Community Patrons

Hello,
I had a great question last week from a librarian wondering about allowing the community to check out books from the school library. Likely many of us have this same issue. Do you have homeschoolers wanting to use your library? How about church members? Parents? What are the ramifications of letting people other than your students use the library?

Here are some pros and cons to this particular situation.
Pros
1. It is good PR for your school. We all need as much good PR as we can get.
2. Our job is to promote literacy and this puts reading materials into more hands.
3. It is a low-key recruiting tool. It brings in future students. Parents with young children visit the library for books and the children get used to coming to the school. Homeschoolers may be impressed by what you offer at your school and decide to enroll. At the very least, they will be supporting your school verbally.
4. It can offer a service to the church members. It is a solid connection for church and school. You will reach people who don’t have children in the school, but they may visit the library and will feel a part of the school in that way.

Cons
1. You may lose some books. Face it. When we check books out to others, books will be lost.
2. If you check out to patrons other than students, the books may not be available when students need them for school purposes.
3. The visitors may come at an inopportune time.
4. Your library is not a public library. The purpose of your library is to support the school curriculum.


If we agree that it is a good idea to have community patrons, let’s make a policy for them to avoid some of those cons. Write up a policy for your library materials.

It may be that your church family considers the school library to be theirs, too. This should not be a problem. Make them library patrons with a card for themselves. You can have a separate card file for the community patrons and give them supervised library times. I have a simple policy for community patrons and a simple library card application. Each year patrons fill out a new application and update any information. Basic information to include on the application is name, address, all phone numbers. I also have a space to write the names of their school-age children.

I give each community patron a copy of our library policy and specifically mention the first one to them so they know that we may ask them to return the books ahead of time if a teacher or student needs that particular book. They all have understood and don’t seem to mind this at all. I also let them know the best times for them to come to check out books and which times the library will not be available to them. This information can be on the policy page.

Here is a copy of my policy. You are welcome to adapt this to your particular situation. If you have a policy for community members and are willing to share it with us, please send it to me. I’ll be happy to pass this information along.


Library Policies

1. Please note that the students and faculty of Rogers Adventist School have priority to all library materials. All loaned materials may be recalled at short notice if they are required for use by a student and/or faculty member.
2. If items are lost or damaged beyond repair, the borrower must pay a fee to replace the item. The fee will be the cost of the book plus a $5.00 nonrefundable processing fee. The Library does not accept materials in lieu of payment.
3. Books may be borrowed for a one-week period. However, books may be renewed each week. Patrons must bring in the books in order to renew them.
4. There are no fines for overdue materials. However, patrons will not be allowed check-out privileges when they have overdue materials.
5. The loan of seasonal books (i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) may be limited. Also certain subjects that classes are studying will be limited for the time period the class needs them.
6. The suggested limit is five books. This number may vary as need and availability dictates.

I would caution you about one thing. Our school libraries are there to support the school curriculum, not the wishes of the community.

Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com