library materials or services? I’m assuming that the library would not be liable if, for example, staff allowed an 11-year-old without a library card to read any book they liked within the walls of the library. Does this apply to a child of any age? (I realize unaccompanied minors will eventually come into play). So, by extension, is granting an 11-year-old a library card without parent consent legally permissible?

2. Is the signature an acknowledgement of responsibility for the library materials on behalf of the child? Many library card applications prompt for this specifically, but according to NYS law, is a parent/guardian responsible for library materials checked out to a minor in their care regardless? (If a 15-year-old minor lost library materials or incurred fines or fees, would their parents still be legally responsible even without giving permission for the card?)

3. COPPA and the collection of PII (for online library card signup). Though not required as a non-profit, our library chooses to comply with this policy, requiring parent/guardian consent of online card signup for children 12 and under. Does this mean that a child aged 11 could still, within legal boundaries, apply for a library card in person without collecting consent?

Our library is trying to set some parameters around what we require from a patron in order to check out library materials to them. For adults and teens, this is straightforward: we require they have their library card or a form of identification. We are struggling to find a procedure that works for children when they visit the library without a library card, accompanied by someone who is not their parent or legal guardian. This includes kids who visit the library on field trips or with their daycare, or who come with a friend or extended family member.

We want to have a procedure that balances the rights of minors to read freely, with protection for our library against claims that we have checked out materials to children that the parent/guardian believes to be inappropriate.

Some details about our library's policies:
1. We are a public library and do not restrict borrowing privileges by age group. A card holder is permitted to check out anything in the library, regardless of their age.
2. When a child (birth - age 11) gets a library card, their parent or legal guardian must fill out and sign an application that states: “My child has permission to have a library card. I understand that all library collections, including adult material and internet access, are available to children. I accept responsibility for my child's use of the library and any loss incurred.” This application is retained until the cardholder becomes an adult.[1]

We are not primarily concerned with the financial contract between the library and the parent/guardian, but with the potential fallout if a parent were to become angry that their child was permitted to check something out without their library card. If the card is present — say Dad gave it to Grandma when she offered to bring the kids to the library — we feel somewhat assured by having the parent's signature from the original card application. When the card is NOT present, though, we worry that we're opening ourselves up to problems.

We do have a compassionate/creative internal library card that we occasionally use to check out items to folks when our library's policies (e.g. Requiring a card/ID be present) are interfering with the library's ability to fulfill its mission (e.g. Teen has a book report that's due tomorrow and they didn't bring their wallet). We're concerned that if we used that mechanism to check something out to a younger child whose parent is not with them, we could be accused of using our Public Library Agenda to thwart parents' rights. 

Are we overthinking this?

A former employee who was fired for cause was denied unemployment benefits from DOL and has appealed the decision. Our board has been advised by our outside HR provider to not have contact with the former employee to make sure they don’t provide any support for the appeal or a legal claim. Is that a valid concern?

We have an archive in our Library. We recently got a large donation of research that was used by the donor in the process of researching a book (we have the book in our catalog).

We were hoping the research was primary and original, but upon review, it largely consisted of:

• PDFs of full books taken from Google Books 
• PDFs of book excerpts taken from Google Books
• PDFs of articles with no identifying publication information
• PDFs/Word Documents with excerpts copied and pasted from websites and articles without attribution

This set off major alarm bells!

To complicate things, we have been so busy running our institution, our policies have not been updated to address concerns about “born digital” donations. And of course, we want to keep up a good relationship with the donor, who is a local author.

Is there a disclaimer or notice we can put on the online repository to protect us from potential copyright lawsuits? Is this a situation where every PDF book and document should be researched first to determine if it is in the public domain or protected by fair use? Should we simply refuse to put any of those documents online due to the risk?

Sincerely,
Discombobulated about Donations