Recently Asked Questions (RAQs)

I saw a leashed dog in the library and saw no obvious identifiers that it was a service animal. I approached the patron and told him that pets were not allowed in the library. He told me that if I looked down, I could see it was a service animal. In fact, I could not. He then turned the animal around and pointed at the collar, which had "service animal" embroidered in it. Upon turning around to face me, the dog licked both of my hands. The owner ignored this behavior and went back to looking for books. (We do have video footage of the incident and can clearly see in it that the dog licked my hands.)

Does the dog licking my hands constitute a failure to keep the service animal (whether legitimate or not) under control?

I have already contacted the Attorney General's office with this specific question, which they declined to answer, and an HR attorney for advice on what to do if it happens to someone I supervise, which they declined to answer other than saying to tell employees to be cautious around service animals.

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?

Early 2025 has brought changes to stability of certain federal programs, funding, and governance. This instability is creating concern about access to grants, federal programs, and legal frameworks. What can our board do to address this?

I’d like to ask this as generally as I can so that the answers are as applicable as possible, but I’m writing from a small college library in NY, so I’d like to get a sense for myself and my staff about what our rights, obligations and protections for students and patrons are as Librarians in the event of a “visit” or raid by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

We haven’t received guidance from our institution and we’re a small place, but want to be prepared in case our students or staff are targeted.

What are we required to do? What is ICE currently allowed to do on a college campus or in a library? How can we protect our students from these actions by ICE?

I don’t know and wouldn’t ask about a student’s immigration status, but I know for instance that we have graduate assistants and Faculty who are here on visas and who are non-white.

Our organization has for many years now used a “DEI” internship program to bring people from under-represented communities into the library profession. With the new directives coming from the POTUS and various agencies in January 2025, should we stop this program?