“We’ve had a handful of crazy incidents over the last six months, mainly mental health and drug-related problems, that have been scary to the staff,” Library Director Rick Speer said. “It puts a lot of stress on them, and it’s not what they’ve signed up for in terms of library work.”

Sometimes it starts with patrons arguing over cellphone etiquette — a user disturbing other patrons in the quiet library with a loud phone call.

And some times, it’s more dangerous, like the time a library patron accused a staffer of sexual assault. Footage from some of the library’s 12 cameras showed that no assault occurred, but the patron became more and more agitated until the Lewiston police were called and he was banned from the library.

“When they finally got to the guy’s apartment to serve the criminal trespass complaint, the officer that served it came right back to the library,” Speer said. “He told us ‘Look, this guy is really unstable. I wasn’t comfortable confronting him alone. If he does come back, you don’t want to talk to him. Call the police immediately.'”

Library staff get some training in handling these kind of conflicts, but it’s not enough, Speer said.

“It’s isolated, but it is a series of isolated incidents where staff feel unsafe from time to time,” he said.

Adult Services Librarian Marcela Peres suspects just having more staff overall would make things better.

“It really amounts to not enough of us in the building, and happily, a lot of traffic,” Peres said. “We don’t always have the time to talk to that guy screaming on his cellphone. That’s how we’ve employed building monitors — to catch situations before they become situations.”

Lewiston has employed building monitors for at least six years, at first to monitor teens in the library.

“By and large, the teens are not a problem,” Peres said. “Nobody can argue with having teens spend more time at the library.”

But recently, they’ve needed to focus on adult patrons.

“We are an active, busy place meeting a lot of community needs and unfortunately, with the way society has changed, we have to deal with a lot of garbage,” Speer said. “We really do deal with it effectively, but we need more support to continue.”

The library is seeking to expand the program. Currently, the library has two monitors who work 21 hours per week, four hours before closing time Monday through Thursday and five hours on Saturday.

That would expand to 38 hours per week; seven hours daily Monday through Thursday and five hours on Friday and Saturday. It would add $12,451 to the library’s budget.

It’s not a problem unique to Lewiston, Peres said, and librarians around Maine agree. In Portland, the library has a full-time security staff always on call to deal with issues.

“We are connected to a community of urban libraries across the country and this is very standard,” Portland Public Library Executive Director Sarah Campbell said. “We have very clearly laid out rules and expectations of behavior, and they are a lot about sharing a public space.”

Jeff Cabral, director of Biddeford’s McArthur Public Library, said his library hopes hire a private security firm to deal with problems.

“We work with the Biddeford police and they are very responsive to us, but they cannot always be here,” Cabral said. “Besides, there are situations that may not require a police response but are beyond what our library staff can do.”

It’s the nature of urban libraries today, Speer said.

“We are helping people deal with technology and information needs, finding books and good reads,” Speer said.

Cabral agreed.

“(Libraries) may be the only place where someone can come in and get warm for three or four hours and not get a hard time about what they are doing,” Cabral said. “You can’t go to a cafe and use their Wi-Fi if you are not buying a cup of coffee. We have a freely available space.”

Biddeford wants to hire a security firm for $28,000, providing security inside and out of the building for about 30 hours per week.

But for Lewiston, Speer said the building monitors work. They don’t wear uniforms — although they could get special polo shirts in the next year to help patrons identify them. Their job is to smooth out problems and calm situations down.

“It’s not great PR for the library, because we have some craziness that happens here from time to time,” Speer said.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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