The public library here had just closed its doors one evening in December when two homeless men who had been using the stacks as shelter from the cold got into a fight on the outside steps. What began as bickering took a violent turn when one of the men pulled out a knife and stabbed the other six times, leaving him bleeding beside the book drop.
Putting things in perspective, our problems are small.
Like libraries across the country, Arlington Heights Memorial had strived to keep pace with the changing times, ensuring its relevance in the digital age by becoming something of an indoor town square, and emphasizing that its money-saving services catered to the community’s needs.
These days, however, community need reaches far beyond reference help — and in many libraries, it is turning a normally tranquil place into an emotional and stressful hotbed.
Perhaps because of the nature, the demographics, of the communities HWPL serves, the tranquility here is broken only mildly. Of course, but a bus ride away are other demographics.
As the national economic crisis has deepened and social services have become casualties of budget cuts, libraries have come to fill a void for more people, particularly job-seekers and those who have fallen on hard times. Libraries across the country are seeing double-digit increases in patronage, often from 10 percent to 30 percent, over previous years.
We certainly have increased use.
The stresses have become so significant here that a therapist will soon be counseling library employees.
“I guess I’m not really used to people with tears in their eyes,” said Rosalie Bork, a reference librarian in Arlington Heights, a well-to-do suburb of Chicago. “It has been unexpectedly stressful. We feel so anxious to help these people, and it’s been so emotional for them.”
Well-to-do suburb fits Hewlett and Woodmere, indeed.
“Adults complain a lot about kids just playing games and you know, ‘I need to do a résumé, or ‘I need to write, I need some help,’ ” Ms. Jones said. “There’s a bit of frustration.”
That's familiar, at least the game playing.
Ms. Jones instructed her staff to tread carefully. “You don’t want to upset people,” she said. “You don’t know what might set somebody off.”
Very carefully.
Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, said résumé writing had become a major use of library computers, and every librarian in the system had received training in how to better assist patrons conduct job searches. The 40 million visits to New York libraries over the past year, he said, is the greatest ever in a 12-month period.
What a concept: specialized training.
In Sacramento this year, two branches of the public library temporarily stopped accepting cash as fines for overdue books, after thieves struck three times since June — in one instance, taking off with a safe filled with money.
Go where the money is, but that seems ridiculous.
In Lynchburg, Va., a gunman shot a man outside the public library on a Monday afternoon in late January. The victim, who survived, staggered into the library bleeding and looking for help. Since then, an off-duty police officer has been hired by the library for extra security.
We at times discuss the value of a security guard, but our problems don't quite measure up to that.
And in Quincy, Mass., where a man was recently arrested in the library and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among other offenses, a police officer on beat patrol now walks through the library during operating hours.
With an estimated 2,500 patrons visiting the library every day, employees must now park at a parking lot at a nearby church.
2,500? We can't get more than a couple of hundred, except on Wednesdays, movie day. The 2pm film showing can draw 160 people, and the parking lot gets full.
“When you walk by our new job-search desk, you see people in line and even waiting on the benches for assistance,” said Ms. Moore, the director of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library.
Soem people complain when they have to wait for an Internet machine here; they should consider the alternative.
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