[OPLINLIST] Community Service Follow-Up

[Gerry Vogel]

Hello all - I received 12 responses and they follow with identifying
information redacted.  

Thank you for your candid feedback - there sure are a lot of variations
out there.

In summary:

-	Seven offer community service, two or three enthusiastically
(the rest on a case by case basis), five do not offer it.
-	Nobody has any official policies. Two have written or more
formal guidelines and procedures.
-	It is worth it?  It seems to depend on the community, and it
appears some of the smaller ones find more value, since they are more
likely to know the person or have someone vouch for them.

What are we gonna do here?  Have written guidelines and post them/hand
them out to prospective seekers.  We will be able to just say no if we
do not have work/supervision/time for them to complete their service. 

 I will post these to the list when we finalize them.

P.S. Two were scheduled today.  One came in and said she had to work at
her other job, "could I come in tomorrow?".  The other never showed,
then called later and "could I come in tomorrow"?  This is our cleaning
week so there is lots to do, but we'll see if tomorrow is another day!  

Responses follow:

--

Generally speaking, having community service workers has been a positive
experience.  Our workers are normally teens who have to get so many
hours (generally 20 - 40)mandated by the courts. I can think of 7
workers off the top of my head in the last few years and only 1 did not
finish out her hours. We are learning by doing. (we are a small rural
community of about 2000.)

For those who worked and completed their time, it was a win-win
situation. Several talked about coming back and volunteering on their
own and even talked about working in a library someday.  Someone who
worked last year came in a few months ago just to say hello.

Our process is that when someone calls asking if they can do community
service (we are one of the few places in our community where they can
get their hours)I find out how many hours they need, when they need to
complete it by and when they are available to work.  If there are red
flags at this point (Such as 40 hours by next week or only available on
Saturdays), I stop it there.  If it looks like it might be a feasible
situation, I ask them to come for an interview with the director and
myself. (I generally supervise the workers.)

We run the interview like a job interview (although generally much
shorter).  We confirm the information that was given over the phone.  We
also ask them how familiar they are with the library (most of them--not
much) and if they have any particular strengths or talents.  We also let
them know what kind of tasks they might be asked to do and what we
expect of them.  We don't decide on the spot but let them know within 24
hours what we decide. It gives them a chance to decline as well if they
don't like what they hear.

Once we set up a schedule, the first thing we teach all our workers is
how to pull holds (we give them the list of books and they get the books
off the shelves).  We also teach them how to use the card catalog. We
figure if they know how to use the library, maybe they will come back. :
)  It is also a skill that can help them in school and future education.
We have also had them do bulletin boards and displays (good reason to
find out their talents).  We generally limit their time that they are
here from 2 to 4 hours at one time so we are sure we have enough work to
keep them busy.

As far as I know, the rest of the staff has seen it as a positive as
well. I get asked occasionally if a worker is coming in because they
have a project that they would like help with.

--

We do not have a policy on Community Service and like you, we have a
steady flow of persons contacting us to fulfill their hours.  I
understand how frustrating it is to schedule someone and alert the staff
only to have "no shows".  I would be very interested in what info you
receive concerning this type of policy. One problem I have encountered
is some of them change the hours on their form after leaving the
library.  I called the county office who handles those assigned
Community Service about our keeping a log of hours and then they could
check the time sheets turned in to them with our records, but have not
had any response.  We have some who are very helpful, while others leave
alot to be desired. (Isn't that the way it is with almost everything?)
Cleaning books is the task we assign most often.  

I've had good and bad experiences with community service workers - both
adult and juvenile.  I've found that it works best for me if there are
set hours upfront and a discussion about possible duties. That way the
person knows what they can expect. The ones who work out the best are
the men I assign to my facility manager to help him sand, paint, strip
floors, etc. 
Since I don't want to spend a lot of time training indoor workers, I
usually have them dust, straighten, cut scrap paper, fill scrap paper
containers, help prepare storytime materials, etc. If all else fails,
they can go outside and pick up trash and cigarette butts.  Recently I
had a young woman who was very smart and could do some shelving with
minimal training. I even asked her if she wanted a job! People outside
libraryland don't understand that most of our duties require quite a bit
of training. They think they can just drop in and do anything. It can be
frustrating, but in a small town, I look at it as public relations with
the judges and probation officers. These people talk to the mayor and
county commissioners.  I don't have a policy - I suppose I should. So
many policies...so little time.

--

I have experienced the same problems at our library.  I am usually the
person who has to supervise them (if they show up) and it takes more
time for me to supervise than if I did the job myself.  I finally
decided to say no from now on.  It simply does not work out to the
benefit of the library.  We have no formal policy addressing community
service.

--

We don't have any set policies regarding our community service
volunteers, but I have developed several rules:  I'm flexible on
scheduling as long as I am here (I work part time). I will ask someone
else to keep an eye on them since I can not see them from my office.
Their name & phone numbers go on my calendar in pencil. IF they show up
I note the hours they worked. This helps if there are questions from
probation officers. If they require too much babysitting - I mean
supervision - I don't have them back.
 
--

During the first few months in the Director's position, I had multiple
requests for both adults and juveniles to do their court mandated
community service at the library.  I took the question to my board and
their decision was to decline all such requests.  The decision
ultimately came down to  the fact that we did not want to have to decide
which convictions disqualified an individual to be in an environment
where contact with children was possible.  We toyed with the idea of
disqualifying all those convicted of a violent crime or a predatory
crime, but in the end decided that "no" was the best course of action. 

--

I am like you- tired to work with the system and it never worked out. So
like you I tell them when they call that I have no special projects and
refer them to another local agency who use volunteer help.

--

(Our library) regularly has mostly juveniles who do community service.
(Our town) has 1200 population and is about 10 miles from any other town
so having a local opportunity is fairly important.  We try to emphasize
that it is like a job with a schedule and if they can't come they need
to call.  We've had some problems and some really positive experiences
which is mainly why I wanted to respond.  For us it is one element of
being an active part of the community and I wanted to add that to your
experiences and any other comments.   

--

(We have) also been blessed with community service people.  We have no
policies, but I imagine that we should be putting something into action.
We are a small town and it is very hard for these folks to find a place
to "put in their time", but like you, it causes much more work for us.
However, we recently had a young man that was just great and he washed
just about every shelf in our library without a complaint.  For people
like him, I guess that's why I continue to work with the system.

--

Our experience has been the same as yours.  The worst was when a woman's
drug dealing boyfriend hung out in the library while she did her
community service.   We are a small library and I just tell them we do
not have the staff to supervise them.

--

(We do) not have an official policy on community service, but we do it
now and then.
Most of our workers have completed their hours.  We usually have them
dust book shelves, and they work for 2 or 3 hours at a time.  I schedule
them for times I am on duty and when the library is not too busy.  We
try to avoid having them work during the after school rush.  I have
turned down some who asked to do it that I did not think would work well
in our environment.  Being in a small town, we often know what the
offense was.  

--

We used to accept requests for community service, but we spent so much
of our time following them around making sure they did things right or
calling them to see when/if they were coming in.  So I ditched that
totally and I send them to the village offices to see if there's
something they can do for them. 

--

(We do not) not have a policy regarding community service hours.  these
are the guidelines that we follow.
1.	Volunteer must state what they are doing community service hours
for.  If it is anything with a violent nature we will not allow them to
put in their hours at the library.  Examples: domestic violence,
assault, disorderly conduct etc.
2.	They are required to fill out a volunteer information sheet.
The sheet asks for; name, address, phone number.  The sheet is divided
into lines by date, time in and time out. Time reporting in and out are
recorded by supervisory staff  and initialed.
3.	Volunteer must state date and time they will be reporting to
library for next community service hours.  This information is recorded
on the the volunteer sheet.
4.	Volunteer is to notify supervisory staff if the are not
reporting to the library for the next scheduled community house.
5.	If they fail to call in, we give them (1) grace time.  Failing
to call in after the one grace time will result in the loss of the
privilege to put in their community service hours at the library.
		This seems to work well for us.  We have some volunteers
who are wonderful and others we are glad to see leave.  

-- 
Gerry Vogel, MLIS 
Assistant Director, Avon Lake Public Library 
32649 Electric Blvd. Avon Lake OH 44012 www.alpl.org 
tel: 440-933-8128 x239 fax: 440-933-6406 cell: 440-258-8925
*any opinions expressed are my own and not (necessarily, or yet) those
of ALPL* 


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