[OPLINLIST] Courtesy phone

[Melody Flick]

I had similar questions about patron phone access, so I reached out to Westerville Public Library<https://westervillelibrary.org/services/> to learn more about their public phone booths and surrounding policies. Their response is below. Hope this helps.

Hi Melody,

Thank you for the message! I’ll share some general information.

We have two public phone booth rooms located near one of our entrances. Each little room has a small table, chair and a public phone that makes free local calls.  The rooms are, at times, also used for patrons needing a quiet place to take a mobile call, pray or have a quiet moment. The doors are glass like our other rooms so in public view.  We don’t enforce a time or have a sign-up (we do for our public rooms). I’ll attach a photo.

An interesting question came up recently about how to handle the rooms when someone needs to make an actual call while the rooms are occupied by individuals not using the phone. Mandy suggested that we ask an individual to step aside and permit the other patron to use the phone if it’s appropriate to do so. For example, we wouldn’t interrupt a patron who is having an intense / emotional call on their own phone.  I think this will be a situation-based decision.

On a few occasions our younger patrons made 911 hangup calls from those phones. A remedy is that managers or librarians in charge now receive an alert if that occurs so that we may determine if it’s a real or a fake call. We’ve had a few other shenanigans in the booths: teens piled in doing teen things and that type of usual library mischief.

I hope this is a helpful start,

Thank you,
Elizabeth
Adult Services Librarian

Westerville Public Library
614-882-7277 extension 4
ask at westervillelibrary.org<mailto:ask at westervillelibrary.org>

Learn about the Strawberry Moon in June! Read more and sign up for this program<https://westervillelibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/65f3715ae3e1ee30003524b8> with the OSU department of astronomy.


Melody Flick
Adult Services Librarian
Findlay-Hancock County Public Library
206 Broadway
Findlay, OH 45840
findlaylibrary.org<https://findlaylibrary.org/>
419.422.0576
mflick at findlaylibrary.org
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From: OPLINLIST <oplinlist-bounces at lists.oplin.org> on behalf of Kristine Williams via OPLINLIST <oplinlist at lists.oplin.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2024 3:44 PM
To: oplinlist at lists.oplin.org <oplinlist at lists.oplin.org>
Subject: [OPLINLIST] Courtesy phone


Hello,



Any Ohio public library that offers courtesy phone access for your patrons—would your library be willing to share your library policy regarding this service? Replying off-list is welcome.



Thank you,



Kris







Kristine Williams

Adult Services Librarian

Licking County Library | Downtown Newark

kwilliams at lickingcountylibrary.org<mailto:kwilliams at lickingcountylibrary.org> | 740.349.5520

[Email Signature]




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